Following nearly a week of unrest in the city due to US immigration operations, a curfew has been implemented for the second consecutive night in Los Angeles..
Multiple individuals were apprehended for violating the downtown curfew immediately after it was implemented at 20:00 local time (03:00 GMT), according to CBS, the BBC’s US partner.
Since the protests commenced on Friday, nearly 400 individuals have been apprehended in Los Angeles. This includes 330 undocumented migrants and 157 individuals who were arrested for assault and obstruction, including one for the attempted murder of a police officer.
Two individuals have been charged by federal prosecutors for hurling Molotov cocktails at police officers in two distinct incidents.
A total of 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard soldiers have been deployed to assist in the suppression of the unrest. Some of the National Guard soldiers are now authorized to detain individuals until the police can apprehend them.
Early Wednesday evening, hundreds of protesters marched to Los Angeles City Hall before being dispersed by law enforcement.
LA Mayor Karen Bass stated on X that the overnight curfew was implemented to “prevent bad actors from exploiting the president’s chaotic escalation” as it commenced.
She had previously attributed the demonstrations to the immigration operations of US President Donald Trump, which she claimed “provoked” residents by inciting “fear” and “panic.”
“Everything was tranquil a week ago,” she stated during a news conference on Wednesday.
“The situation became more challenging on Friday when raids were conducted.”
Bass proposed that Los Angeles was “part of a national experiment to determine how far the federal government can go in taking over power from a local government, from a local jurisdiction.”
She has previously urged the administration to discontinue the investigations.
Police in Los Angeles reported that they conducted “mass arrests” overnight on Tuesday and Wednesday following a fifth day of protests regarding the immigration action.
The police department of the city issued a series of statements in which it stated that 203 individuals were detained for failure to disperse, 17 for curfew violations, three for possession of a firearm, and one for assault with a lethal weapon on a police officer.
The statement also mentioned that two officers sustained injuries during the skirmishes.
Bass proclaimed an overnight curfew in a relatively small portion of the city’s downtown district on Tuesday, alleging that businesses were being vandalized and looted.
Police patrolled downtown areas after the LA curfew was implemented at 20:00 local time on Tuesday, employing rubber bullets to disperse gatherings.
Bass stated that the city had reached a “tipping point” and that she wished to “stop the vandalism, to stop the looting” when she elucidated the curfew on Tuesday.
The curfew order impacts an area of approximately one square mile in the second-largest city in the United States.
Jim McDonnell, the superintendent of police, stated, “The imagery of the protests and the violence may suggest that this is a city-wide crisis, but it is not.”
According to Pam Bondi, the United States Attorney General, the curfew “helped a bit” when she addressed reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
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