Curfew, Aggressive LAPD Tactics Thin Demonstrations As ICE Raids Spread

LOS ANGELES, CA —Los Angeles police descended on the downtown area Tuesday night with a dramatic display of force as an 8 p.m. curfew took effect.

With sirens wailing and lights flickering, a parade of Los Angeles Police Department SUVs approached a crowd of fewer than 200 demonstrators already flanked by a row of officers guarding the shuttered Broadway Metro station. Officers on horseback also descended on the square-mile section of downtown subject to the curfew. Police fired non-lethal rounds at the assembled group at least 10 minutes before the mayor's 8 p.m. curfew took effect, while skirmish lines boxed protesters in.

With the nation's eyes upon the unrest in Los Angeles, a police department already under fire from city leaders over its aggressive response to demonstrations, clearly came intent on quelling the unrest early Tuesday, the fifth straight day of anti-ICE demonstrations.

By 9:30 p.m., police confirmed making "mass arrests" for curfew violations on First Street between Spring and Alameda streets. Throughout the evening, on every block, police dramatically outnumbered the protesters.

"It feels very much scattered, and it feels intentional from the police to scatter us and put us in smaller groups to make protests less powerful," said Andy L., a 22-year-old who joined the protests each night this week. Tuesday differed from the previous days, he said.

As the evening wore on Tuesday night, few protesters could be seen while police flooded the streets. Waiting in the wings are roughly 5,000 National Guard soldiers and U.S. Marines called in by President Donald Trump over the objections of the governor, city leaders, and even local law enforcement. Trump, in a speech to the U.S. Army Tuesday, called Los Angeles a "trash heap" and its protesters "animals." He vowed to "liberate" the city with widespread deployment of soldiers. It was an incendiary speech from a politician blamed by many local leaders for inciting the unrest to begin with.

Gov. Gavin Newsom fired back in a nationally televised address Tuesday night, urging Americans to fight for their democracy against the 'authoritarianism' behind the decision to send the military into the streets of a major American city against the will of local and state leaders.

“California may be first, but it clearly won’t end here,” Newsom said. “Other states are next. Democracy is next.”

“Democracy is under assault right before our eyes," he added. "The moment we’ve feared has arrived.”

On Tuesday, immigration raids spread throughout California with raids or protests confirmed in Orange, Ventura, Los Angeles counties, as well as Long Beach, San Francisco, and Central Valley agricultural communities.

In Los Angeles County, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell faced scrutiny from the City Council over his department's handling of the demonstrations. He reported that 114 people were arrested at protests Monday night, mainly for failure to disperse, along with 15 looting arrests and an assault with a deadly weapon on an officer and attempted murder arrest.

He defended his department against allegations of excessive force, random shooting into the crowd, and the appearance of working cooperatively with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

“If we know somebody is coming here to do warrantless abductions of the residents of this city, those are not our partners,” City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson chided him, according to The Los Angeles Times. “I don’t care what badge they have on or whose orders they’re under. They’re not our partners."

Other city leaders took issue with the aggressive use of non-lethal weapons.

“To see a reporter get shot with a rubber bullet ... on live television does not add to the de-escalation,” the Times quoted Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez saying. “We have to be mindful of the tactics being used by some LAPD members, that is adding to the escalation.”

Police continued to fire rubber bullets directly into the crowd of protesters Tuesday afternoon.

Nearly drowned out by the sound of police sirens Tuesday night, 31-year-old Los Angeles resident Daniel Rizo said he came downtown to protest for the first time this week when he heard the U.S. Marines had been deployed by the president against mostly peaceful protesters.

"I heard Marines were going to be out here, and so I said I got to fight for and stand with and for my people," Rizo said.

Rizo described the scene as oppressive, with fear evident in both the protesters and the police. Born in the United States, Rizo is part of an immigrant family and saw his older brother deported to Mexico when they were teens.

The experience was difficult for his family, and Rizo said it inspired him to want to stand up against oppression and injustice.

"We are in front of the cops and nothing has happened, you know, so it's just them instilling fear," Rizo said. "You know, and that's all it is, you know, you just got to look fear in the face and just see what happens."

While Tuesday's protests were mostly peaceful through the afternoon, an unlawful assembly was declared by police around 4:40 p.m. on an overpass where protesters had gathered. Tuesday followed two days of protests that turned violent, including looting and the torching driverless cars.

Hundreds of people ultimately gathered outside MDC Tuesday afternoon, but National Guard troops formed a skirmish line to prevent them from entering the facility. By early afternoon, the Los Angeles Police Department had ordered the crowd to disperse, and many protesters made their way either north or south on Alameda Street, away from the MDC.

Several dozen protesters, however, remained near the facility, and LAPD officers in skirmish lines quickly surrounded the group and began making arrests, loading the protesters into buses to take them out of the area.

As those arrests were made, a group of several hundred protesters marched east on Temple Street, then made their way north to the 101 Freeway, poured through a gap in a chain link fence, and walked onto the freeway, blocking traffic on both sides.

California Highway Patrol officers, however, wasted little time and took aggressive action to push the crowd off the roadway. At least two people were seen being taken into custody as they struggled with CHP officers pushing them back.

The protesters then marched back toward the downtown area.

Monday’s protests saw the return of looting and vandalism in downtown, with demonstrators intensifying their calls for the end of ICE raids, though the crowd was much smaller than the weekend's showdown.

As protesters returned to LA's downtown on Tuesday, a dizzying back-and-forth between California Democrats and Trump's administration ensued throughout the day, with both parties levying blame at the other for the situation in LA.

"Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President," Newsom said on Tuesday of President Donald Trump's deployment of the military into Southern California. Meanwhile, Trump called protesters in Los Angeles “a foreign enemy” in a speech at Fort Bragg on Tuesday as he defended deploying the military on demonstrators opposed to his immigration enforcement raids.

Amid the reignited feud between Newsom and Trump, a federal judge in San Francisco denied the governor's emergency order to block the deployment of additional federal troops to the Southland. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, however, scheduled a hearing for Thursday afternoon regarding the state's request for a restraining order.

Protests Resume In Downtown Tuesday

After a relatively quiet day, things were becoming a little more contentious near the Metropolitan Detention Center toward 5 p.m.

Police declared an "unlawful assembly" around 4:40 p.m. on the nearby Alameda Street overpass where protesters had gathered. Officers gave a five-minute warning before efforts to clear the area would be made.

The crowd noticeably thinned since police declared the orde,r and the remaining protesters were calm, with the most movement coming from those waving flags, according to reports from the scene.

Just before that, federal agents had fired several non-lethal rounds at protesters and detained at least one man as they worked to push demonstrators away from the facility on Alameda Street on Tuesday afternoon, the LA Times reported.

Unlike Monday, police began blocking off many of the streets leading to the detention center. After a soldier fired what appeared to be pepper balls, the crowd of protesters started coughing.

“We were peaceful!” One said.

According to reports from downtown LA just before 4 p.m., much of the downtown area was quiet, with many residents and workers carrying on as usual. Los Angeles police officers were lined up, blocking Temple Street, drawing a sharp line between the protesters and the quiet streets beyond.

"The United States is an immigrant nation," Jezreel Keitz told Patch at Tuesday's rally. Keitz, an immigrant himself, says the police have "very much" been the main aggressors over the last few days. "The police start shooting...but protesters never did anything at all."

An assortment of National Guard, ICE, and police officers have maintained a line in front of the Federal Building on Temple Street, across from the Los Angeles Mall, since Monday.

Upon the pedestrian bridge above Temple Street, two women waved custom flags — half American, half Mexican. The pair repeatedly played Black Eyed Peas' "Where is the Love" on a small Bluetooth speaker while yelling phrases from the song down to passersby.

"We're both here because we're able to and our parents can't," Alexis, 22, told Patch.

Later, the pair moved to the Alameda overpass and waved their flags in the open space between the police line and the protesters.

LA response takes stage on Capitol Hill

The Pentagon said deploying the National Guard and Marines costs $134 million. The defense secretary said the troops are needed to protect federal agents.

Meanwhile, Democratic members of California’s congressional delegation on Tuesday accused the president of creating a “manufactured crisis."

On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit over the use of National Guard troops, seeking to halt the deployment.

Trump said the city would have been “completely obliterated” if he had not deployed the Guard.
The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration’s mass deportation efforts.

Marines Arrive But Remain On Standby As Unrest Cools Tuesday

The commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Eric Smith, said the battalion deployed to Southern California was already on the ground Tuesday morning and ready to follow orders from the U.S. Northern Command. However, he clarified, they have not yet been called to respond.

The U.S. Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division in Twentynine Palms have been sent to a military base within minutes of Los Angeles County.

They are in a standby status, conducting training before they are deployed, a U.S. Northern Command spokesperson confirmed to Patch. The soldiers would likely be deployed to quell unrest on the streets of Southern California within days as necessary, according to Northern Command.

Smith testified at a budget hearing before senators that those Marines are trained for crowd control, and they would have shields and batons as their equipment. He said they have no arrest authority and are only there to protect federal property and federal personnel.

When asked by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, about the danger that Marines would use lethal force that could result in injuries and deaths, Smith said he had faith in them.

“I am not concerned. I have great faith in my Marines and their junior leaders and their more senior leaders to execute the lawful tasks that they are given.”

LA Sees Smaller Protests Monday, But Looting Continued

On Monday night, multiple protests across Downtown Los Angeles were declared illegal.
The evening's first dispersal order came around 5:30 p.m. in front of the federal Metropolitan Detention Center and Robert Young Federal Building, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and California National Guard members had lined up.

As the crowd grew to more than a thousand people, the LAPD declared their assembly unlawful and ordered them to disperse. Tensions began to boil over soon after.

Some protesters resisted police orders to disperse. The air was thick with a noxious mix of spray paint fumes, tear gas, and sulfurous bottle rockets.

Officers had their riot shields, while some demonstrators grabbed sandwich boards from outside businesses, trash cans, and dumpsters to use as makeshift shields. Where police deployed gas, protesters returned fire in the form of fireworks. Other demonstrators loudly maintained their calls for peaceful protest amid the fracas.

Some of the most intense activity Monday evening took place in Little Tokyo and the Arts District, where people threw fireworks and other objects at police in riot gear, who responded with flash bangs and rubber bullets.

Video showed some demonstrators being placed on police buses with their hands zip-tied behind their backs. Blocks and blocks of businesses in the area were tagged, though it appeared that looting and other vandalism were kept to a minimum.

On Monday night, A window was smashed at an Apple Store downtown during the unrest, with some items stolen and graffiti painted on the shop's windows. An Adidas store was also hit by looters, along with a jewelry store, a pair of pharmacies, a shoe store, and a marijuana dispensary. The affected stores were generally in an area on or near Broadway, near roughly Seventh and Eighth streets.

The LAPD just released tear gas on the crowd that assembled in the area of San Pedro and Second Street, after declaring the assembly unlawful. Some of the protesters then shot fireworks toward the skirmish line. pic.twitter.com/iJbHP1R6YK
— Los Angeles Patch (@LosAngelesPatch) June 10, 2025

"We stated very publicly that it’s 60 days because we want to ensure that those rioters, looter,s and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told members of the House appropriations defense subcommittee.

However, Trump said on Tuesday morning that the National Guard would remain in LA "until there's no danger."

LA Mayor Bass condemned the looting, noting in a social media post that people who are vandalizing and burglarizing stores are unaffiliated with people legitimately protesting on behalf of immigrants.

"Let me be clear: Anyone who vandalized downtown or looted stores does not care about our immigrant communities," Bass wrote. "You will be held accountable."

PREVIOUS UPDATES FROM TUESDAY, JUNE 10:

• A federal judge in San Francisco has denied a request by the state of California for an emergency order blocking the deployment of additional federalized troops to the Southland. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, however, has scheduled a hearing for Thursday afternoon on the state's request for a restraining order.
• Dozens of demonstrators have amassed in front of the downtown Metropolitan Detention Center, where National Guard troops maintain a skirmish line around the building. The afternoon protest outside MDC was so far peaceful, with no reports of serious confrontations between activists and National Guard troops.
• 96 people were arrested on suspicion of failure to disperse during Monday night's demonstrations.
• 14 people were arrested on suspicion of looting, according to the LAPD.

• 300 or so people have been detained since ICE sweeps began last week, according to Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of LA (LA Times).
• A convoy of Marines was spotted arriving at an Orange County base on Tuesday. While officials said Marines were in the greater LA area, it wasn’t immediately clear if all 700 Marines were at the Seal Beach weapons station, or just a portion of them. (LA Times)
• Marines are currently in a standby status, conducting training before they are deployed, a U.S. Northern Command spokesperson confirmed to Patch. The soldiers would likely be deployed to the streets of Southern California within days as necessary, according to Northern Command.

Updated 1 p.m.

• Mayor Karen Bass is considering enacting a curfew in downtown Los Angeles following additional vandalism in the area Monday night, she said.
• Newsom says "Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President. We ask the court to immediately block these unlawful actions."
• Paul Eck, deputy general counsel in the California Military Department says the department has been informed that the Pentagon plans to direct the National Guard to start providing support for immigration operations. That support would include holding secure perimeters around areas where raids are taking place and securing streets for immigration agents.
• Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said he was confident in the police department’s ability to handle large-scale demonstrations and that the Marines’ arrival without coordinating with the police department would present a “significant logistical and operational challenge.”

Updated 11:26 a.m.:

• Newsom announced Tuesday morning that, along with a lawsuit, he filed an emergency motion to block the deployment of troops in Los Angeles.
• Trump, during his Oval Office press conference Tuesday, left open the possibility of invoking one of the most extreme emergency powers available to a U.S. president.
  “If there’s an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We’ll see,” Trump said. “But I can tell you last night was terrible, and the night before that was terrible.”

RELATED: War of Words Over ICE Enforcement Continues Between CA, DC Officials

City News Service, the Associated Press and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.