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Rioters smashed windows of the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD’s) headquarters on West 1st Street and faced tear gas that officials deployed downtown as agitators clash with authorities in the city.
Rioters were seen targeting the LAPD headquarters on Sunday night as violent demonstrations spread through LA over the weekend in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.
President Donald Trump sent 2,000 National Guard troops to the area on Friday.
“California politicians must call off their rioting mob,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a Monday morning post on X, along with video footage from the riots. “Federal law enforcement are working to protect and safeguard American citizens from criminal illegal aliens. Why is California’s governor siding with foreign criminals?”
NY TIMES SAYS ‘REAL EMERGENCY’ IS TRUMP SENDING TROOPS TO LOS ANGELES
Police officers are enveloped in a cloud of smoke from tear gas and percussion grenades while guarding a highway onramp during a protest against federal immigration sweeps in downtown Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 8, 2025. (REUTERS/Omar Younis)
The LAPD declared an “unlawful assembly” Sunday evening as protesters failed to disperse in the downtown area.
“Agitators have splintered into and through out [sic] the Downtown Area,” the LAPD’s Central Division wrote on X. “Residents, businesses and visitors to the Downtown Area should be alert and report any criminal activity. Officers are responding to several different locations to disperse crowds.”
Protesters throw objects at police vehicles on a Freeway near the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (Ethan Swope)
Other video footage from the weekend shows protesters spitting on the American flag and setting it on fire while chanting “F Trump”; setting fire to vehicles; and throwing objects and fireworks at police.
ANTI-ICE PROTESTERS IN LOS ANGELES SPIT ON AND BURN AMERICAN FLAG
A man spits on a burning American flag during an anti-ICE protest in Los Angeles. (Oliya Scootercaster/FreedomNewsTV)
The demonstrations have drawn different responses from local and national politicians, with Democrats supporting Americans’ right to protest and Republicans calling for law and order.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, for example, said Trump had overstepped his boundaries when he deployed the National Guard to help with the anti-ICE riots, claiming “local law enforcement didn’t need help.”
CHUCK DEVORE: TRUMP MOVES FAST TO SAVE LA FROM A 1992 REPEAT
A law enforcement officer works to put out a fire during a protest in Compton, Calif., Saturday, June 7, 2025, after federal immigration authorities conducted operations. (Ethan Swope)
“Let’s get this straight: 1) Local law enforcement didn’t need help. 2) Trump sent troops anyway — to manufacture chaos and violence. 3) Trump succeeded. 4) Now things are destabilized, and we need to send in more law enforcement just to clean up Trump’s mess,” Newsom wrote in a separate post on X.
Newsom arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday evening to oversee the response to the anti-ICE riots, meeting with state emergency officials.
Smoke rises from a burning car on Atlantic Boulevard, during a standoff by protesters and law enforcement, following multiple detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in the Los Angeles County city of Paramount, California, U.S., June 7, 2025. (REUTERS/Barbara Davidson)
“We’re here to keep the peace — not play into Trump’s political games,” Newsom wrote.
Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker suggested the riots have been “peaceful” on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. He accused Trump of “sowing chaos” with his nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration and called the president’s move to send in troops “hypocritical at best” due to his pardoning of the January 6 Capitol rioters.
WATCH: Sen. Cory Booker calls Los Angeles riots ‘peaceful’
“The reality is, we see peaceful protests launching in Los Angeles,” the New Jersey senator said. “A lot of these peaceful protests are being generated because the president of the United States is sowing chaos and confusion by arresting people who are showing up for their immigration hearings.”
Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to “Fox News Live” on Sunday and called the move to send in the National Guard “common sense” and “basic law enforcement.”
CALIFORNIA REPUBLICANS SLAM NEWSOM, BASS FOR LETTING LA BURN WITH RIOTS AMID TRUMP IMMIGRATION BLITZ
Demonstrators block the highway, as law enforcement officers stand facing them, during a protest against federal immigration sweeps in downtown Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 8, 2025. (REUTERS/Mike Blake)
The administration is “bringing in folks to provide support so that we can do the fundamental duty of the government, which is to protect its law enforcement and its people from these violent assaults,” Pompeo said.
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“We do all remember the summer of ‘20 when this got out of hand and the local law enforcement and governments just let the flames burn. This can’t happen this time, and you see President Trump and his team taking the actions that are both appropriate and necessary to protect people,” the former Secretary of State said.
Fox News’ Louis Casiano, Stephen Sorace and David Spector contributed to this report.
