A California judge could decide on Thursday, June 12, the future of Gov. Gavin Newsom‘s request for a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration’s deployment of federalized state National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Southern California.
On Tuesday, June 11, U.S District Judge Charles R. Breyer, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, set a hearing instead of ruling immediately on Newsom’s effort to push the troops out of his state for now.
Newsom is asking the court to stop the Trump administration’s mobilization of troops amid the large demonstrations that have broken out in recent days in protest of federal immigration-enforcement operations in the area.
President Donald Trump’s administration on Sunday federalized California’s National Guard, mobilizing more than 4,000 troops to Los Angeles to respond to the protests over immigration enforcement efforts. The president also ordered some 700 infantry Marines from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms to deploy to Los Angeles.
The administration made those moves without the request or consent of Newsom and local law enforcement officials, Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta said Monday when announcing a lawsuit against the Trump administration.
Angelenos awoke on Thursday after a quieter overnight downtown after the second night of a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
The “quiet zone,” a one-square-mile section of downtown Los Angeles, seemed to be yielding positive results this morning, with less chaos and property damage overnight Wednesday than in the previous several nights of demonstrations against ongoing federal immigration raids.
Dozens more people were arrested Wednesday night after an unlawful assembly was declared around 6:30 p.m.
A driver was also arrested on suspicion of an assault with a deadly weapon later Wednesday after allegedly driving through a skirmish line of protesters and police officers near Beverly Boulevard and Western Avenue in Koreatown.
That driver led authorities on a high-speed freeway chase into the Inglewood area, where he was arrested after attempting to flee the vehicle on foot on a surface street. Three passengers were also taken into custody, KTLA5 reported.
Mayor Karen Bass announced the 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew Tuesday in an attempt to stop looting and vandalism that has beset the area since Friday. The curfew applies to an area between the Golden State (5) and Harbor (110) freeways, and from the Santa Monica (10) Freeway to where the Arroyo Seco (110) Parkway and Golden State Freeway merge, Bass said Tuesday evening.
That area includes Skid Row, Chinatown, and the Arts and Fashion districts.
“If you do not live or work in downtown L.A., avoid the area,” Bass said. “Law enforcement will arrest individuals who break the curfew, and you will be prosecuted.”
There will be “limited exceptions” to the curfew — including for residents of the area, “people traveling to and from work and credentialed media representatives,” the mayor said.
Bass and officials from more than a dozen other cities in L.A. County banded together on Wednesday, offering a unified message to President Donald Trump and his administration: End the immigration raids and stop sowing unnecessary fear in our communities.
The city leaders, many of them mayors, who gathered for a joint press conference “reflect the concerns that are going on in our communities right now,” Bass said, leading off the event.
Cities that sent an official to Wednesday’s press conference were: Artesia, Bell Gardens, Cudahy, Downey, El Monte, Fillmore, Huntington Park, Lynwood, Montebello, Paramount, Pico Rivera, Santa Monica, South Gate, Vernon and West Hollywood. Representatives from Santa Paula and Ventura, in Ventura County, also attended.
Huntington Park Mayor Arturo Flores, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the “militarization of immigration enforcement has no place in our neighborhoods.”
“The deployment of Marines on U.S. soil is an alarming escalation that undermines the values of democracy,” he said.
Flores had a message for the Marines who have been deployed to Los Angeles: “Brothers,” he said, “I, myself, have fought in different theaters. … When we lifted our hands and we swore the oath to defend the Constitution and to defend the country, that oath was to the American people. It was not to a dictator. It was not to a tyrant. It was not to a president. It was to the American people.”
Several dozen protesters gathered again Wednesday outside the federal Metropolitan Detention Center downtown, while dozens more stood outside Los Angeles City Hall a few blocks away. Police said about 150 protesters rode bicycles through the Civic Center area Wednesday afternoon.
The federal detention center on Alameda and Aliso streets has been a common site of protests, along with the nearby federal building and federal courthouse. The MDC is believed to be the facility where immigrant detainees taken into custody in recent days are being held.
The nearby federal building on Los Angeles Street houses the local office of ICE.
Smaller, scattered protests were held Wednesday at the DoubleTree Hotel in Whittier, the Westin Hotel in Pasadena and the Embassy Suites Hotel in Downey, where demonstrators believed federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were staying.
Faith leaders gathered at Downey Memorial Christian Church on Wednesday, June 11, to decry the detention of an unidentified man on their property earlier that day.
The man, described as a dark-skinned man with dark hair who only spoke Spanish, was taken into custody by law enforcement dressed in plainclothes who refused to identify themselves or produce a warrant for the man’s arrest on Wednesday, according to church leaders.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, could not immediately be reached for comment.
But Paulina Alcala, a Downey resident, said she was driving down Florence Avenue near Downey Memorial Christian Church when she saw several law enforcement agents surround the unidentified man, who was sitting on a bench outside a business adjacent to the church.
In Orange County on Wednesday night, roughly 300 people gathered outside the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse in Santa Ana to protest the ongoing raids. The peaceful protest began shortly after 6 p.m. and soon tripled in size as people congregated in front of a road closure, occupied by at least six members of the California National Guard on North Birch and 4th Street.
Chants such as “ICE Out of OC” and “Trump Out of OC” could be heard throughout the group as people held up various signs and carried Mexican and American flags. Several people holding megaphones urged the crowd to “keep things peaceful” as at least 15 officers from the Irvine Police Department dressed in riot gear hung back in near proximity. One person carried a Salvadorian flag while another waved a joint American-Pride flag.
“It feels like the federal government is trying to be as dramatic as possible to elicit a response from people,” said 30-year-old Kelsey Leach from Orange. “It’s important to come out and nonviolently exercise our First Amendment rights.”
Unsure about whether the officers were local police or ICE agents, Alcala flipped her car around and went to see if she could assist the man.
“Once I heard that they were asking for papers, I was like, oh — this is ICE,” Alcala said Wednesday. “(An agent) called me an illegal and said that I was going to get arrested for getting in the way — I told them that I am a USA citizen fighting for what is going on right now. The only thing I said to them was he’s just sitting under a tree and he’s not doing anything. The moment (I said that), they got him up (and) dragged him away.”
Protests have been occurring daily in the area since Friday, when ICE agents carried out a series of immigration enforcement raids, detaining dozens of people.
The protests all generally began peacefully, but some devolved into violent confrontations later in the day, with activists over the weekend damaging CHP vehicles parked on the Hollywood (101) Freeway and setting fire to multiple driver-less Waymo vehicles. There was also extensive graffiti and other vandalism throughout the Civic Center area.
Authorities are preparing for sweeping protests this weekend, as more than two dozen rallies and marches are planned across Southern California on Saturday — part of a national demonstration against Trump and his policies — will be watched closely by local organizers and officials following unrest this past week in the Los Angeles area.
The “No Kings Day” demonstrations across the country coincide with a military parade the Trump administration is organizing on Flag Day in Washington, D.C., to mark the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday. At more than 1,500 planned anti-Trump demonstrations Saturday, which is also Trump’s birthday, his critics will send a clear message: “In America, we don’t do kings,” according to Indivisible, the progressive organization behind “No Kings Day.”
In a news release, Indivisible organizers said the demonstrations are a way to bring “pro-democracy and pro-worker” allies together to “reject corrupt, authoritarian politics” in the U.S. Protests are planned in communities across Southern California, from Woodland Hills to Pasadena and Anaheim and from Claremont to Riverside and Temecula.
“The majority of us are not OK with what’s going on right now,” Melissa Follstad, a group leader with Indivisible Inland Empire, said Wednesday. “We do not want a king.”
The first wave of criminal charges against violent offenders, meanwhile, were announced Wednesday, June 11, as local authorities continue their attempts to curb violence as the protests entered a sixth day in downtown Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California.
Federal authorities announced charges against four men — two in Los Angeles County accused of possessing destructive devices during protests in Paramount and L.A., and two in Orange County accused of assaulting federal officers during a protest in Santa Ana.
Later in the afternoon, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced charges against eight people accused of either attacking peace officers, looting or vandalism. The district attorney said several more cases were likely to be brought in the coming weeks.
“Those who haven’t been caught, I have bad news for you, there are cameras everywhere,” Hochman said. “We will know who you are. … We will track you down.”
There have been various protests in recent days in Southern California, with the largest ones in downtown Los Angeles; the curfew covers one square mile that includes where protests have occurred since Friday in the city that encompasses roughly 500 square miles.
With the landscape beginning to calm down, business owners in the region strived to get their enterprises back on line in the aftermath of scattered looting and the overnight curfew.
Across downtown, business owners are facing reduced hours, fewer customers and growing concerns over safety. Some have boarded up windows as a precaution; others are trying to recover from smashed glass and stolen merchandise.
In Little Tokyo, remnants of the past six days of unrest were impossible to miss. Graffiti with phrases like “(expletive) ICE” was scrawled across store walls, bus stops and sidewalks.
Inside Little Tokyo Mall, several storefronts were boarded up. One anime store posted a notice announcing a temporary closure from June 11 to June 14, citing “careful consideration” amid safety concerns.
Nella McOsker, president and CEO of the Century City Association, an advocacy group that represents hundreds of businesses across downtown Los Angeles, said the area has been hit especially hard — particularly in the Historic Core and Little Tokyo.
“Downtown is already challenged even aside from the current civil unrest,” she said. “Businesses are struggling to stay open. They’ve seen lower foot traffic. They see regular public safety challenges throughout the week separate and apart from protest periods.”
She described the mood among merchants as, “angry, scared, frustrated, and deserted.”
The curfew pretty much shut down the usually bustling downtown evening scene, as local businesses closed earlier, canceled events.
Lagree213 fitness studio, for example, canceled several classes at its locations in downtown’s Arts District, Historic Core and South Park neighborhoods that fell during curfew hours Wednesday evening through Thursday morning. The classes will be canceled on a day-to-day basis until the mandatory curfew is lifted, it said on social media.
Performances at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and theaters in the L.A. Center Theater Group were canceled on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Staff writers Linh Tat, Kaitlyn Schallhorn, Kristy Hutchings, Anissa Rivera, Teresa Lui and City News Service contributed to this report.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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