An ugly night of vandalism, burglaries and clashes in downtown Los Angeles left city officials struggling to get the upper hand after three days of scattered unrest over immigration raids.
Some businesses were vandalized and burglarized overnight downtown, concluding hours of unrest that saw Waymo cars burned, police cruisers crushed with rocks and electric scooters and various forms of vandalism downtown and in the civic center. While most of the problems occurred within a few blocks, they have taken on worldwide attention after President Trump deployed the National Guard to L.A. after clashes between immigration agents and protesters.
Trump has threatened to bring in “troops” to help calm the unrest, but it is unclear what that would look like.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said Sunday violence in the city has only escalated since protesters clashed with officers Friday outside a federal detention center in downtown LA. He described the violence as “disgusting.”
“These past few nights we’ve seen a level that disgusts every good person in this city,” he said.
So far, the National Guard troops have mostly protected federal buildings.
McDonnell demurred when asked if the city needed National Guard troops, whom President Trump deployed over the wishes of the governor and mayor.
“Do we need them? Well, looking at tonight, this thing has gotten out of control,” he said. Still, McDonnell said he needed to know more about how the troops could help maintain order before he decides if their presence was necessary.
He spoke with Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna Sunday about potentially implementing a curfew, but they decided it wasn’t necessary. The chief said he also spoke with District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who has promised to prosecute people who have attacked officers and damaged property.
Mayor Karen Bass Sunday decried the disorder but also placed some of the blame on Trump.
“If people get violent, if people break the law they will be subject to arrest and they will be held accountable,” she said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Bass called Los Angeles a “city of immigrants” and pushed back on the federal government’s assertion that immigration officials had targeted criminals and violent individuals during the raids at workplaces and Home Depot parking lots in recent days.
“What we’re seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration,” Bass said. “When you raid Home Depot and workplaces, when you tear parents and children apart, and when you run armored caravans through our streets you cause fear and you cause panic.”
Senator Alex Padilla blasted the Trump Administration, saying sending troops and cracking down on immigrant communities diverts attention away from what he called a “devastating” congressional bill and he encouraged peaceful protest to continue.
“Keep protesting because Donald Trump would love for everybody to sit back quietly while he continues to overreach, to bring cruelty to every corner of America and violate the law,” he said.
“What he is doing is classic Donald Trump. He is trying to deflect and distract,” he said. “They have this devastating bill coming through Congress that would cut health care for so many Americans, raise costs on working families and underwrite tax breaks for billionaires. Trump doesn’t want people talking about that, so he goes back to immigrants demonizing immigrants and trying to thump his chest for being a tough guy.”
Padilla blamed some of the violence on agitators taking advantage of the situation, but he said they are not immigrant advocates or organizers and he called on the National Guard to pullback.
“Let local law enforcement do their job,” he said.
Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis added: “It seems to me what Trump is doing is intentionally escalating this. There’s no reason to send in the National Guard other than to show a flex of strength,” Kounalakis said in an interview Sunday evening. “Typically that is one of the ways things will start to escalate. So my conclusion is that he announced sending in the National Guard not because there was a need, but because he wanted to take the opportunity of the protests to have a demonstration of his own strength and ruthlessness.”
Earlier in the day, Kounalakis said on CNN that she expected California leaders to file a lawsuit on Monday against the Trump administration over the federalization and deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles. She declined to comment further on potential litigation during the interview.
However, while emphasizing that burning cars and other non-peaceful protests are not appropriate, she said that local law enforcement has the capacity to deal with such matters given the scale of what occurred in Los Angeles this weekend.
“It was under control,” Kounalakis said. “There was no need to bring in the National Guard…. It seems to point to the fact [Trump] is trying to escalate the conflict.”
But other local officials said they were troubled by the violence and said it needed to stop.
“Let’s be absolutely clear: the violent acts we’re seeing — rocks thrown at officers, CHP cars and Waymo vehicles set on fire, arson on the 101 freeway — have nothing to do with immigration, justice, or the values of our communities,” said Assemblymember Mark González. “These are not protestors — they are agitators. Their actions are reckless, dangerous and playing into exactly what Trump wants. At a time when our emergency services are already stretched thin, these acts divert critical police resources away from real emergencies and put lives at risk.
Sunday was filled with dramatic images across downtown.
Protesters converged on the Civic Center area of downtown L.A. on Sunday morning, spilling onto the 101 Freeway around 3:30 p.m. The roadway was then closed to traffic for several hours as California Highway Patrol officers worked to push demonstrators back, detaining several in the process.
A group of demonstrators then descended on five Waymo taxis lined up on Los Angeles Street between Arcadia and Alameda streets around 5 p.m.
Tires were slashed, windows smashed, and anti-ICE messages spray-painted over the self-driving taxis, three of which were then set on fire.
Protesters swarmed around the vehicles, tearing the doors off and stomping on the windshields. One man with a mask over his face smashed car windows with a skateboard. Another appeared to use a makeshift flamethrower to set the interior of a car ablaze.
As the cars were consumed by flames, some people were seen throwing Lime electric scooters into the burning shells, while others stood back from the fiery scene. At one point, the besieged Waymos began honking their horns in coordinated cacophony, punctuated by the chants of protesters and the whirring of police helicopters overhead.
Some in the crowd milling above the 101 lobbed rocks and chunks of concrete down toward CHP who had detained people who protested on the freeway. One struck a police cruiser with a thud, prompting a big cheer. CHP officers responded by firing flash bang rounds above the crowd.
The Los Angeles Police Department arrested at least 10 people Sunday, including a man who allegedly rammed a motorcycle into a line of officers, a police official said. Capt. Raul Jovel, who oversaw the LAPD’s response to protests recent immigration raids in Los Angeles County, said another person was arrested Sunday on suspicion of lobbing a Molotov cocktail at officers.
Three LAPD officers were injured but none seriously enough to require hospitalization, Jovel said at a news conference.The LAPD arrested another 29 people Saturday on suspicion of failing to heed a dispersal order, Jovel said.
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