Unrest stemming from protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles appeared to have calmed somewhat after a curfew was put in place in a small section of the city.
And as protests against deportations have sprung up across the country, at least one other city, Spokane, Wash., has followed suit with a curfew. But emergency curfews can have mixed results, experts said, chilling free speech and movement and leading to even more arrests.
Mayor Karen Bass first issued a curfew for Los Angeles on Tuesday, lasting from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. local time across a patch of the sprawling city that included Skid Row and Chinatown. The order was aimed at keeping “bad actors” off the streets, she said, and excluded law enforcement officers, people traveling to and from work, residents of the curfew area and the members of the news media.
On Wednesday night, the streets were relatively calm in the hours after the curfew began, with few protesters and few Marines or National Guard members present, though groups of protesters gathered outside the curfew zone. Ms. Bass said the curfew would continue on Thursday.
In Spokane, Wash., where 30 people were arrested during a demonstration on Wednesday, Mayor Lisa Brown declared a state of emergency and ordered a curfew from 9:30 p.m. until 5 a.m. local time. The curfew exempted people leaving a soccer game that began after the restrictions were announced, among others.
In Los Angeles, movie and concert venues canceled programming because of the curfew. Alamo Drafthouse, a cinema, said it would refund patrons who had bought tickets to screenings that were canceled after the theater closed early.
But curfews can have mixed results, and President Trump, in remarks to reporters on Thursday, credited the presence of National Guard troops — not the curfew — for clearing the streets in Los Angeles on Wednesday night.
In the days after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, numerous cities, including Los Angeles, imposed emergency curfews that were sometimes violated, prompting even more arrests, including for curfew violations.
Back then, protesters in many cities complained that the curfews fueled aggressive behavior from law enforcement. For example, in Minneapolis, the city where Mr. Floyd was killed, police officers fired rubber bullets at curfew violators and at members of the news media, who were exempt from the restrictions. Several cities were sued over claims that the curfews were unconstitutional.
Karen Pita Loor, a clinical professor of law at Boston University, said officers could use curfews to sweep up large numbers of protesters.
The curfews, she said, are “effective at chilling speech, assembly and movement, and maybe that’s what we’re seeing in Los Angeles.”
Dionne Searcey is a Times reporter who writes about wealth and power in New York and beyond.
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