Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been sued for allegedly assaulting peaceful protesters in Los Angeles demonstrating against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
The suit accuses DHS officers of conducting a “series of indiscriminate and terrifying immigration raids” in the city beginning on June 6. Agents reportedly brandished rifles and wore masks and heavy paramilitary gear without visible identifying information.
Anytime the community protested, DHS “retaliated” by “recklessly” shooting pepper balls and rubber bullets at peaceful protesters, according to the complaint, which was filed Thursday by the ACLU of Southern California on behalf of a group of protesters, journalists, and legal observers.
Federal agents have also launched volleys of tear gas and flash-bang grenades at groups that included children, the elderly, clergy, and elected officials, the suit alleges.
The Trump administration “used the violent spectacle created by DHS as a reason to commandeer the National Guard and send the United States Marines into California, which in turn has generated more widespread protests,” lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote.
In the wake of the protests, President Donald Trump sent 4,000 members of the National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles over the objections of Governor Gavin Newsom.
“Federal law enforcement has brutalized demonstrators, causing disorder in a circular ploy to justify deploying military domestically against now and future protesters,” said Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, in a statement. “But people have the right to keep protesting the violent separation of families and ICE’s terrorizing of our people.”
The suit asks for injunctive relief to prevent DHS from violating the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights. The Daily Beast has reached out to DHS for comment.
Noem has said that DHS is targeting “the worst of the worst” and going after murders, rapists, human traffickers and drug dealers who are terrorizing Los Angeles.
“[Mayor Karen Bass] is holding press conferences talking about the fact that people have the right to peacefully protest and that they’re a city of immigrants,” Noem told Fox News’ Hannity last week. “Well, they’re not a city of immigrants, they’re a city of criminals, because she has protected them for so many years.”
But independent journalists with the local news site L.A. Taco say ICE has been targeting worksites populated by Latinos, nabbing day laborers, construction workers, and street vendors, including taqueros. One of the site’s investigative journalists, Lexis-Olivier Ray, is a plaintiff in the suit filed by the ACLU.
Earlier this month, the raids led to violent clashes between law enforcement officers and rioters, who lit cars on fire, set off fireworks, and threw pieces of concrete at police, Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell told reporters at the time.
But the protesters weren’t the same group as the rioters, who took advantage of the situation to stoke civil unrest, he said. After Mayor Karen Bass imposed a curfew on the parts of downtown Los Angeles where the violence was most pronounced, things quieted down.
Despite local officials maintaining that they had the situation under control, in the days after the raids and the protests began, Trump took the extraordinary step of deploying the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles.
In the meantime, DHS agents launched “violent assaults” against peaceful protesters who didn’t pose a threat to the officers, and even advanced on crowds that were trying to maintain a safe distance from federal agents, according to the suit filed by the ACLU.
In one case, community members—including children and the elderly—had been playing music and chanting on a grassy area across the street from where DHS officers were lined up.
The federal agents then allegedly advanced on them without warning, shooting tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd, and fired tear gas canisters directly into vehicles that happened to be driving through the area.
The people in the cars, who had nothing to do with the protest, were forced to abandon their cars and flee, the suit alleges.
Video also shows DHS officers firing plastic bullets and pepper balls—which are supposed to be non-lethal but can still cause serious injury—at camera crews and other journalists wearing press passes.
“Suppressing the rights of the free press and protesters is the calling card of cowardly dictators and threatens to destroy our nation,” lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote.
Several of the plaintiffs said they had either participated in or covered protests for years but had never experienced such targeted use of force from law enforcement.
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