LA awaits US Marines as Trump muses about invoking 'insurrection' powers
Hundreds of US Marines were expected in Los Angeles on Tuesday as President Donald Trump again mused about declaring a full-blown "insurrection" following protests in a small part of the city.
The 700 elite troops will join around 4,000 National Guard soldiers, a stunning militarization of the sprawling city, which is home to millions of foreign-born and Latino residents.
Small-scale and largely peaceful demonstrations have taken place over four days, with sporadic but isolated violence erupting as protests dispersed and masked individuals confronted police.
Streets were quiet on Tuesday as the Little Tokyo neighborhood cleaned up after overnight clashes that saw an unruly mob shooting fireworks at officers in riot gear, who fired back with volleys of tear gas.
Several properties -- including the Apple Store -- had been looted.
Protests that erupted Friday were sparked by a sudden intensification last week of Trump's signature campaign to find and deport undocumented migrants, who he claims have mounted an "invasion" of the United States.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Tuesday stressed the majority of protesters have been peaceful -- and that local law enforcement could easily cope.
"The unrest that has happened (is) a few blocks within the downtown area," she said.
"It is not all of downtown, and it is not all of the city. Unfortunately, the visuals make it seem as though our entire city is in flames, and it is not the case."
She also slammed the deployment of active-duty soldiers, which the Pentagon said would cost taxpayers $134 million.
"What are the Marines going to do when they get here? That's a good question. I have no idea," she said.
- 'Behaving like a tyrant' -
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom filed an emergency motion asking a court for a restraining order to prevent troops hitting the streets.
"Sending trained warfighters onto the streets is unprecedented and threatens the very core of our democracy," he said.
"Donald Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President. We ask the court to immediately block these unlawful actions."
The filing to the US District Court in Northern California asking for an injunction by 1:00 pm local time (2000 GMT), names Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and charges they have violated the US Constitution.
Trump has branded the LA protesters "professional agitators and insurrectionists."
Asked again if he intended to invoke the Insurrection Act, a mechanism that would allow active duty military to employ lethal force against Americans, he said: "If there's an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We'll see."
In an extraordinary move, Trump has also called for Newsom's arrest, while the president's ultra-loyal speaker in the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, on Tuesday declared the California governor "ought to be tarred and feathered."
- 'Incredibly rare' -
Trump's use of the military is an "incredibly rare" move for a US president, Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles and a former lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force, told AFP.
The National Guard -- a fully equipped reserve armed forces -- is usually controlled by state governors and used typically on US soil in response to natural disasters.
The Guard has not been deployed by a president over the objections of a state governor since 1965, at the height of the civil rights movement.
Deployment of regular troops, such as the Marines, on US soil is even more unusual.
US law largely prevents the use of the military as a policing force -- absent an insurrection. Speculation is growing that Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act giving him a free hand to use regular troops for law enforcement around the country.
Trump "is trying to use emergency declarations to justify bringing in first the National Guard and then mobilizing Marines," law professor Frank Bowman, at the University of Missouri, told AFP.
Bowman said the "suspicion" is that Trump is aiming to provoke the kind of all-out crisis that would then justify extreme measures.
"That kind of spectacle feeds the notion that there is a genuine emergency and, you know, a genuine uprising against the lawful authorities, and that allows him to begin to use even more force."
E.Colombo--IM
