Guard troops in riot gear ring-fenced the Metropolitan Detention Center downtown at dawn, drawing shouts of “shame” and “go home” from a crowd angered by a week-long federal immigration sweep that has netted more than 100 arrests. When protesters pressed forward, Los Angeles police and federal officers used smoke canisters and crowd-control rounds to push them back.
By mid-afternoon, the protest spilled onto the southbound 101 Freeway, where people hurled rocks, scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol vehicles. Officers retreated under an overpass before clearing the roadway; southbound lanes remained shut for hours.
Elsewhere in the city, at least four Waymo autonomous cars were set ablaze, sending black plumes skyward as batteries exploded. Police later declared an unlawful assembly and ordered downtown streets closed; flash-bang grenades echoed into the evening.
Newsom, Bass slam deployment
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom wrote to Trump demanding the Guard’s immediate withdrawal, calling the move a “serious breach of state sovereignty.” Mayor Karen Bass said the presence of 300 federal troops had “provoked chaos” rather than restored order.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson rejected the criticism as “a bald-faced lie,” insisting the city was already violent before the troops arrived.
Trump, invoking a 1792 statute that allows a president to deploy forces during a “rebellion,” authorized up to 2,000 Guardsmen and warned reporters: “We’re not going to let our country be torn apart like it was under Biden.”
About 500 Marines at Twentynine Palms were placed on standby, U.S. Northern Command said.
Third day of unrest
Sunday marked the third straight day of demonstrations sparked by Friday’s immigration raids in the city’s Fashion District and suburbs such as Paramount and Compton. Protesters earlier tried to block Border Patrol vehicles with chunks of concrete; agents responded with pepper balls and flash-bangs.
Authorities said dozens of protesters had been detained, including a union leader accused of impeding law-enforcement activity.
Former vice-president Kamala Harris, a Los Angeles resident, called the raids and troop deployment a “cruel, calculated agenda to spread panic and division,” adding she supported those “standing up to protect our most fundamental rights and freedoms.”
The last time a president activated a state’s Guard without the governor’s request was in 1965, when Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect civil-rights marchers in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
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Source: AP News, PAP, Reuters, Nexta