Amid ongoing protests in response to ICE raids and arrests in Los Angeles, 700 Marines in California have been ordered to assist, and they’re expected to arrive over the next 24 hours, a U.S. official confirmed.
Just to be clear, this entire protest is occurring in about a four block area around the Edward R. Roybal Federal Courthouse, ICE headquarters at the Robert Young Federal Building, and the Metropolitan Detention Center plus some blockage and vandalism on Hwy 101. There were some minor street violence and vandalism (including burning five Waymo autonomous cars) in Paramount and Compton (which are already high crime areas) but they aren’t directly connected to the protests at the federal sites. It isn’t clear where “700 Marines” from Twenty-Nine Palms are even going to station.
Stranger
The Waymos were torched Downtown near the 101.
I stand corrected.
Stranger
Will the Marines be equipped with fixed bayonets? Are fixed bayonets even a thing nowadays?
Probably be billeted in trump property and overcharged, like with the SS.
Or they can curl up on the floor with the National Guard.
The National Guard people evidently had no provisions or accommodations. I could envision an entire fleet of taco trucks pulling up and giving them all-you-can-eat tacos.
I haven’t been following so-called news much (for the past 20 year), but your statement that lawlessness is mostly confined to a relatively small area only begs the question as to why order hasn’t been restored quickly.
It would be understandable if lawlessness were widespread and therefore difficult to contain, but if it’s concentrated then the problem is easily solved. What would cause an easily solved problem to go unresolved? Perhaps law enforcement agencies do not have access to your (and now the Straight Dope forum) knowledge of the problem area?
Protests in of themselves are not lawlessness, such demonstrations are constitutionally protected. Vandalism and random violence that can occur in concert with protests as some take advantage of the cover are unlawful. But that does not indicate a lack of law, just the difficulty in pulling the unlawful from a lawful crowd without trampling on their rights or committing to undo force.
There are probably 20,000+ law enforcement officers in the greater LA County area (various police departments + sheriff’s department). I suspect that is plenty enough.
I suspect that too, which still begs the question as to why order has not been quickly restored from a small pocket of chaos.
… and you and I both know there aren’t well-intentioned, peaceful, virtuous protesters standing right next to the Molotov cocktail guy in the middle of the street. 100% of people in the street are lawless, and require order to be forcibly applied.
*bonus knowledge- the lawless folk alienate the handful of people who were ostensibly on the side of whatever their cause was.
**bonus bonus knowledge- illegally and violently protesting the removal of illegal aliens is on-brand, because disregard for law and order (legal immigration) predicts further disregard for law and order.
We know absolutely no such thing at all.
There was an interesting point mentioned from one of CNN’s reporters at the LA protests. He was in the crowd, and spoke about what he overheard. It went something like this:
A: Don’t throw stuff at the cops! That’ll make them shoot tear gas or something. Peaceful protest, remember?
B: Screw that. If you don’t want to be a part of what’s going to come, go home.
From that, I infer that there are peaceful protesters and there are agitators. The former want no trouble with law enforcement; the latter want lots of trouble with law enforcement. The problem, though, as the reporter said, was that both protesters and agitators were mixed in together.
Regardless, given the above, I think that it is safe to say that 100% of the people in the street are not lawless, requiring order to be forcibly applied.
These things never go quickly. I think you are underestimating just how difficult it is to contain agitated mobs.
I’m not getting into the weeds of rioters vs protesters and the timeline here and who provoked who and who was right or not. But let’s just say I have a more complicated view of the situation. Rioting has to be shut down while protesting, even very loud and heated protesting, has to be allowed. The difficulty is in dealing with the one without repressing the other.
The fuck are you talking about?
This is how Trump gets away with everything. Don’t allow that.
Because the law enforcement officers aren’t interested in restoring order. As we saw in 2020.
…but enough about ICE agents.
Thanks for my best laugh in a month.
From these people’s perspectives, they are resisting fascism and resisting an attempt to create an abusive authoritarian state for anyone who isn’t a white Trump supporter. Right now they’re coming after Trans kids and migrant workers, but the Trump admin and the MAGA movement will come for virtually everyone who isn’t a white, Christian, Trump supporter eventually.
Demanding people resisting this behavior never break the law, while Trump breaks the law constantly, is not a realistic plan. Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies, and those are just the crimes he was convicted of. Trump has likely committed thousands of felonies in his life, including violent ones like raping his wife and raping various other women.
Breaking the law has been an integral part of the civil rights movement. So has violence. In between abolitionists breaking the law, civil rights activists breaking the law, and the violence of the civil war, violence and law breaking played a large role in enfranchising marginalized groups.
Society has whitewashed the civil rights movement to make it non-threatening. MLK Jr owned guns and his home was described as an armory. This country was founded on violence. The idea that only Trump supporters are allowed to own guns and break the law, but everyone has to engage in ineffective peaceful protest and unilaterally disarm is not something people are ok with.
Those people on the bridge know that eventually Trump and MAGA will come for them too, and when they do, Trump and MAGA will use violence to come for them. Violence is still violence, irrelevant of whether it is legal or illegal. Everything Putin does is legal because Putin writes the laws in Russia.
Because the relatively small area where the lawlessness is confined is in Washington, DC, concentrated at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The protestors are trying to do their part to restore order, but it’s a difficult problem.
Just a reminder of that one time the military fired on protesters.
An additional problem is that some of the agitators may be provocateurs from the other side.
Might be a good idea to do so.