The Los Angeles Police Department arrested hundreds after the city’s mayor instituted measures seeking to quell violence in the metropolis.
After 23 businesses were vandalized Monday evening, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced a curfew on Tuesday, set to take effect that evening. The curfew was instituted from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. across most of downtown Los Angeles, including all or parts of the Civic Center, Historic Core, Little Tokyo, and Chinatown. Bass said it was necessary to curb the actions of “bad actors who do not support the immigrant community.”
Recommended Stories
- Anti-ICE protests go beyond LA: What other cities have seen demonstrations
- GOP governors prepared to stamp out LA-like violence ahead of anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ protests
- US veterans group aids Peruvian bust of international human trafficking ring
The LAPD announced Wednesday morning that under the curfew’s implementation, police had arrested over 200 people for failure to disperse, 17 for curfew violation, three for possession of a firearm, one for assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon, and one for discharging a laser at an LAPD airship. The numbers announced after Bass’s crackdown are more than double the arrests made the previous day, while the department announced it detained just 21 people on Sunday.
There appeared to be fewer recorded violent clashes between protesters and law enforcement as Tuesday bled into Wednesday than there have been since riots sparked on Friday, per LAPD data, marking a decline in tensions as the city enters the fifth day of demonstrations.
Still, two officers were injured as they attempted to carry out the curfew and clear large crowds lingering in downtown Los Angeles, according to a press release from the LAPD.
The Justice Department also announced on Wednesday that it has charged two men, one of them an illegal immigrant from Mexico, with targeting the LAPD during the protests with homemade bombs, also known as Molotov cocktails.
The suspects were charged with possession of an unregistered destructive device, which could land them up to 10 years in prison.
“When protesting crosses the line into violence, the penalties will be severe,” said U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli. “Possessing a Molotov cocktail or another destructive device is punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison. The vile attacks such as the ones alleged in these complaints could have resulted in life-altering or life-ending injuries to police officers, sheriff’s deputies, and innocent bystanders. We will not relent in dispensing swift justice to criminals who take advantage of our country’s freedoms to engage in lawlessness.”
The unrest in California’s largest city started over the weekend in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s activity in the area. In some cases, rioters violently attacked ICE and other federal agents for attempting to carry out the Trump administration’s deportation agenda, leading the president to send in thousands of National Guard members to quell violence.
The White House has attacked Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) for not doing more to stop protests.
Although they have denounced violence, the two California Democrats have predominantly sided with protesters, speaking out against ICE, and accusing the president of acting in an authoritarian and inflammatory manner by federalizing the situation with troops.
LAPD police chief Jim McDonnell has been pressured by migrant advocates, including some sitting on the Los Angeles City Council, to leak information about ICE activity in the area to city officials.
He rebuffed Councilmember Imelda Padilla for making such a suggestion on Tuesday.
LA IMMIGRATION RIOTS: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE PROTESTS, TRUMP’S RESPONSE, AND MORE
“You’re asking me to warn you about an enforcement action being taken by another agency before it happens? We can’t do that,” the police chief said, noting that such a warning would amount to obstruction of justice.
“That would be completely inappropriate and illegal,” McDonnell concluded.