XPost: alt.politics.immigration, alt.los-angeles, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
XPost: sac.politics, alt.society.liberalism
Los Angeles was put on lockdown after mayor Karen Bass finally caved and declared a local emergency while Governor Gavin Newsom tore into President Trump for exacerbating the immigration chaos.
The riot-ravaged Downtown area will be a no-go zone from 8pm to 6am on
Tuesday through Wednesday after violent demonstrators set fire to cars,
looted buildings and attacked officers with rocks, fireworks and cement
bricks in harrowing scenes of destruction.
Bass said the curfew is expected to last several days and will encompass a square mile radius around the epicenter of the violence in Downtown LA.
'If you do not live or work in downtown LA avoid the area. Law enforcement
will arrest individuals who break the curfew, and you will be prosecuted,'
Bass said.
Less than an hour after the curfew was imposed, Newsom lashed out at Trump
in a speech that aired on national television.
The Golden State governor blamed the federal government for the ongoing
crisis and issued a chilling warning that chaos could soon engulf other
states too.
'Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to
defend themselves, but they do not stop there,' Newsom warned.
'This is a president who in just over 140 days, has fired government
watchdogs that could hold him accountable, accountable for corruption and fraud. He's declared a war, a war on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself. Databases, quite literally, are vanishing.'
Newsom claimed that 'when Donald Trump sought blanket authority to
commandeer the National Guard. He made that order apply to every state in
this nation.
'This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but
it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.
'Democracy is under assault before our eyes, this moment we have feared
has arrived.'
While Newsom did urge protesters to remain peaceful if they took to the streets, he encouraged Americans to stand up against Trump.
'What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be
complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him.'
For five days now rioters have wreaked havoc on communities as they railed against Trump's efforts to rid the city of illegal migrants.
They were only further enraged when Trump gave orders to send 700 Marines
and 4,100 National Guard troops in to take over policing efforts and
assist the LAPD.
Bass revealed at least 23 businesses have been looted during the ongoing violence and condemned some of the horrifying images which have emerged
from the days of carnage.
But Bass said the curfew was contained to where the violence was most
apparent, noting: 'Some of the imagery of the protests and the violence
gives the appearance as though this is a city wide crisis and is not.'
She hopes that by imposing a curfew and declaring a local emergency, she
can 'stop the vandalism, stop the looting.'
'A curfew has been in consideration for several days, but clearly after
the violence that took place last night and just the extensive widespread nature of the vandalism, we reached a tipping point.'
While Bass refrained from locking down the entire Downtown, the LAPD has
this week repeatedly issued alerts listing Downtown Los Angeles as
'unlawful assembly' zones in an effort to rid the area of any and all protesters.
The regions impacted by the lockdown span from the five freeway to the 110 freeway, and from the 10 freeway to the point where the 110 and the five
merge.
The development comes as Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act
to stop the LA rioters, which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence
or to enforce the law in certain situations.
'If there's an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We'll see. But I
can tell you, last night was terrible. The night before that was
terrible,' Trump said.
He repeatedly referred to 'bad, sick people' and 'agitators' he said were
paid to wreak havoc.
'There are certainly areas of Los Angeles you could have called It an insurrection,' Trump said. It was terrible.'
A curfew is the natural next step in efforts toward regaining control of
the city, as the LAPD ramps up arrests and cracks down on protesters
breaching unlawful assembly orders.
Hordes of protesters were zip-tied and forced onto LAPD buses en masse as authorities sought to bring an end to days of chaos and destruction.
LAPD chief Jim McDonnell said protests had grown more violent as the week progressed.
There were just 27 arrests on Sunday, with 40 on Sunday, 114 on Monday and nearly 200 by 6pm on Tuesday.
He said public safety personnel, journalists and homeless people would be exempt from the order.
The arrival of Trump's military reinforcements brought its own set of challenges on Tuesday, with furious Governor Newsom filing an emergency
motion for a temporary restraining order.
'I just filed an emergency motion to block Trump's illegal deployment of Marines and National Guard in Los Angeles,' he said on X.
'Trump is turning the U.S. military against American citizens. The courts
must immediately block these illegal actions.'
The state said the order would 'prevent the use of federalized National
Guard and active duty Marines for law enforcement purposes on the streets
of a civilian city.'
'Federal antagonization, through the presence of soldiers in the streets,
has already caused real and irreparable damage to the City of Los Angeles,
the people who live there, and the State of California,' the filing
stated. 'They must be stopped, immediately.'
A judge denied the motion and instead granted the Trump administration an extension of time to respond to Newsom's filing.
The federal government now has until 2pm on Wednesday to file its
response. Newsom will then have an opportunity to file its opposition
ahead of a hearing at 1.30pm Thursday.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers the deployment of National
Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles will cost at least $134 million
and last 60 days.
'We stated very publicly that it's 60 days because we want to ensure that
those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we're not going anywhere,' he said.
'Thankfully, unlike the previous administration, we've got a 13 percent increase in our defense budget, and we will have the capability to cover
down on contingencies, which is something the National Guard and the
Marines plan for.
'So we have the funding to cover down on contingencies, especially ones as important as maintaining law and order in a major American city. As far as training, all of the units on the ground have been fully trained in their capabilities of what they're executing on the ground.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14800149/los-angeles-riots-mayor- curfew-protests.html
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