Tempers flare
A look at the similarities and differences of civil unrest in Southern California over the years.
Immigration raid protests, 2025
Marines and additional National Guard troops arrived in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday, June 10, sent in by President Donald Trump in response to protests over immigration raids despite the objections of the governor and local leaders.
Los Angeles leaders imposed a downtown curfew Tuesday on the fifth day of protests, it is still in place.
After persistent questioning from members of Congress on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth turned to his acting comptroller, Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, who said it would cost $134 million to send the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles. She said the money will come from operations and maintenance accounts.
On Sunday, Los Angeles police said some protesters had thrown concrete projectiles, bottles and other items at police. Los Angeles police say they made more than 100 arrests Monday evening and two officers were injured.
Several self-driving cars were set ablaze on a downtown street on Sunday evening as well as several businesses being looted. No fatalities have been reported.
Immigration Customs Enforcement posted the names and convictions of 11 arrested undocumented immigrants in the Los Angeles raids Sunday.
You can find ICE’s list of what they say are the worst offenders here and here.
In sanctuary cities, local law enforcement doesn’t notify federal immigration enforcement when those who have been convicted of crimes are set free.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a news conference the ICE raids could continue for the next 30 days. “It’s a sense of intimidation and fear that is just so unnecessary and so corrosive to our city,” Bass said.
You can find the complete Pew Research Center survey from March on Latino adults fears of deportation here.
Other more violent protests
Zoot suit riots, 1943
In early June, young men who had enlisted to fight in World War II clashed with other young locals in Los Angeles, kicking off what became known as the Zoot Suit Riots. Most of the youth in “zoot suits” were people of color, and their baggy outfits were depicted negatively by the media and the military. Local papers framed the racial attacks as a vigilante response to an immigrant crime wave, and most of the people arrested during the fighting were Latino. The riots didn’t die down until June 8, when military personnel were ordered to stay in their barracks. The week of conflict resulted in no deaths.
More than 500 arrests.
Watts riots, 1965
Thousands of Black people moved to Los Angeles during World War II, often to work in aerospace and other manufacturing jobs. But when the war ended, unemployment — particularly in the Black community — exploded. By the mid-1960s, race relations in the area were strained, as they were in the rest of the nation. A state-mandated investigation after the riots found that the conflict was driven, in part, by long-standing grievances in Watts about high unemployment rates, substandard housing and inadequate schools.
Here’s how it unfolded:
A routine arrest
1. On the night of Aug. 11, near Watts, a White police officer was flagged down by a Black man who told him a man in a white Buick was driving recklessly. Officer Lee W. Minikus pulled over Marquette Frye, a young Black man, on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. Frye failed several sobriety tests and was taken into custody. But as Frye’s mother, Rena, and his brother, Ronald, arrived at the scene, so did a crowd of onlookers that grew to about 300 people.
Backup officers arrived and Marquette, Ronald and Rena all were arrested, along with an onlooker who allegedly spit on the officers.
Soon, riots spread in the commercial section of Watts, followed by widespread looting.
2. On Aug. 12, community members and police met at Athens Park, prompting leaders and a member of the Frye family to issue a public request for peace. But that request went unheeded and rioting continued, prompting state leaders to call for 14,000 California National Guard troops to go to South Los Angeles to work with police.
3. On Aug. 13, a stretch of 103rd Street in Watts burned to the ground, an area later known to locals as “Charcoal Alley.” Looting and rioting spread from South L.A. to other areas, with Pasadena, Pacoima, Monrovia, Long Beach and Wilmington all seeing some conflict.
Thirty-four people died, about 2,000 others were injured and more than 600 buildings were damaged.
Los Angeles uprising, 1992
On April 29, after a jury acquitted four Los Angeles police officers (three of whom were White) of crimes connected to the widely seen beating of a Black man, Rodney King, rioting broke out in South Los Angeles and quickly spread to other parts of Southern California lasting for six days. Billions of dollars of property was damaged or destroyed. The conditions that led to the violence, including police interaction with minority communities, economic inequality and racial injustice, became part of a national conversation that continues today.
Fifty-three people were killed, about 2,000 others were injured.
George Floyd riots, 2020
Protests began in Minneapolis on May 26, a day after videos surfaced showing the death of an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, under the knee of a White Minneapolis Police Department officer, Derek Chauvin. Within a day, demonstrations were held in dozens of cities across the country. By May 30, Los Angeles and at least 12 other major cities declared curfews. Governors in 24 states and Washington, D.C., had called in the National Guard, with over 17,000 troops activated.
Nationally, at least 19 people died and an estimated 11,000 were arrested. No deaths reported in Los Angeles.
Sources: The Associated Press, Pew Research Center, History.com, SCNG Archives, Immigration Customs Enforcement
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