By Stefan J. Bos. Chief International Correspondent, Worthy News
LOS ANGELES, USA (Worthy News) – As darkness fell over riot-ridden Los Angeles, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, pleaded with American President Donald J. Trump to rescind his “unlawful” deployment of national guard troops in the U.S. city and return them to his command.
Newsom’s plea came while the military confirmed that some 500 U.S. Marines in southern California were “prepared to deploy” to Los Angeles if the Trump administration directed them to do so.
The U.S. Northern Command said in a statement that Marines from Twentynine Palms, California, about a two-hour drive east of Los Angeles, are in “prepared to deploy status should they be necessary to augment and support the [Department of Defense] DoD’s protection of federal property and personnel efforts”.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had earlier discussed deploying American Marines to the streets of Los Angeles, the state’s most populous city, to quell the protests.
Newsom described deploying the military in the city of nearly 4 million people as “deranged”. There are currently roughly 300 members of the California National Guard deployed in Los Angeles, and the Trump administration has placed 2,000 soldiers under federal command.
However, late Sunday, Newsom called the deployment “a serious breach of state sovereignty”.
“We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved,” Newsom said in a post on the social media platform X monitored by Worthy News. “This is a serious breach of state sovereignty — inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they’re actually needed. Rescind the order. Return control to California.”
GOVERNORS CONDEMNATION
Earlier, he and several other Democratic governors condemned Trump’s deployment of the California National Guard as an “alarming abuse of power.”
They write, “Governors are the Commanders in Chief of their National Guard, and the federal government activating them within their own borders without consulting or working with a state’s governor is ineffective and dangerous.”
However, Trump has questioned Newsom’s ability to govern California, which has seen riots as well as massive, deadly fires earlier this year.
The latest protests and related riots began Friday when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers executed search warrants at multiple locations, including outside a clothing warehouse in the city’s fashion district, Worthy News reported at the time.
Representatives for Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Attorney’s Office said a judge agreed there was “probable cause” that the employer was using fictitious documents for some of its workers.
Advocates for immigrants’ rights said there were also migration detentions outside Home Depot stores and a doughnut shop.
Federal agents executed four search warrants related to the suspected harboring of people “illegally” in the country at three locations in central Los Angeles, said Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, a spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of ICE.
SCORES DETAINED
Some 44 people were “administratively arrested,” and one person was arrested for obstruction during Friday’s immigration action, she added.
Yet a tense scene unfolded as a crowd tried to block agents from driving away with what authorities said were immigrants staying illegally in the United States, in which at least one journalist was injured.
Nick Stern, a British news photographer based in Los Angeles, is set to undergo emergency surgery for a wound sustained during the standoff between police and anti-ICE protesters in Los Angeles on Saturday.
Stern said that he was covering the anti-ICE protest when what doctors believe to be a ‘sponge bullet’ hit his thigh
The journalist told British media he had been covering the protest near a branch of Home Depot in Paramount, where immigrant workers are typically hired for day work, when he felt a sharp pain in his leg.
“I’m walking around taking photos, and was untouched until around 9 pm. I was walking across the road when I felt a mighty pain in my leg. I put my hand down and felt a lump kind of sticking out of the back of my leg,” he recalled.
Stern believes he was likely hit by a non-lethal round that deputies were using along with flash-bang stun grenades for crowd control.
PEOPLE SUPPORTIVE
“People came over to help and got me on the curb. A medic was called, who cut off my clothes. In my leg was what felt like a five-centimeter hole with muscle hanging out of it and blood all down my leg. The medic put a tourniquet on it, and a journalist I was with took me to [the Emergency Room] ER.”
In a separate incident, an Australian television journalist was hit in the leg by a nonlethal round Sunday while reporting live from downtown Los Angeles on the large-scale protests.
Video of the incident released by 9News showed correspondent Lauren Tomasi, microphone in hand, reporting live when an officer behind her suddenly raised their firearm and fired a nonlethal round at close range. Tomasi, who did not appear to be wearing personal protective equipment, cried out in pain and clutched her lower leg as she and her cameraman quickly moved away from the police line. “You just (expletive) shot the reporter,” a voice off-camera can be heard shouting. Tomasi assured her crew she was okay: “Yeah, I’m good, I’m good.”
The shooting came after a tense afternoon in which Tomasi and her crew were caught between riot police and protesters. President Trump had pledged to deport those who stay or enter the United States “illegally,” especially members of crime groups.
However, critics of the policy view the actions as often racist and politically motivated, charges strongly denied by Trump.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass condemned the ICE actions, saying that “as a proud city of immigrants, we will not stand for tactics that sow terror in our communities.”
President Trump responded by calling Bass and Newscom “incompetent.” He has said that their “sanctuary policies” for “illegal immigrants” enable violence. He also announced a ban on face coverings at protests. “These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT be tolerated,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform. “MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED.”
Yet while authorities urged calm, there were no signs yet that Los Angeles would return to a sense of normalcy.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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