Chaos has continued in Los Angeles as police have ordered the public to disperse from downtown Los Angeles after further unrest, with cars torched and security forces firing tear gas at protesters, in the wake of Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to America’s second-biggest city.
Protests in Los Angeles, home to a large Latino population, broke out on Friday, triggered by immigration raids that resulted in dozens of arrests of what authorities say are illegal migrants and gang members.
Critics say the US president, who has made clamping down on illegal migration a key pillar of his second term, was deliberately stoking tensions with his deployment of California’s National Guard, a stand-by military usually controlled by the state governor.
Demonstrators told AFP the purpose of the troops did not appear to be to keep order, with one calling it an “intimidation tactic.”
“You have the National Guard with loaded magazines and large guns standing around trying to intimidate Americans from exercising our First Amendment rights,” protester Thomas Henning said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom called Trump’s order a “serious breach of state sovereignty” and demanded the president to rescind the order and “return control to California.”
He also urged protesters to stay peaceful, warning that those who instigate violence will be arrested.
“Don’t take Trump’s bait,” he said on social media platform X.
Authorities declared downtown Los Angeles a place of “unlawful assembly” by late Sunday evening. Local media showed a heavy police presence blanketing mostly deserted streets in various areas.
A few protesters remained scattered, with some lobbing projectiles and fireworks according to local aerial TV coverage.
Trump called the protesters “insurrectionists,” and demanded authorities “ARREST THE PEOPLE IN FACE MASKS, NOW!”
“BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
At least three self-driving Waymo cars were torched as demonstrators thronged around downtown Los Angeles earlier on Sunday, and local law enforcement deployed tear gas and smoke grenades to disperse protesters.