LA police swiftly enforce downtown curfew as protests against Trump’s immigration crackdown continue

Los An­ge­les po­lice swift­ly en­forced a down­town cur­few Tues­day night, mak­ing ar­rests mo­ments af­ter it took ef­fect, while de­ploy­ing of­fi­cers on horse­back and us­ing crowd con­trol pro­jec­tiles to break up a group of hun­dreds demon­strat­ing against Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s im­mi­gra­tion crack­down.

Mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Guard stood watch be­hind plas­tic shields, but did not ap­pear to par­tic­i­pate in the ar­rests.

Hours lat­er, many of the pro­test­ers had dis­persed, al­though spo­radic con­fronta­tions con­tin­ued that were much small­er than in pre­vi­ous nights. Of­fi­cials said the cur­few was nec­es­sary to stop van­dal­ism and theft by ag­i­ta­tors look­ing to cause trou­ble.

De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Gov. Gavin New­som ear­li­er ac­cused Trump of draw­ing a “mil­i­tary drag­net” across the na­tion’s sec­ond-largest city with his es­ca­lat­ing use of the Na­tion­al Guard. He al­so de­ployed Marines, though none were seen on the streets Tues­day.

New­som asked a court to put an emer­gency stop to the mil­i­tary help­ing fed­er­al im­mi­gra­tion agents, with some guards­men now stand­ing in pro­tec­tion around agents as they car­ried out ar­rests. He said it would on­ly height­en ten­sions and pro­mote civ­il un­rest. The judge set a hear­ing for Thurs­day, giv­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion sev­er­al days to con­tin­ue those ac­tiv­i­ties.

The change moves troops clos­er to en­gag­ing in law en­force­ment ac­tions like de­por­ta­tions as Trump has promised as part of his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s im­mi­gra­tion crack­down. The Guard has the au­thor­i­ty to tem­porar­i­ly de­tain peo­ple who at­tack of­fi­cers but any ar­rests ul­ti­mate­ly would be made by law en­force­ment.

Trump has ac­ti­vat­ed more than 4,000 Na­tion­al Guard mem­bers and 700 Marines over the ob­jec­tions of city and state lead­ers. They were orig­i­nal­ly de­ployed to pro­tect fed­er­al build­ings.

Demon­stra­tions have spread to oth­er cities na­tion­wide, in­clud­ing Dal­las and Austin, Texas, Chica­go and New York, where a thou­sand peo­ple ral­lied and mul­ti­ple ar­rests were made.

In Texas, where po­lice in Austin used chem­i­cal ir­ri­tants to dis­perse sev­er­al hun­dred demon­stra­tors Mon­day, Re­pub­li­can Gov. Greg Ab­bott’s of­fice said Texas Na­tion­al Guard troops were “on stand­by” in ar­eas where demon­stra­tions are planned, Ab­bott spokesper­son An­drew Ma­ha­leris said Tues­day evening.

Guard mem­bers were de­ployed to San An­to­nio, ac­cord­ing to as­sis­tant po­lice chief Jesse Salame. He said he did not know how many were sent or de­tails on the de­ploy­ment.

LA may­or puts cur­few in place

Los An­ge­les May­or Karen Bass de­clared a lo­cal emer­gency on the fifth day of protests and said the cur­few will run from 8 p.m. Tues­day un­til 6 a.m. Wednes­day. She said it was ex­pect­ed to last for sev­er­al days.

“We reached a tip­ping point” af­ter 23 busi­ness­es were loot­ed, Bass said dur­ing a news con­fer­ence Tues­day.

The cur­few cov­ers a 1 square mile (2.5 square kilo­me­ters) sec­tion of down­town that in­cludes the area where protests have oc­curred since Fri­day. The city of Los An­ge­les en­com­pass­es rough­ly 500 square miles (1,295 square kilo­me­ters).

The cur­few doesn’t 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.

Mc­Don­nell said “un­law­ful and dan­ger­ous be­hav­ior” had been es­ca­lat­ing since Sat­ur­day.

“The cur­few is a nec­es­sary mea­sure to pro­tect lives and safe­guard prop­er­ty fol­low­ing sev­er­al con­sec­u­tive days of grow­ing un­rest through­out the city,” Mc­Don­nell said.

Trump says he’s open to us­ing In­sur­rec­tion Act

Trump left open the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­vok­ing the In­sur­rec­tion Act, which au­tho­rizes the pres­i­dent to de­ploy mil­i­tary forces in­side the U.S. to sup­press re­bel­lion or do­mes­tic vi­o­lence or to en­force the law in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions. It’s one of the most ex­treme emer­gency pow­ers avail­able to a U.S. pres­i­dent.

“If there’s an in­sur­rec­tion, I would cer­tain­ly in­voke it. We’ll see,” he said from the Oval Of­fice.

Lat­er the pres­i­dent called pro­test­ers “an­i­mals” and “a for­eign en­e­my” in a speech at Fort Bragg os­ten­si­bly to rec­og­nize the 250th an­niver­sary of the U.S. Army.

Trump has de­scribed Los An­ge­les in dire terms that Bass and New­som say are nowhere close to the truth.

In a pub­lic ad­dress Tues­day evening, New­som called Trump’s ac­tions the start of an “as­sault” on democ­ra­cy.

“Cal­i­for­nia may be first, but it clear­ly will not end here. Oth­er states are next,” he said.

New­som warned peo­ple against in­cit­ing vi­o­lence, but urged them to stand up to the pres­i­dent’s ac­tions.

“What Don­ald Trump wants most is your feal­ty, your si­lence. To be com­plic­it in this mo­ment,” he said. “Do not give it to him.”

The 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.

The demon­stra­tions have been most­ly con­cen­trat­ed down­town in the city of 4 mil­lion. 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.

De­spite the protests, im­mi­gra­tion en­force­ment ac­tiv­i­ty has con­tin­ued through­out the coun­ty, with city lead­ers and com­mu­ni­ty groups re­port­ing ICE present at li­braries, car wash­es and Home De­pots. School grad­u­a­tions in Los An­ge­les have in­creased se­cu­ri­ty over fears of ICE ac­tion and some have of­fered par­ents the op­tion to watch on Zoom.

Mc­Don­nell said that po­lice had made 197 ar­rests on Tues­day, in­clud­ing 67 who were tak­en in­to cus­tody for un­law­ful­ly oc­cu­py­ing part of the 101 free­way.

Sev­er­al busi­ness­es were bro­ken in­to Mon­day, though au­thor­i­ties didn’t say if the loot­ing was tied to the protests.

The vast ma­jor­i­ty of ar­rests have been 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.

De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth sug­gest­ed Tues­day that the use of troops in­side the U.S. will con­tin­ue to ex­pand.

The Pen­ta­gon said de­ploy­ing the Na­tion­al Guard and Marines costs $134 mil­lion. —LOS AN­GE­LES (AP)

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Sto­ry by JAKE OF­FEN­HARTZ, JAIMIE DING, LOLI­TA C. BAL­DOR and TARA COPP | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Bal­dor and Copp re­port­ed from Wash­ing­ton, D.C. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Do­rany Pine­da and Christo­pher We­ber in Los An­ge­les, Amy Tax­in in Or­ange Coun­ty, Cal­i­for­nia, John Seew­er in Tole­do, Ohio, Jim Ver­tuno in Austin, Texas, Hal­lie Gold­en in Seat­tle, and Greg Bull in Seal Beach, Cal­i­for­nia, con­tributed to this re­port.