Downtown LA under curfew for second night after days of protests
A curfew is in place for a second night in Los Angeles after nearly a week of unrest in the city over US immigration raids.
Multiple people were arrested for violating the downtown curfew shortly after it came into effect at 20:00 local time on Wednesday (03:00 GMT on Thursday), the BBC's US partner CBS News reported.
Nearly 400 people have been arrested in LA since protests began on Friday, including 330 undocumented migrants and 157 people arrested for assault and obstruction - including one for the attempted murder of a police officer.
Federal prosecutors have so far charged two men for throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers in two separate incidents.
A total of 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines have been deployed to help quell the unrest. Some of those National Guard troops are now authorised to detain people until police can arrest them.
Hundreds of protesters marched to Los Angeles City Hall early in the evening before being dispersed by police.
As the curfew came into effect for a second night, LA Mayor Karen Bass wrote on X that the measure was designed to "stop bad actors who are taking advantage of the president's chaotic escalation".
She had earlier blamed the demonstrations on US President Donald Trump's immigration raids, which she said "provoked" residents by causing "fear" and "panic".
"A week ago, everything was peaceful," she told a news conference. "Things began to be difficult on Friday when raids took place."
Bass suggested 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 called on the istration to end the raids.
Bass's curfew, ordered on Tuesday, affects a relatively small area of about one square mile in the second-largest city in the US. She said she wanted "to stop the vandalism, to stop the looting", as LA had reached a "tipping point".
Later on Tuesday evening, police said they made "mass arrests" after another day of protest over the immigration action.
In a series of statements, they said that those detained included 203 people arrested for failure to disperse, 17 for curfew violations, three for possession of a firearm, and one for assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.
Two officers were injured in the skirmishes, the statement added.
But, the following day, police chief Jim McDonnell stressed that the disorder had occurred in a limited area: "Some of the imagery of the protests and the violence gives the appearance as though this is a city-wide crisis, and it is not."
US Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters at the White House that the curfew had "helped a bit".
Elsewhere in LA, Trump's immigration raids have continued, with the assistance of the National Guard troops.
The National Guard and Marine forces deployed to Los Angeles do not have the authority to make arrests - only to detain protesters until police can arrest them.
"They are strictly used for the protection of the federal personnel as they conduct their operations and to protect them to allow them to do their federal mission," said Maj Gen Scott Sherman, who is leading the deployment.
Some 500 National Guard troops have already been trained to accompany agents on immigration raids and some troops have already temporarily detained people in LA protests, Sherman told US media outlets.
Trump's row with state officials has ramped up after his decision to deploy federal troops to LA. The president has vowed to "liberate" the city, but he has been accused by California Governor Gavin Newsom of an "assault" on democracy.
Other state officials, too, have insisted that local law enforcement has the situation under control.
But US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has backed Trump, telling a Senate hearing on Wednesday that sending the troops to Los Angeles was "lawful and constitutional".
The military deployment to the LA area will cost $134m (£99m), the Pentagon has said.
While addressing troops at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina earlier this week, Trump described the protests as a "full-blown assault on peace and public order".
The Republican president said he planned to use "every asset at our disposal to quell the violence".
He urged troops to boo the names of Newsom and Joe Biden, his presidential predecessor, during his speech.
In televised remarks of his own, Newsom - who is seen as a potential presidential contender himself - again criticised the president's rare deployment of the US military without a request from state officials. He called it a "brazen abuse of power".
"California may be first – but it clearly won't end here," he said. "Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault right before our eyes."
Trump has set a goal for border agents of at least 3,000 daily arrests as he seeks to ramp up mass deportations, a signature pledge of his re-election campaign.
Since assuming office, the president has drastically reduced illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border to historically low levels.
A CBS News/YouGov poll conducted in early June, before the protests kicked off, found 54% of Americans saying they approved of Trump's deportation policy, and 50% approved of how he was handling immigration.
That compares with smaller numbers of 42% who gave approval to his economic policy and 39% for his policy on tackling inflation.