The tens of thousands of “No Kings” protesters who hit the streets across the nation this weekend were vibrant and vocal but largely peaceful, with perhaps the biggest gathering drawing an estimated 30,000 people to downtown Los Angeles. Authorities reported around 500 arrests in Southern California as some evening demonstrations erupted into clashes involving tear gas and rubber bullets.
Across the U.S., an estimated 2,000 organized protests of Donald Trump’s immigration policies took place, according to media reports, even as the president presided over a massive military parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American armed forces on Saturday, which also happened to be his 79th birthday.
SoCal marches fanned out in Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Thousand Oaks, South Bay and points between. In Torrance, where a 9-year-old elementary school student and his father were detained and deported to Honduras last month, thousands of protesters lined Torrance Boulevard for roughly a mile, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“When I saw that fourth-grade boy taken from his family, it gave me chills thinking of how scared he was,” retired school librarian Laurie Pisano told the paper. “Democracy is important, and that’s not what’s happening.”
Much smaller gatherings of pro-Trump counter-protesters were also present, like in Republican-leaning Pasadena and Huntington Beach, where groups held signs in support of the president’s agenda to carry out mass deportations. The Times reported that one group held “Make America Great Again” and “Support Your Local ICE Raid” placards that included an epithet to describe undocumented immigrants.
The Trump administration has justified its immigration raids as a safety issue, and a fulfillment of promises from the president’s 2024 campaign.
A crowd of a few hundred protesters surrounded a federal building Saturday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles, where a line of armed Marines – called in by Trump over the protests of Gov. Gavin Newsom – guarded the entrance. The Los Angeles Police Department declared dispersal orders around 4 p.m., saying people were “throwing rocks, bricks, bottles and other objects.”
Police on horseback charged the crowd sometime later, shooting rubber bullets, firing tear-gas canisters and waving batons, the Times reported. The area was cleared in a matter of minutes.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass pleaded with protesters to remain peaceful.
“Please, please, do not give the administration an excuse to intervene,” she said, adding that the city’s 8 p.m. curfew would remain in place through Saturday. “Don’t even try,” she added.
A federal judge this week said the White House had to hand National Guard control back to Gov. Gavin Newsom. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals paused a lower court’s order this week for Trump to hand control of the National Guard back to Newsom.
A hearing on the order is scheduled for Tuesday.
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