Nine reporter caught up in LA protests as governor hits out at Trump

Los Angeles: Law enforcement officers have fired tear gas, flash bangs and rubber bullets at protesters in Los Angeles – hitting a Nine News reporter in the process – after thousands of people took to the streets in response to US President Donald Trump’s extraordinary deployment of the California National Guard.

Sunday (Monday AEST) was the third and most intense day of demonstrations against Trump’s immigration crackdown in LA, with the arrival of around 300 Guard troops spurring anger and fear among many residents. Protesters blocked off a major freeway and set self-driving cars on fire as local law enforcement tried to control the crowd.

Nine News US correspondent Lauren Tomasi was reporting in a situation she said was rapidly deteriorating when she was shot in the leg by a rubber bullet, as Los Angeles police, some on horseback, moved in on protesters. She was not injured in the incident, which was captured on camera.

Speaking to Nine News, Tomasi confirmed she was safe.

“I’m okay, my cameraman Jimmy and I are both safe. This is just one of the unfortunate realities of reporting on these kinds of incidents,” she said.

“It has been a really volatile day on the streets of LA … There have been a lot of tempers flaring here today and certainly tonight there is a lot of anger in the City of Angels.”

Elsewhere, officers wearing riot gear lined up behind the National Guard deployed to protect federal facilities, including a downtown detention centre where some immigrants were taken after sweeping raids in the city that triggered protests on Friday and Saturday and prompted Trump’s decision to send in the state-based military force, which can be placed under federal command in certain circumstances.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said the order to send in 2000 National Guard troops was unlawful, and he had requested that the Trump administration withdraw it. He accused Trump of trying to manufacture a crisis and violating California’s state sovereignty.

The last time a National Guard was activated without a governor’s permission was in 1965, when president Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Centre for Justice.

“These are the acts of a dictator, not a president,” Newsom posted on X.

“The federal government is sowing chaos so they can have an excuse to escalate. That is not the way any civilised country behaves.”

The White House disputed Newsom’s characterisation, saying in a statement that “everyone saw the chaos, violence and lawlessness”.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass echoed Newsom’s comments.

“What we’re seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration,” she said in an afternoon press conference. “This is about another agenda, this isn’t about public safety.”

National Guard troops stand their line at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday.Credit: AP

Their admonishments did not deter the administration.

“It’s a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

The protests began on Friday in downtown LA before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighbouring Compton. Federal agents arrested immigrants in LA’s fashion district, in a Home Depot parking lot and at several other locations on Friday. The next day, they were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid.

By midday on Sunday, hundreds of people had gathered outside the Metropolitan Detention Centre, chanting “shame” and “go home” to members of the National Guard, who stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields. After some protesters closely approached the guard members, a different set of uniformed officers advanced, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street.

President Donald Trump attends a mixed martial arts event in New Jersey on Saturday as UFC head Dana White looks on.Credit: AP

Minutes later, the Los Angeles Police Department fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters. Police declared an unlawful assembly, and by early evening many people had left. But those who remained grabbed chairs from a nearby public park to form a makeshift barrier, throwing objects at police on the other side. Others standing above the closed southbound 101 Freeway threw chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at highway patrol officers.

Video footage showed the National Guard troops were largely refraining from clashing with the demonstrators, The New York Times reported.

Trump called the demonstrators “violent, insurrectionist mobs” in a social media post on Sunday and said he was directing his cabinet officers “to take all such action necessary” to stop what he described as “riots”.

Speaking to reporters in New Jersey, he threatened violence against demonstrators who spit on police or National Guard troops, saying, “They spit, we hit”. He did not cite any specific incidents.

“If we see danger to our country and to our citizens, it will be very, very strong in terms of law and order,” Trump said as he headed to Camp David.

“We’re going to have troops everywhere, we’re not going to let this happen to our country.

“Last night in Los Angeles, we watched it very closely, there was a lot of violence there – there was a lot of violence, and it could have gotten much worse.”

Why did Trump send in the National Guard?

Trump border tsar Tom Homan told NBC News that Newsom and Bass, the mayor, should be thanking the president for helping restore order, and warned the leaders they could be arrested if they obstructed immigration enforcement efforts.

Protesters in the street as tear gas is fired at them on Sunday.Credit: AP

Trump’s decision to send in troops and bypass Newsom keeps with promises he made during last year’s election campaign to deploy the military more aggressively in the nation’s cities.

During his first term of office, in the summer of 2020, Trump pushed to send active-duty military troops to quell racial protests across the US, former defence secretary Mark Esper told a House committee years later. Esper said that he and others had to convince Trump there was no predicate for that use of the military.

At the time, Trump felt that the civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota made the US look weak, Esper told the committee.

During an election campaign event in Iowa in 2023, Trump labelled several big cities “crime dens” and said he had previously held back from sending in the military.

Protesters clash with National Guard troops and police in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday.Credit: AP

“You’re supposed to not be involved in that – you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in. The next time, I’m not waiting,” Trump said at the Iowa event.

To deploy the National Guard, Trump invoked a legal provision that allows him to deploy federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States”.

The White House cited what Trump described as credible threats of violence that could obstruct enforcement efforts and “constitute a form of rebellion” against the US government.

But the legal basis for the decision could face challenges. Federal law strictly limits the deployment of federal troops within US borders.

The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, along with amendments and supporting regulations, generally bars the use of the active-duty US military – the army, navy, air force and marines – from carrying out domestic law enforcement. The law doesn’t apply to state-controlled National Guard forces.

Trump directed US Northern Command to assume control of the National Guard and dispatch 2000 soldiers to the area “for 60 days or at the discretion of the secretary of defence”, the White House said in a statement.

About 300 soldiers have since been deployed to three locations in greater Los Angeles, according to US Northern Command. The deployed troops are part of the California National Guard’s 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, primarily a combat unit, although it has previously been called up to support civilian authorities, and a unit that most recently responded to the wildfires in LA this year.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Saturday (Sunday AEST) that Marines could be sent next if protests intensified. Newsom called Hegseth’s suggestion of deploying the Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton “deranged”. Hegseth countered overnight that Newsom had allowed violence to get out of hand.

“Deranged = allowing your city to burn & law enforcement to be attacked,” Hegseth said in a post on X. “There is plenty of room for peaceful protest, but ZERO tolerance for attacking federal agents who are doing their job.”

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders said the order by Trump to deploy the Guard reflected “a president moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism” and “usurping the powers of the United States Congress”.

LA Police Chief Jim McDonnell has stressed that his officers are not working with federal agents on civil immigration enforcement and the department follows a long-standing policy that bars officers from stopping people solely to determine their immigration status.

“Everyone has the right to peacefully assemble and voice their opinions,” the department said in a statement on X. “However, vandalising property and attempting to seriously injure officers, whether Federal or LAPD, is not peaceful.”

What is ICE?

Facing mounting pressure from the White House, US agency ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement – has ramped up immigration arrests in recent weeks, averaging about 2000 detentions a day nationwide, but still falling short of the administration’s goal of at least 3000 daily arrests.

The stepped-up enforcement is part of Trump’s vow to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history. In the Los Angeles area, ICE reported 118 arrests last week, though the agency had not released updated figures on Sunday morning.

Congresswoman Nanette Barragan, a Democrat whose district includes Paramount and other parts of Los Angeles County, said ICE agents were stopping “anybody at a bus stop that’s going to shop” and she had been warned to expect 30 days of stepped-up enforcement.

She accused the Trump administration of using federal troops to suppress dissent and said by the time the more violent skirmishes broke out on Saturday night, the original protesters had already cleared out, and the “unruly folks” had arrived.

“It’s going to escalate the situation,” she said on CNN’s State of the Union overnight. “People are going to protest because they’re angry about the situation. And we have to just reiterate, [to] the people to do it peacefully.”

Bloomberg, AP, Reuters

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