Calm returns to Los Angeles after hundreds arrested – Nsemkeka
An uneasy calm has descended over Los Angeles after the first night of a curfew lifted on Wednesday, as cities across the US brace for more protests.
In Los Angeles, nearly 400 people have so far been arrested, including 330 undocumented migrants and 157 people arrested for assault and obstruction, including one for the attempted murder of a police officer.
Federal prosecutors have so far charged two men for throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers in two separate incidents.
A total of 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines have been deployed to help quell the unrest.
Speaking alongside 30 regional mayors at a news conference on Wednesday, LA Mayor Karen Bass blamed the protests on US President Donald Trump’s immigration raids, which she said “provoked” residents by causing “fear” and “panic”.
“A week ago, everything was peaceful,” she said. “Things began to be difficult on Friday when raids took place.”
Bass suggested Los Angeles was “part of a national experiment to determine how far the federal government can go in taking over power from a local government, from a local jurisdiction”.
She has previously called on the administration to end the raids.
Overnight, Los Angeles police said they made “mass arrests” after a fifth day of protests over the immigration action.
In a series of statements, the city’s police department said that those detained included 203 people arrested for failure to disperse, 17 for curfew violations, three for possession of a firearm, and one for assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.
Two officers were injured in the skirmishes, the statement added.
On Tuesday, Bass declared an overnight curfew within a relatively small area of the city’s downtown district, saying businesses were being vandalised and looted.
After the LA curfew came into force at 20:00 local time on Tuesday (03:00 GMT on Wednesday), police moved through downtown areas, firing rubber bullets to try to disperse crowds.
Explaining the curfew on Tuesday, Bass said she wanted “to stop the vandalism, to stop the looting”, saying the city had reached a “tipping point”.
The curfew order affects an area of about one square mile in the second-largest city in the US.
Police chief Jim McDonnell said: “Some of the imagery of the protests and the violence gives the appearance as though this is a city-wide crisis, and it is not.”
Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that the curfew “helped a bit”.
Elsewhere, the immigration raids have continued, alongside the National Guard troops.
The National Guard and Marine Corps forces deployed to Los Angeles do not have the authority to make arrests, only to detain protesters.
“They are strictly used for the protection of the federal personnel as they conduct their operations and to protect them to allow them to do their federal mission,” said Major General Scott Sherman, who is leading the deployment, on Wednesday.
Trump’s row with state officials ramped up after he deployed troops to LA. The president has now vowed to “liberate” the city, but has been accused by California Governor Gavin Newsom of an “assault” on democracy.
Trump earlier this week defended his decision to send troops, saying it was to prevent the city being “conquered by a foreign enemy”.
Newsom hit back at the president: “He again chose escalation; he chose more force.”
The California governor, who is seen as a potential presidential contender for the Democratic Party, warned that “other states are next”.
On Wednesday, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth backed Trump’s move, telling a Senate hearing that sending the troops to Los Angeles was “lawful and constitutional”.
Chaotic protests also sprung up on Tuesday in several other US cities:
- In Atlanta, Georgia, riot police used tear gas on protesters who set off fireworks towards officers at a demonstration attended by hundreds
- Police in New York told the BBC dozens were arrested for blocking vehicular traffic after several thousand marched into lower Manhattan
- Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent National Guard troops to San Antonio, where immigration rallies are planned
The military deployment to the LA area will cost $134m (£99m), the Pentagon said.
Trump described the protests as a “full-blown assault on peace and public order” while addressing troops at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina.
The Republican president said he plans to use “every asset at our disposal to quell the violence”.
Meanwhile, Trump’s political row with state officials has intensified. The president has described the protesters as “animals” and vowed that “this anarchy will not stand”.
He urged troops to boo the names of Newsom and Joe Biden, his presidential predecessor, during his Fort Bragg speech.
In televised remarks of his own on Tuesday night, Newsom again criticised the president’s rare deployment of the US military without a request from state officials. He accused Trump of a “brazen abuse of power”.
“California may be first – but it clearly won’t end here,” he said. “Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault right before our eyes.”
Earlier in the day, a federal court denied an emergency request from California to block the use of troops sent to LA.
District Judge Charles Breyer scheduled a hearing on the motion for Thursday.
Trump has set a goal for border agents of at least 3,000 daily arrests as he seeks to ramp up mass deportations, a signature pledge of his re-election campaign.
Since assuming office, the president has drastically reduced illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border to historically low levels.
A CBS News/YouGov poll conducted in early June, before the protests kicked off, found 54% of Americans saying they approved of Trump’s deportation policy, and 50% approved of how he was handling immigration.
That compares with smaller numbers of 42% who gave approval to his economic policy and 39% for his policy on tackling inflation.