Tensions in Los Angeles escalated Sunday as thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to President Donald Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the National Guard, blocking off a major freeway and setting autonomous vehicles on fire as local law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd.
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 and 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 four million people, were centred 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.
Members of the National Guard faced off with protesters in Los Angeles on Sunday, and tear gas was fired at a growing crowd that gathered outside a federal complex hours after the federal troops arrived in the city on U.S. President Donald Trump's orders.
The Associated Press
The Guard was deployed specifically to protect federal buildings, including the downtown detention centre where protesters concentrated.
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.
Several dozen people were arrested throughout the weekend of protest. One was detained Sunday for throwing a Molotov cocktail at police, and another for ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers.
Trump responded to McDonnell on Truth Social, telling him to arrest protesters in face masks.
“Looking really bad in L.A. BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!” he wrote.
In San Francisco, officers monitoring protests arrested dozens of people Sunday night after a group of people refused to comply with an order to disperse, police said in a statement on social media.
Officers were monitoring a protest in the area of Sansome and Washington streets but declared an unlawful assembly when people in the group became violent, the San Francisco Police Department said. Many people left the scene, but some remained and some moved to Market and Kearny streets, where people vandalized buildings and a police vehicle.
A small group continued to Montgomery Street and when they didn’t comply with a dispersal order, police said officers arrested 60 people. Three officers were injured, including one who was taken to a hospital, police said.
Border Patrol personnel in riot gear and gas masks stood guard outside an industrial park in the city of Paramount, deploying tear gas as bystanders and protesters gathered after U.S. immigration authorities extended activity in the Los Angeles area Saturday.
The Associated Press
“Individuals are always free to exercise their First Amendment rights in San Francisco but violence – especially against SFPD officers – will never be tolerated,” the statement said.
In Los Angeles on Sunday morning, National Guard 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 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.
A police officer attempts to triage a protester after she was trampled by police on horse back Sunday.Jim Vondruska/Getty Images
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 Governor Gavin Newsom requested Trump remove the guard members in a letter Sunday afternoon, calling their deployment a “serious breach of state sovereignty.” He was in Los Angeles meeting with local law enforcement and officials.
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.
A protester confronts a line of U.S. National Guard in the metropolitan detention centre of downtown Los Angeles on Sunday.Eric Thayer/The Associated Press
“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 pre-positioned for protests, he said.
Newsom, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that California authorities had the situation under control. He mocked Trump for posting a congratulatory message to the Guard on social media before troops had even arrived in Los Angeles, and said on MSNBC that Trump never floated deploying the Guard during a Friday phone call. He called Trump a “stone cold liar.”
The admonishments did not deter the administration.
“It’s a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.
The arrival of the National Guard followed two days of protests that began Friday in downtown Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighbouring Compton.
Federal agents arrested immigrants in L.A.’s fashion district, in a Home Depot parking lot and at several other locations on Friday. The next day, they were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid. Federal authorities later said there was no enforcement activity at that Home Depot.
The weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the L.A. area climbed above 100, federal authorities said. Many more were arrested while protesting, including a prominent union leader who was accused of impeding law enforcement.
The protests did not reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops.
National Guard troops were seen staging at a federal building in downtown Los Angeles early Sunday following two days of clashes between federal agents and a few hundred demonstrators protesting immigration raids. President Donald Trump's administration said he would deploy 2,000 National Guard troops to deal with the protests despite objections from Governor Gavin Newsom.
Reuters