LOS ANGELES: Mayor Karen Bass issued a curfew for downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday \u201cto stop the vandalism, to stop the looting.\u201d
\nShe said in a news conference that she had declared a local emergency and that the curfew will run from 8 p.m. Tuesday until 6 a.m. Wednesday.
\n\u201cWe reached a tipping point\u201d after 23 businesses were looted, Bass said.
\nThe curfew will be in place in a 1 square mile (2.59 square kilometer) section of downtown that includes the area where protests have occurred since Friday. The city of Los Angeles encompasses roughly 500 square miles (2,295 square kilometers).
\nThe curfew doesn\u2019t apply to residents who live in the designated area, people who are homeless, credentialed media or public safety and emergency officials, according to Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell.
\nMcDonnell said \u201cunlawful and dangerous behavior\u201d had been escalating since Saturday.
\n\u201cThe curfew is a necessary measure to protect lives and safeguard property following several consecutive days of growing unrest throughout the city,\u201d McDonnell said.
\nEarlier Tuesday, National Guard troops began protecting immigration agents as they made arrests in Los Angeles on Tuesday, an expansion of their duties that had been limited to protecting federal property. Photos posted Tuesday by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement show National Guard troops standing guard around officers as they made arrests.
\nICE said in a statement that the troops were providing security at federal facilities and protecting federal officers \u201cwho are out on daily enforcement operations.\u201d The change moves troops closer to engaging in law enforcement actions like deportations as President Donald Trump has promised as part of the administration\u2019s immigration crackdown.
\nThe agency said Guard members are also providing support with transportation. The Guard has the authority to temporarily detain people who attack officers but any arrests ultimately would be made by law enforcement.
\nNational Guard troops and Marines deployed to LA
\nCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom had asked a federal court to block the Trump administration from using the National Guard and Marines to assist with immigration raids in Los Angeles, saying it would only heighten tensions and promote civil unrest.
\nNewsom filed the emergency request after Trump ordered the deployment to LA of roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines following protests of the president\u2019s stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws.
\nThe federal government said Newsom was seeking an unprecedented and dangerous order that would interfere with its ability to carry out enforcement operations. A judge set a hearing for Thursday.
\nThe Marines and another 2,000 National Guard troops were sent to LA on Monday, adding to a military presence that local officials and Newsom do not want and that the police chief says makes it harder to handle the protests safely.
\nMarine Corps Gen. Eric Smith said Tuesday that the Marines had not yet been called to respond to the protests and were there only to protect federal officials and property. The Marines were trained for crowd control but have no arrest authority, Smith told a budget hearing on Capitol Hill.
\nMarines were not seen on the streets yet, while National guard troops so far have had limited engagement with protesters.
\nTrump says he\u2019s open to using Insurrection Act
\nTrump left open the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the US to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations. It\u2019s one of the most extreme emergency powers available to a US president.
\n\u201cIf there\u2019s an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We\u2019ll see,\u201d he said from the Oval Office.
\nLater the president called protesters \u201canimals\u201d and \u201ca foreign enemy\u201d in a speech at Fort Bragg ostensibly to recognize the 250th anniversary of the US Army.
\nTrump has described Los Angeles in dire terms that Mayor Karen Bass and Newsom say are nowhere close to the truth.
\nThe protests began Friday after federal immigration raids arrested dozens of workers in Los Angeles. Protesters blocked a major freeway and set cars on fire over the weekend, and police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.
\nThe demonstrations have been mostly concentrated downtown in the city of 4 million and have been far less raucous since the weekend. Thousands of people have peacefully rallied outside City Hall and hundreds more protested outside a federal complex that includes a detention center where some immigrants are being held following workplace raids.
\nSeveral businesses were broken into Monday, though authorities didn\u2019t say if the looting was tied to the protests. Nejdeh Avedian, general manager at St. Vincent Jewelry Center in the Los Angeles Jewelry District said the protesters had already left, and \u201cthese guys were just opportunists,\u201d though St. Vincent\u2019s had armed guards and was left alone.
\nHomeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement Tuesday that protesters have hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at law enforcement, set vehicles on fire, defaced buildings and public property and set fire to American flags.
\nThe Los Angeles Police Department said there have been more than 100 arrests. The vast majority were for failing to disperse, while a few others were for assault with a deadly weapon, looting, vandalism and attempted murder for tossing a Molotov cocktail. Seven police officers were reportedly injured, and at least two were taken to a hospital and released.
\nOn Tuesday, a few dozen protesters gathered peacefully in front of the federal complex, which was quickly declared an unlawful assembly. Police issued a dispersal order and corralled the protesters, telling members of the media to stay out to avoid getting hurt. Officers with zip ties then started making arrests.
\nObscene slogans directed at Trump and federal law enforcement remained scrawled across several buildings. At the Walt Disney Concert Hall, workers were busy washing away graffiti Tuesday.
\nIn nearby Santa Ana, armored Guard vehicles blocked a road leading to federal immigration and government offices.
\nDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested Tuesday that the use of troops inside the US will continue to expand.
\n\u201cI think we\u2019re entering another phase, especially under President Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves become a critical component of how we secure that homeland,\u201d he said on Capitol Hill.
\nLos Angeles officials say police don\u2019t need help<\/p>\n
The mayor and the governor say Trump is putting public safety at risk by adding military personnel even though police say they don\u2019t need the help.
\nLos Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said he was confident in the police department\u2019s ability to handle the demonstrations and that the Marines\u2019 arrival without coordinating with police would present a \u201csignificant logistical and operational challenge.\u201d
\nDemonstrations have spread to other cities nationwide, including San Francisco, as well as Dallas and Austin, Texas, Chicago and New York City, where a thousand people rallied and multiple arrests were made.
\nLA response takes stage on Capitol Hill
\nThe Pentagon said deploying the National Guard and Marines costs $134 million.
\nMeanwhile, Democratic members of California\u2019s congressional delegation on Tuesday accused the president of creating a \u201cmanufactured crisis.\u201d
\nOn Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the deployment.
\nTrump said the city would have been \u201ccompletely obliterated\u201d if he had not deployed the Guard.
\nThe deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state\u2019s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration\u2019s mass deportation efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LOS ANGELES: Mayor Karen Bass issued a curfew for downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday \u201cto stop the vandalism, to stop the looting.\u201d She said in a news conference that she had declared a local emergency and that the curfew will run from 8 p.m. Tuesday until 6 a.m. Wednesday. \u201cWe reached a tipping point\u201d after …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":82270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82272,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82259\/revisions\/82272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}