Los Angeles riots intensify as National Guard troops arrive
LOS ANGELES—Riots in Los Angeles escalated on Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets, blocking off a major freeway attacking police with pieces of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks and setting self-driving cars on fire.
Law enforcement responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd.
Violence intensified in response to President Donald Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard sent to specifically protect federal buildings, including the downtown detention center where protesters concentrated.
Many protesters dispersed as evening fell and police declared an unlawful assembly, a precursor to officers moving in and making arrests of people who don’t leave.
Some of those remaining threw objects at police from behind a makeshift barrier that spanned the width of a street.
Others hurled chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the closed southbound 101 Freeway.
Officers ran under an overpass to take cover.
Sunday’s protests in Los Angeles, a sprawling city of 4 million people, were centered in several blocks of downtown.
It was the third and most intense day of demonstrations against Trump’s immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of around 300 Guard troops spurred anger and fear among many residents.
Police ‘overwhelmed’
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said officers were “overwhelmed” by the remaining protesters. He said they included regular agitators who show up at demonstrations to cause trouble.
Starting in the morning, the troops stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields as protesters shouted “shame” and “go home.” After some closely approached the guard members, another set of uniformed officers advanced on the group, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street.
Minutes later, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters, who they said were assembled unlawfully.
Much of the group then moved to block traffic on the 101 freeway until state patrol officers cleared them from the roadway by late afternoon.
Nearby, at least four self-driving Waymo cars were set on fire, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky and exploding intermittently as the electric vehicles burned. By evening, police had issued an unlawful assembly order shutting down several blocks of downtown Los Angeles.
Flash bangs echoed out every few seconds into the evening.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom requested Trump to remove the guard members in a letter Sunday afternoon, calling their deployment a “serious breach of state sovereignty.”
First in decades
The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration’s mass deportation efforts.
Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blamed the increasingly aggressive protests on Trump’s decision to deploy the Guard, calling it a move designed to enflame tensions. They’ve both urged protesters to remain peaceful.
“What we’re seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration,” she said in an afternoon press conference. “This is about another agenda, this isn’t about public safety.”
But McDonnell, the LAPD chief, said the protests were following a similar pattern for episodes of civil unrest, with things ramping up in the second and third days.
He pushed back against claims by the Trump administration that the LAPD had failed to help federal authorities when protests broke out Friday after a series of immigration raids. His department responded as quickly as it could, and had not been notified in advance of the raids and therefore was not prepositioned for protests, he said.
