Tensions flared between protesters and police in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday as a major demonstration against the Trump administration gave way to yet another night of smaller but raucous protests against recent immigration raids.
With the city’s downtown area facing an 8 p.m. curfew, the Los Angeles police began using tear gas and crowd-control munitions to break up protests after issuing a 4 p.m. dispersal order. Officers on horseback forced hundreds of people away from a federal building downtown, where a crowd had gathered, chanting at a line of National Guard troops guarding the structure as helicopters circled overhead.
“Shame on you! Shame on you!” the demonstrators shouted, as the troops stood at attention. In several posts on X, the Los Angeles Police Department accused protesters of throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks at officers. Law enforcement also said that “outside agitators” had blocked a portion of a street with fencing and other materials.
After a series of militarized immigration raids ignited protests in downtown Los Angeles and several other nearby suburbs, President Trump commandeered 2,000 members of the National Guard over the governor’s objections and sent them to Los Angeles. After California officials pushed back, the president deployed another 2,000 National Guard troops along with 700 U.S. Marines.
Local authorities said they had the situation handled and needed no backup, but the president said that the city was out of control and that the military was needed to safeguard federal property and agents. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles have accused Mr. Trump of staging the immigration raids in an intentional attempt to inflame Californians and manufacture a crisis in a state that he regards as a hotbed of opposition and a place that allows illegal immigration.
A federal judge in California ruled Thursday that the president acted illegally in dispatching the troops, but the ruling was stayed until Tuesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Protests in Los Angeles have since continued nightly, although they have been confined almost entirely to a 10-block section of the 500-square mile city.
The protests, which city officials said initially had included some looting and vandalism, had been dissipating in advance of Saturday’s planned national No Kings demonstrations, timed to coincide with a military parade the Trump administration organized in Washington. With tens of thousands of demonstrators expected to march in communities throughout Southern California, Los Angeles police stressed at a news conference early Saturday that any violence or lawlessness would result in arrests and prosecutions.
Later in the afternoon, Hydee Feldstein Soto, the Los Angeles city attorney, reiterated the warning, saying in a statement that the city would arrest and prosecute anyone who tagged, vandalized, looted, threw rocks, disobeyed police or otherwise disrupted public safety. She said that included fireworks, which are illegal in fire-prone Los Angeles, but had started to go off downtown.
By early evening, the events planned for Southern California had played out uneventfully and thousands of participants had departed. But in downtown Los Angeles — long a staging area for political theater in the city — hundreds of protesters remained and hundreds of police officers converged on the area that has seen most of the past week’s action, around Los Angeles’s iconic City Hall and other government buildings.
Shawn Hubler and Christina Morales contributed reporting.
Orlando Mayorquín is a Times reporter covering California. He is based in Los Angeles.
Richard Fausset, based in Atlanta, writes about the American South, focusing on politics, culture, race, poverty and criminal justice.
Jesus Jiménez is a Times reporter covering Southern California.
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