violence

In the wacky political world of Southeast Los Angeles County — where scandals seem to bloom every year with the regularity of jacarandas — there’s never been a mess as pendejo as the one stirred up this week by Cudahy Vice Mayor Cynthia Gonzalez.

How else would you describe an elected official telling gang leaders, in a video posted to social media, to “f— get your members in order” and take to the streets against Donald Trump’s immigration raids?

Gonzalez’s rant has set off a national storm at the worst possible time. Conservative media is depicting her as a politician — a Latino, of course — issuing a green light to gangs to go after la migra. On social media, the Department of Homeland Security shared her video, which it called “despicable,” and insisted that “this kind of garbage” has fueled “assaults” against its agents.

Gonzalez later asked her Facebook friends to help her find a lawyer, because “the FBI just came to my house.” To my colleague Ruben Vives, the agency didn’t confirm or deny Gonzalez’s assertion.

The first-term council member deserves all the reprimands being heaped on her — most of all because the video that set off this pathetic episode is so cringe.

“I want to know where all the cholos are at in Los Angeles — 18th Street, Florencia, where’s the leadership at?” Gonzalez said at the beginning of her video, which was quickly taken down. “You guys tag everything up claiming ‘hood,’ and now that your hood’s being invaded by the biggest gang there is, there ain’t a peep out of you!”

Gonzalez went on to claim that 18th Street and Florencia 13 — rivals that are among the largest and most notorious gangs in Southern California — shouldn’t be “trying to claim no block, no nothing, if you’re not showing up right now trying to, like, help out and organize. I don’t want to hear a peep out of you once they’re gone.”

The Cudahy council’s second-in-command seems to have recorded the clip at a party, judging by her black halter top, bright red lipstick, fresh hairstyle and fancy earrings, with club music thumping in the background. She looked and sounded like an older cousin who grew up in the barrio and now lives in Downey, trying to sound hard in front of her bemused cholo relatives.

The Trump administration is looking for any reason to send in even more National Guard troops and Marines to quell what it has characterized as an insurrection. If inviting a gang to help — let alone two gangs as notorious as 18th Street and Florencia — doesn’t sound like what Trump claims he’s trying to quash, I’m not sure what is.

Perhaps worst of all, Gonzalez brought political ignominy once again on Southeast L.A. County, better known as SELA. Its small, supermajority Latino cities have long been synonymous with political corruption and never seem to get a lucky break from their leaders, even as Gonzalez’s generation has vowed not to repeat the sins of the past.

Cudahy Vice Mayor Cynthia Gonzalez

(City of Cudahy)

“In her post, Dr. Gonzalez issued a challenge to the Latino community: join the thousands of Angelenos already peacefully organizing in response to ongoing enforcement actions,” her attorney, Damian J. Martinez, said in a written statement. “Importantly, Dr. Gonzalez in no way encouraged anyone to engage in violence. Any suggestion that she advocated for violence is categorically false and without merit.”

For their part, Cudahy officials said that Gonzalez’s thoughts “reflect her personal views and do not represent the views or official position of the City of Cudahy.”

Raised in Huntington Park and a graduate of Bell High, Gonzalez has spent 22 years as a teacher, principal and administrator in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In 2023, after Cudahy — a suburb of about 22,000 residents that’s 98% Latino — became the first city in Southern California to approve a Gaza ceasefire resolution, she told The Times’ De Los section that Latinos “understand what it means to be left behind.”

A few weeks ago, Gonzalez appeared alongside Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and elected leaders from Los Angeles and Ventura counties to decry the immigration raids that were just ramping up.

“I want to speak to Americans, especially those who have allowed our community to be the scapegoat of this administration that made you feel that your American dream hasn’t happened because of us,” Gonzalez said, adding that corporations “are using our brown bodies to avoid the conversation that this administration is a failure and they do not know how to legislate.”

Last week, she announced that she will be running for the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees for a third time, urging Facebook followers to forego donating to her campaign in favor of organizations helping immigrants. “Our priorities must reflect the urgency of the times,” she wrote.

In those settings, Gonzalez comes off as just another wokosa politician. But the feds now see her as a wannabe Big Homie.

Trying to enlist gangs to advocate for immigrants comes off as both laughable and offensive — and describing 18th Street and Florencia as “the Latino community” is like describing the Manson family as “fun-loving hippies.” Gang members have extorted immigrant entrepreneurs and terrorized immigrant communities going back to the days of “Gangs of New York.” Their modus operandi — expanding turf, profit and power via fear and bloodshed — will forever peg Latinos as prone to violence in the minds of too many Americans. Transnational gangs like Tren de Aragua and MS-13 are Trump’s ostensible reason for his deportation tsunami — and now a politician thinks it’s wise to ask cholos to draw closer?

And yet I sympathize — and even agree — with what Gonzalez was really getting at, as imperfect and bumbling as she was. Homeland Security’s claim that she was riling up gangs to “commit violence against our brave ICE law enforcement” doesn’t hold up in the context of history.

For decades, Latino activists have strained to inspire gang members to join el movimiento — not as stormtroopers but as wayward youngsters and veteranos who can leave la vida loca behind if only they become enlightened. El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, a manifesto published in 1969 at the height of the Chicano movement, envisioned a world where “there will no longer be acts of juvenile delinquency, but revolutionary acts.” Its sister document, El Plan de Santa Barbara, warned activists that they “must be able to relate to all segments of the Barrio, from the middle-class assimilationists to the vatos locos.”

From Homeboy Industries to colleges that allow prison inmates to earn a degree, people still believe in the power of forgiveness and strive to reincorporate gang members into society as productive people. They’re relatives and friends and community members, the thinking goes, not irredeemable monsters.

Gonzalez’s video comes from that do-gooder vein. A closer listen shows she isn’t lionizing 18th Street or Florencia 13. She’s pushing them to be truly tough by practicing civil — not criminal — disobedience.

“It’s everyone else who’s not about the gang life that’s out there protesting and speaking up,” the vice mayor said, her voice heavy with the Eastside accent. “We’re out there, like, fighting for our turf, protecting our turf, protecting our people, and like, where you at? Bien calladitos, bien calladitos li’l cholitos.”

Good and quiet, little cholitos, which translates as “baby gangsters” but is far more dismissive in Spanish.

Her delivery was terrible, but the message stands, to gang members and really to anyone else who hasn’t yet shown up for immigrants: if not now, when? If not you, who?

It’ll be a miracle if Gonzalez’s political career recovers. But future chroniclers of L.A. should treat her kindly. Calling out cholos for being cholos is easy. Challenging them to make good of themselves at a key moment in history isn’t.

Taiwo Adebulu got a grip on the story he had always wanted to tell in Kebbi State, North West Nigeria. Based in Lagos, the journalist travelled miles away to chase it, hoping to gather dozens of anecdotes from school girls abducted by terrorists. News of the 112 abducted schoolgirls had spread like wildfire, with major radio and television stations discussing it for weeks. Then, suddenly, everyone moved on as usual, but the parents and relatives of the abductees continued to rage in pain and anguish. 

Passionate about rejuvenating the lost voices of the girls, Adebulu, the Investigations Editor at TheCable, a Nigerian digital newsroom, flew to Yauri in Kebbi to interview the relatives of the abductees, who he found had been forced to marry the terrorists holding them captive. Someone had introduced him to two local fixers who had contacts with the victims’ families in Yauri. They agreed to meet, showing concern for the girls, who seemed forgotten.

He would work with them for three days to track the girls’ relatives. The journalist said it was an exhaustive journey. The fixers had feigned concerns for the girls, claiming to seek ways to secure their freedom. The journalist, who believes the stories of the forgotten girls needed to be told, thought their interests aligned. The situation changed when he was done conducting interviews and visiting the scene of the abduction.

Adebulu had offered the fixers ₦50,000, based on his limited logistics budget as a journalist. They had agreed on that amount before he left Lagos. Now, the fixers felt they deserved more; they wanted to be compensated well for taking the reporter around the community and connecting him to sources. For the journalist, it was a symbiotic relationship: “Help me tell the story of your people so that I can help amplify their lost voices.” The fixers, however, saw it as a transactional relationship — a clear case of sources for money. Tensions escalated when their intentions conflicted, and arguments ensued.

The journalist was then held to ransom, not by terrorists this time, but by the same fixers who had assisted him in telling the stories of the kidnapped girls. They demanded ₦200,000 for his release. “It was a hellish experience that I do not want to have again,” Adebulu tells me. Though he seemed to have moved on from the incident, his jittery voice gave away his anxiety. He bargained with the fixers, reducing the amount to ₦100,000 and pleading with them not to harm him.

Only the fixers knew his whereabouts – no one else. They had discouraged him from lodging in a proper hotel, citing security concerns. Instead, they took him to a nearly empty five-bedroom service apartment for safety. They threatened not to release him if he refused to pay at least ₦100,000. They issued this threat at night when everything was dark. Adebulu felt vulnerable and scared for his life, knowing he had no one to call or anywhere to run.

“We finally negotiated and settled for ₦100,000 that night. I made a ₦50,000 transfer and told them I would pay the remaining ₦50,000 the following day because I had a network issue. They claimed they didn’t receive the ₦50,000 I had sent, but I had already received confirmation that the transaction was successful,” he recalls.

“They then seized my iPhone, saying they would keep it as collateral if anything happened. My iPhone was worth around ₦500,000, significantly more than the ₦100,000 they wanted. So, it was safer for them to keep my phone,” Adebulu explains.

Anxiety and a sense of danger left him unable to sleep that night after his so-called fixers took away his phone. By early morning, he decided to leave the state immediately. After taking a bath, he contacted the fixers to ask if they had received the ₦50,000 he transferred the previous day. They denied it. To expedite his release and departure, the journalist sent an additional ₦100,000 that same morning. Following the second transaction, the fixers returned his mobile phone. They transported him by motorcycle to a nearby motor park, where he boarded a vehicle heading to Kontagora, Niger State in North-central Nigeria.

“When I arrived in Abuja and visited my bank, I was informed that both transactions, the ₦50,000 sent the previous day and the ₦100,000 sent the next morning, had been successfully processed. I immediately contacted the recipients and demanded a refund of the extra ₦50,000. However, they told me it couldn’t be returned; the money was gone for good. At that point, I realised there was nothing I could do. I simply had to accept the loss and move on,” he adds.

Throughout Africa, the number of journalists willing to cover violent conflicts is decreasing, not due to their choice. In Nigeria, these courageous reporters confront harsh realities: threats of murder from terrorists, assaults by government agents, and the emotional toll of witnessing human suffering. From 1992 to 2020, 1,378 journalists lost their lives globally, with many killed while covering domestic strife rather than foreign wars. Nigeria’s history is marked by violence, from the assassination of Suleiman Bisalla in Kaduna to the 2020 assault on Daily Post’s Sikiru Obarayese while covering the #EndSARS protest in Osun State, South West Nigeria. For every incident that receives attention, several more remain unreported. Despite the dangers they face, Nigerian conflict journalists are often deployed without trauma support, insurance, or adequate protection from their institutions. Their challenges don’t conclude at the battlefield; many return home burdened with emotional distress that goes unnoticed beyond the headlines.

For Adebulu, the story was told, but the emotional distress still lives with him. Although the investigative piece was later shortlisted for the Fetisov journalism award, arguably the most prestigious journalism laurel globally, his interest in such adventurous stories diminished due to the potential danger lurking around and the emotional that trailing them. It was an incredibly traumatic experience that he sincerely hopes never to relive. It was his first time facing such a situation: being held to ransom by fixers who seized his phone and left him genuinely fearing for his life.

“I wasn’t there for personal gain; I was trying to help the community by covering the abduction of the girls, shedding light on their harrowing ordeal, and documenting their stories in the hope of drawing much-needed support. Instead, I found myself in a vulnerable position, pressured by individuals who demanded an exorbitant amount of money simply because they had driven me around and arranged access to sources for interviews,” he says. 

The cunning fixer

Adebulu’s experience with deceitful fixers resonated with me, as I had a similar encounter while covering a story. In Niger State, a local fixer, Bago Abdullahi, is notorious for milking journalists, and he does this effortlessly. Swindlers are not only present in Kebbi and Niger states; this problem has become widespread for those striving to tell the stories of ordinary people caught in violence, especially in northern Nigeria.

As a chief investigative reporter at Premium Times in 2022, I travelled to Niger to unravel what I believed would be one of the most important stories of the time. I was determined to document the tragic story of six young girls killed during a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) surveillance strike in the small village of Kurebe.

The NAF had claimed that the operation was successful, targeting terrorists and criminal masterminds thriving in the community. However, I uncovered a different reality when I spoke to on-the-ground sources. The victims were all civilians, and those six girls, aged between three and six, were lost in a moment of sanctioned violence. Their homes were reduced to rubble, and both bombs and denial scarred their village.

Determined to uncover the truth, I travelled to the state to speak with the victims’ families, local eyewitnesses, and anyone who could shed light on what had happened. I knew the story I wanted to tell intimately, but I needed a local fixer to help navigate the complexities of access and trust. I found a man who initially presented himself as a defender of his people, motivated by a desire to see rural terrorism become a thing of the past in the state. He spoke convincingly, expressing his wish to share Kurebe’s story with the world. I believed him; his enthusiasm matched mine, and I thought I had found a genuine ally in the fight against terrorism.

I was wrong, as that facade quickly faded.

He demanded ₦250,000 upfront to transport five sources from Kurebe and neighbouring villages to the relatively safe town of Kuta, where I could interview them without fear of retaliation. I later discovered that the transport cost per person was under ₦3,000. One source mentioned that she received no more than ₦3,000 for the round trip. The fixer had told me each person would receive ₦25, 000. What happened to the rest of the money?  He pocketed it.

He had promised hotel accommodations for the sources but only provided them with a single, cramped room. When I confronted him about this, hoping to restore some dignity for those whose stories I aimed to amplify, he responded with further demands: an additional ₦100,000 this time, without any clear explanation.

I refused.

That’s when his demeanour shifted. The man who once claimed to be my ally became venomous. Insults poured in through text messages. He accused me of being ungrateful and hoarding the money my organisation sent. “You’ll win awards with this story,” he raged. “And yet you don’t want to give us our due!”

What he didn’t know was that I had received only ₦220,000 in total from my media organisation at that time, and I had been using my savings to make the trip happen. I wasn’t seeking glory; I was striving to document the truth.

Despite the insults, I completed the story, and it was published. However, I walked away feeling sickened by how easily noble intentions can be twisted by those who view tragedy as their currency. In the following months, other journalists confided in me that they, too, had been scammed by the same man – colleagues like Yakubu Mohammed, who faced similar deception, and Isah Ismail, a journalist with HumAngle, who had also fallen victim to his manipulative escapade. He was made to cough up ₦80,000 to connect him to sources who he claimed would be travelling from far places to Kuta, only for the journalist to realise that the locals were based there, not coming from elsewhere.

The pain of the Kurebe girls’ story stayed with me, but so did the sense of betrayal. It served as a reminder that even in pursuing justice, not all allies are who they claim to be.

Branded a betrayer

Yaqubu Muhammad, a Premium Times reporter, had even a more horrible experience while trying to document the plight of locals uprooted by war in Niger state. His story is similar to Adebulu’s but more worrisome, as it was a near-death experience. In 2020,  Mohammed was mistaken for a terrorist informant by soldiers surveilling the tense town of the Shiroro area in the state, causing him a life-threatening encounter.

His mission was to visit the hotspot of rural terrorism in Shiroro. He wanted to be in Kokki, Magami, Sarkin Zuma, and Uguwan Magero to tell the stories of victims of armed violence whose livelihood had been stolen by a new front of terrorists. Alongside Bello Kokki, his fixer, the journalist rode on a motorcycle for hours before getting to the hard-to-reach communities. He was initially scared, but despite the risk, Muhammad pressed on, driven by a sense of duty.

It took three hours for the journalist to travel from Lapai to Kuta. His fixer had picked him from there, riding him through farm fields and ghost villages sacked by terrorists. They had travelled through the ungoverned spaces unhindered, documenting the losses and the lives lost to terrorists in the axis. Later, they explored the Kwatai riverbank, speaking to dozens of displaced villagers who had built makeshift shelters. The sight left Mohammed in awe, pondering how people survived in such conditions.

“[…] the storylines were dotted with bloody tales through the teary eyes of sedentary villagers,” he wrote in a reporter’s diary. He returned to the riverbank, staying behind to continue his interviews, but his fixer had to leave due to fear of impending attacks. That night, he slept in a makeshift hut with other displaced people, unaware of the danger lurking around the place.

When the cock crowed the following morning, some soldiers stormed the camp. His face was strange to them; it was the first time they saw someone carrying a camera, wanting to speak to displaced persons. It was a satellite community, and it was hard to reach. “Oga! Let’s shoot him; he’s a bandit’s informant,” one soldier yelled. The soldiers dragged him out, accusing him of espionage. Surrounded by armed men ready to fire, the journalist says he was already imagining his obituary. The more he tried explaining that he was just a journalist trying to tell the story of locals caught up in the armed violence, the more he was looked at with disdain, insults and harassment. “You are a spy. You came to take pictures and send to bandits,” one of them insisted, with his pleas falling on deaf ears.

After a few hours of grilling the journalists, letting out the sweat in him, a senior officer intervened to de-escalate the situation. The officer asked the reporter to present his ID card and phone for verification. “You are lucky,” the officer said after verifying his identity. If not, you would have been gone by now.”

Scared for his life, Mohammed left the camp immediately, with his heart pounding. He believes surviving that moment was a miracle, as scores of journalists had been killed in a similar situation. The experience left a deep scar, knowing that the story could have been told with a bullet-pierced skin. The trauma was compounded by the fact that he had been trying to help, not harm.

Two years later, he shared the behind-the-scenes account through WikkiTimes, hoping to shed light on journalists’ dangers in conflict zones. “It was indeed an examination,” he said, referencing the mental and emotional toll. “I am no longer naive,” he wrote. “But I will not stop telling the stories that matter.”

Damilola Ayeni is another Nigerian journalist who has faced a similar ordeal with security operatives. He travelled to a terrorist-affected zone in the Republic of Benin and ended up behind bars, despite identifying himself. He was tracking the movements of elephants from Nigeria to the conflict zone of the Benin Republic, only to be detained by local authorities. He spent days in detention before finally gaining his freedom following media pressure. 

Numerous cases of Nigerian journalists facing mistreatment by terrorists, military personnel, and civilian groups often remain unreported or receive minimal coverage. According to the Wilson Centre, it is estimated that for every reported incident of journalist assault in Nigeria, there are at least four cases that go unrecorded.

“Appropriate legislation should be adopted to compel media owners to prioritise the general welfare of journalists, particularly those working in dangerous zones. Media advocacy groups and civil society organisations should also consider bringing attention and support to journalists working in dangerous zones,” says Olusola Isola, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies at the University of Ibadan. “Media owners in Nigeria should consider providing personal protection equipment for journalists on dangerous assignments, as well as medical evacuation services and life insurance policies.”

More than six million people in the Lake Chad Basin are caught in a cycle of violence, displacement, and ecological disaster.

As Boko Haram exploits shrinking resources and fragile security, communities face impossible choices — return home under threat or stay in limbo.

In this episode of Pinch Point, explore how conflict, climate change, and geopolitics are shaping this crisis.

Arrested at the age of 17 during the early days of Nepal’s civil war in the late 1990s, Devi Khadka was accused of being a rebel, tortured and raped in custody. Rebel leaders exposed her as a “rape victim”, marking her with a taboo that led to depression and social ostracism. Battling these horrors, Khadka joined the rebel front lines and rose through the ranks.

After the war ended, she was elected to Nepal’s new parliament but became disillusioned upon discovering that Nepal’s leaders sought to bury the painful truth of wartime rape. As the public face of the survivors, Khadka can no longer stay silent. Driven by a fierce determination for justice, she sets out to unite Nepal’s forgotten women and to reconstruct the history that has been deliberately erased.

Devi Khadka: The Undefeated is a documentary film by Subina Shrestha.

Vance Boelter, a former state board appointee, was arrested Sunday after allegedly killing ex-House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, and wounding Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, ending the largest manhunt in Minnesota’s history.

The assassination attempt on the presidential hopeful has rattled the country, which fears a return to darker days.

Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay is reported to be in extremely critical condition after undergoing surgery to tend to a brain bleed, just more than a week after being shot in the head during a campaign event.

The attack was part of an eruption of violence that has stoked fears of a return to the darker days of assassinations and bombings.

The Santa Fe Foundation hospital on Monday said that Uribe was stable after undergoing a “complementary” operation to his original surgery, but remained in serious critical condition.

It added that an urgent neurological procedure had been necessary because of clinical evidence and imaging showing an acute inter-cerebral bleed, but that the brain swelling persisted and bleeding remained difficult to control.

The 39-year-old potential presidential candidate from the right-wing opposition was shot in the head twice on June 7 during a rally in Bogota.

The assassination attempt, which was caught on video, recalled a streak of candidate assassinations in the 1980s and 1990s, a time when fighting between armed rebels, paramilitary groups, drug traffickers and state security forces touched the lives of many Colombians.

Three suspects, including a 15-year-old alleged shooter, are in custody. An adult man and woman are also being held.

The 15-year-old boy, who police believe was a “sicario” or hitman working for money, was charged last week with the attempted murder of Uribe, to which he pleaded not guilty. He was also charged with carrying a firearm.

The adult man, Carlos Eduardo Mora, has been charged for alleged involvement in planning the attack, providing the gun and being in the vehicle where the shooter changed his clothes after the attack, according to the attorney general’s office.

Uribe is a senator for the conservative Democratic Centre party and one of several candidates who hope to succeed left-wing President Gustavo Petro in the 2026 presidential vote.

He comes from a prominent political family. His grandfather, Julio Cesar Turbay, was president from 1978 to 1982, and his mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in 1991 in a botched rescue attempt after being kidnapped by an armed group led by drug cartel lord Pablo Escobar.

The main dissident faction of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group on Friday denied responsibility for the attack on Uribe, though it did accept responsibility for a series of unrelated bomb attacks.

Southwest Colombia was rocked by a series of explosions and gun attacks last week which has left at least seven people dead. The attacks hit Cali, the country’s third-largest city, and the nearby towns of Corinto, El Bordo and Jamundi, targeting police stations and other municipal buildings with car and motorcycle bombs, rifle fire and a suspected drone.

Colombia’s government has struggled to contain violence in urban and rural areas as several rebel groups try to take over territory abandoned by the FARC after its peace deal with the government.

Peace talks between the FARC-EMC faction and the government broke down last year after a series of attacks on Indigenous communities.

ROMEO and Juliet has been hit with a trigger warning — with audiences informed it featured violent scenes and death.

Shakespeare’s classic 16th-century love story has been “retold” as a modern ballet.

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But London’s Royal Opera House deemed it necessary to warn potential visitors the production includes themes of “violence and death”.

Sir Ian McKellen, who has appeared in Romeo and Juliet productions throughout his career, previously hit out at “ludicrous” warnings.

He said: “I quite like to be surprised by loud noises and outrageous behaviour on stage.”

It comes four years after The Globe in London warned of “upsetting” themes in the play, and provided a number for The Samaritans.

They were even provided a number for the Samaritans for after the show.

Actor Christopher Biggins said: “Do we have to have signs for everything under the sun?

“It’s a joke. What they are trying to do is insulting to the mentality of theatre-goers.”

The Globe has also warned about themes of “violence, sexual references, misogyny and racism” in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as “anti-semitism” in The Merchant of Venice.

In February, the University of the West of England slapped over 200 trigger warnings on Shakespeare’s work – including “bad weather” in The Tempest.

The Royal Opera House was asked to comment.

The assassination of one Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband and the shooting of another lawmaker and his wife at their homes are just the latest addition to a long and unsettling roll call of political violence in the United States.

The list, in the last two months alone: the killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, D.C.; the firebombing of a Colorado march calling for the release of Israeli hostages; and the firebombing of the official residence of Pennsylvania’s governor — on a Jewish holiday while he and his family were inside.

Here is a sampling of other attacks before that — the assassination of a healthcare executive on the streets of New York City late last year; the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally during his presidential campaign last year; the 2022 attack on the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) by a believer in right-wing conspiracy theories; and the 2017 shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) by a gunman at a congressional softball game practice.

“We’ve entered into this especially scary time in the country where it feels the sort of norms and rhetoric and rules that would tamp down on violence have been lifted,” said Matt Dallek, a political scientist at Georgetown University who studies extremism. “A lot of people are receiving signals from the culture.”

Individual shootings and massacres

Politics have also driven large-scale massacres. Gunmen who killed 11 worshipers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, 23 shoppers at a heavily Latino Walmart in El Paso in 2019 and 10 Black people at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store in 2022 each cited the conspiracy theory that a secret cabal of Jews was trying to replace white people with people of color. That has become a staple on parts of the right that support Trump’s push to limit immigration.

The Anti-Defamation League found that from 2022 through 2024, all of the 61 political killings in the United States were committed by right-wing extremists. That changed on the first day of 2025, when a Texas man flying the flag of the Islamic State group killed 14 people by driving his truck through a crowded New Orleans street before being fatally shot by police.

“You’re seeing acts of violence from all different ideologies,” said Jacob Ware, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who researches terrorism. “It feels more random and chaotic and more frequent.”

The United States has a long and grim history of political violence, including presidential assassinations dating to the killing of President Abraham Lincoln, lynchings and other violence aimed at Black people in the South, and the 1954 shooting inside Congress by four Puerto Rican nationalists. Experts say the last few years, however, have reached a level not seen since the tumultuous days of the 1960s and 1970s, when political leaders the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., President Kennedy, Malcolm X and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated.

Ware noted that the most recent surge comes after the new Trump administration has closed units that focus on investigating white supremacist extremism and pushed federal law enforcement to spend less time on anti-terrorism and more on detaining people who are in the country illegally.

“We’re at the point, after these six weeks, where we have to ask about how effectively the Trump administration is combating terrorism,” Ware said.

One of Trump’s first acts in office was to pardon those involved in the largest act of domestic political violence this century — the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob intended to prevent Congress from certifying Trump’s 2020 election loss.

Those pardons broadcast a signal to would-be extremists on either side of the political debate, Dallek said: “They sent a very strong message that violence, as long as you’re a Trump supporter, will be permitted and may be rewarded.”

Ideologies not always aligned — or coherent

Often, those who engage in political violence don’t have clearly defined ideologies that easily map onto the country’s partisan divides. A man who died after he detonated a car bomb outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic last month left writings urging people not to procreate and expressed what the FBI called “nihilistic ideations.”

But each political attack seems to inspire partisans to find evidence the attacker is on the other side. Little was known about the man police identified as a suspect in the Minnesota attacks, 57-year-old Vance Boelter. Authorities say they found a list of other apparent targets that included other Democratic officials, abortion clinics and abortion rights advocates, as well as fliers for the day’s anti-Trump “No Kings” parades.

Conservatives online seized on the fliers — and the fact that Boelter had apparently once been reappointed to a state workforce development board by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz — to claim the suspect must be a liberal. “The far left is murderously violent,” billionaire Elon Musk posted on his social media site, X.

It was reminiscent of the fallout from the attack on Paul Pelosi, the former House speaker’s then-82-year-old husband, who was seriously injured by a man wielding a hammer. Right-wing figures falsely theorized the assailant was a secret lover rather than what authorities said he was: a believer in pro-Trump conspiracy theories who broke into the Pelosi home echoing Jan. 6 rioters who broke into the Capitol by saying: “Where is Nancy?!”

No prominent Republican ever denounced the Pelosi assault, and GOP leaders including Trump joked about the attack at public events in its aftermath.

On Saturday, Nancy Pelosi posted a statement on X decrying the Minnesota attack. “All of us must remember that it’s not only the act of violence, but also the reaction to it, that can normalize it,” she wrote.

After mocking the Pelosis after the 2022 attack, Trump on Saturday joined in the bipartisan condemnation of the Minnesota shootings, calling them “horrific violence.” The president has, however, consistently broken new ground with his bellicose rhetoric toward his political opponents, whom he routinely calls “sick” and “evil,” and has talked repeatedly about how violence is needed to quell protests.

The Minnesota attack occurred after Trump took the extraordinary step of mobilizing the military to try to control protests against his administration’s immigration operations in Los Angeles during the last week, when he pledged to “HIT” disrespectful protesters and warned of a “migrant invasion” of the city.

Dallek said Trump has been “both a victim and an accelerant” of the charged, dehumanizing political rhetoric that is flooding the country.

“It feels as if the extremists are in the saddle,” he said, “and the extremists are the ones driving our rhetoric and politics.”

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press.

Search for 57-year-old Vance Luther Boelter, charged with killing Democratic politician Melissa Hortman and her husband, enters a second day.

A massive search in the United States for a man who authorities say posed as a police officer and fatally shot a Democratic state lawmaker in Minnesota has stretched into a second day, with the state’s governor calling it “a politically motivated assassination”.

The suspect, identified as 57-year-old Vance Luther Boelter, also allegedly shot and wounded a second Democratic lawmaker and his wife, according to law enforcement officials and the FBI.

The large-scale manhunt entered its second day on Sunday after Boelter allegedly killed former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their home in Brooklyn Park, a suburb of Minneapolis city, early on Saturday.

Boelter is also accused of shooting and wounding Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home about 15km (9 miles) away in the nearby town of Champlin.

The suspect abandoned a vehicle that looked like a police SUV and fled on foot after firing at police at Hortman’s home, authorities said, adding that officers found a “manifesto” and a target list of other politicians and institutions in the vehicle.

Boelter should be considered armed and dangerous and is believed to still be in the Minneapolis-St Paul area, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans told a news briefing, adding that it was too soon to determine a motive.

The FBI issued a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

Boelter, a former political appointee, served on the same state workforce development board as Hoffman, though it is unclear if or how well they knew each other. An online resume describes him as a security contractor with experience in the Middle East and Africa, along with past managerial roles in Minnesota companies.

A Minnesota official told The Associated Press news agency on condition of anonymity that Boelter’s writings contained information targeting prominent lawmakers who have championed abortion rights.

According to the Minnesota Star Tribune, Boelter sent texts to friends hours after the shootings, saying he had “made some choices” and adding: “I’m going to be gone for a while. May be dead shortly, so I just want to let you know I love you guys both and I wish it hadn’t gone this way … I’m sorry for all the trouble this has caused.”

‘Stand against political violence’

Hortman, a mother of two who had served 20 years in the Minnesota House of Representatives, was remembered by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as someone with “grace, compassion and tirelessness”.

Walz, who was Kamala Harris’s Democratic vice presidential running mate in last year’s presidential election, said the attacker went to the Hortmans’ residence after shooting the Hoffmans multiple times in their home in Champlin.

“We must all, in Minnesota and across the country, stand against all forms of political violence,” said Walz, a Democrat. He also ordered flags to fly at half-staff in Hortman’s honour.

“Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. God Bless the great people of Minnesota, a truly great place!” President Donald Trump said in a statement.

The shootings happened at a time when political leaders nationwide have been attacked, harassed and intimidated amid deep political divisions in the US.

In April, a suspect set fire to the home of Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, forcing him and his family to flee during the Jewish holiday of Passover. The suspect said he planned to beat Shapiro with a small sledgehammer if he found him, according to court documents.

In July 2024, Trump was grazed on the ear by one of a hail of bullets that killed one of his supporters. Two months later, a man near Trump’s Florida golf course with a rifle was discovered and arrested.

Other incidents include a 2022 hammer attack on the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in their San Francisco home and a 2020 plot by antigovernment hardliners to kidnap Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and start a civil war.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he asked Capitol police to “immediately increase security” for Minnesota Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith.

The international humanitarian organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has raised concerns about the critical situation regarding sexual violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. They report that the support and treatment available for victims are still insufficient, while assaults against women continue to occur at an alarming rate.

In 2024, approximately 40,000 victims and survivors received treatment from the MSF team in the North Kivu province. This trend continued into 2025. Between January and April 2025, the organisation says it cared for around 7,400 people in Goma and over 2,400 in Sake, which is near Goma.

Despite changes in the security landscape, sexual violence continues to be a pervasive issue. “The context in the region has changed, but the problem of sexual violence persists, with women remaining the primary victims,” explains Francois Calas, the MSF chief in North Kivu.

The ongoing insecurity in these conflict zones contributes to the perpetuation of violence. Most recorded acts of aggression are committed by assailants wielding weapons, who are often not identified due to the presence of numerous armed groups and the widespread availability of firearms.

Organisations like MSF have condemned the worsening access to treatment, noting that many health facilities no longer have the necessary medications and supplies to treat victims. Ongoing conflicts disrupt supply chains, and a decrease in humanitarian funding further exacerbates the situation.

The revelations by victims who spoke to MSF indicate the brutality of the assaults and the absence of secure places for women, both displaced and those in their homes.

“Armed men entered our house around 22:30,” reveals Nasha, a displaced woman who found refuge in a school. “Some husbands [men] were killed and women raped. It was the case with me. Three men wanted to rape me in front of my husband and my eight children. My husband resisted, and they killed him.”

Around Goma and Sake, other victims report having been assaulted on the highway or on their farms.

“They asked me to choose between allowing them to rape me or death,” said Rika, an inhabitant of a village situated forty kilometres to the west of Goma. “They raped me one after the other.”

In South Kivu, the situation remains preoccupying. In the territories of Kalehe and Uvira, about 700 survivors have been taken charge of since January 2025. There, too, the assaults continue sometimes during displacement or near health structures.

“We have suffered on the farms where we sought refuge,” says an inhabitant of the hills around Kamanyola. “Armed men do not authorise us to go through villages. Some women have even been raped while trying to reach a health centre,” the woman added.

MSF insists that the figures given are below the real figures. According to Luders Leriche, medical coordinator of South Kivu, the fear of reprisals, stigmatisation, distance, and weakness of the health system prevent many victims from accessing medical assistance. The social and psychological consequences are hefty and include isolation, rejection, and thoughts of resorting to suicide. While the women are the principal victims, the men are also affected, though the number of cases reported remains less than those involving women.

The French humanitarian organisation calls for urgent mobilisation, saying: “Despite the present challenges, it is imperative not to abandon these women and children. Their being taken care of must be an absolute priority.”

In the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, MSF proposes comprehensive care for victims, including preventive treatment for sexually transmitted infections, urgent contraception, vaccinations, psychological therapy, secure abortions, and hospitalisation for more severe cases.

Emergency risks continue to escalate when civilian protection measures are not strengthened and access to treatment is not maintained. Therefore, MSF emphasises the need to sustain and enhance humanitarian efforts, prioritising the care of victims, even in the face of reduced global funding.

Rioters attacked a leisure centre hosting people fleeing what police called ‘racist thuggery’ in the town of Ballymena.

Riots have erupted for a third consecutive night in Northern Ireland, with police condemning the violence as “racist thuggery” that erupted following an alleged sexual assault.

A few dozen masked rioters in the primary flashpoint of Ballymena attacked police, but the unrest was on a smaller scale in the town on Wednesday night compared with previous days.

Youths threw rocks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails at officers in riot gear as armoured vehicles blocked roads in the town. Police also deployed water cannon for the second night in a row, but the clashes were far smaller than the previous nights, when five people were arrested and more than 30 police officers were injured. Much of the crowd had left the streets before midnight.

Small pockets of violence also erupted in the town of Larne, located 30km (18 miles) west of Ballymena, where masked youths smashed the windows of a leisure centre before starting fires in the lobby, footage widely shared on social media showed.

Gordon Lyons, the communities minister in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, had earlier said a number of people seeking refuge from the anti-immigrant violence in Ballymena had been temporarily moved to the leisure centre.

Lyons’s post drew sharp criticism from other political parties for identifying the location where the families had taken shelter. Youths also set fires at a roundabout in the town of Newtownabbey, according to police, while debris was also set alight at a barricade in the town of Coleraine.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he “utterly condemns” the violence which had left 32 police officers injured after the second night of disturbances.

Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly appeared together on Wednesday to voice their condemnation.

O’Neill told reporters in Belfast: “It’s pure racism, there is no other way to dress it up” while Little-Pengelly described the scenes in Ballymena as “unacceptable thuggery”.

Racially motivated

Violence initially flared on Monday in Ballymena – a town of 30,000 people located 44km (28 miles) from the capital Belfast with a relatively large migrant population – after a peaceful vigil was held for a teenage girl who was the victim of an alleged sexual assault on Saturday.

Two 14-year-old boys accused of carrying out the attack appeared in court on Monday. Communicating in court via a Romanian interpreter, the pair denied the charges, according to local media reports.

Police said the trouble began when people in masks broke away from the vigil and began “build[ing] barricades, stockpiling missiles and attacking properties”.

Tensions remained high throughout Tuesday, with residents saying “foreigners” were being targeted. Two Filipino families fled their home in the town after their car was set on fire, the Reuters news agency reported.

Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Jon Boutcher warned that the rioting “risks undermining” the criminal justice process in the sexual assault allegations.

Some Ballymena residents have begun marking their front doors to indicate their nationality to avoid attack, according to the Belfast Telegraph newspaper.

Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson also said the violence was “clearly racially motivated” and “targeted at our minority ethnic community”.

WASHINGTON — Immigration agents have arrested 330 immigrants in Los Angeles and surrounding regions of Southern California since Friday, the White House confirmed Wednesday.

The numbers came from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who also slammed Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, saying they — President Trump — “fanned the flames” of violence in Los Angeles.

The “area of responsibility” for the Los Angeles field office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area and the Central Coast, as well as Orange County to the south, Riverside County to the east and up the coast to San Luis Obispo County.

During a press briefing, Leavitt said 157 people have also been arrested on assault and obstruction-related charges. That includes a man charged Wednesday with the attempted murder of a police officer for throwing a Molotov cocktail. Overall, Leavitt said that 113, or about a third, of those detained had prior criminal convictions.

The White House and the Department of Homeland Security have touted the arrests of specific individuals in recent days, including people from Vietnam, Mexico and the Philippines who had previously been convicted of crimes, such as second-degree murder, rape and child molestation.

Leavitt condemned the protests in Los Angeles against raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“These attacks were aimed not just at law enforcement, but at American culture and society itself,” she said. “Rioters burned American flags, chanted death to ICE and spray-painted anti-American slogans on buildings.”

Echoing sentiments Trump has relayed, Leavitt criticized Newsom and Bass, branding them as radical Democrats.

Bass, she said, “embarked on one of the most outrageous campaigns of lies this country has ever seen from an elected official, blaming President Trump and brave law enforcement officers for the violence.”

“The mob violence is being stomped out,” she said. “Criminals responsible will be swiftly brought to justice, and the Trump administration’s operations to arrest illegal aliens are continuing unabated.”

But Trump’s top border policy advisor, Tom Homan, told NBC on Tuesday that the protests in Los Angeles are making immigration enforcement “difficult” and more “dangerous.”

Leavitt issued a stark warning to protesters in other cities.

“Let this be an unequivocal message to left-wing radicals in other parts of the country who are thinking about copycatting the violence in an effort to stop this administration’s mass deportation efforts: You will not succeed,” she said.

Frame it as a call to action or a presidential campaign announcement, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s address to America on Tuesday has tapped into our zeitgeist (German words feel oddly appropriate at the moment) in a way few others have.

“Democracy is under assault right before our eyes,” Newsom said during a live broadcast with a California flag and the U.S. flag in the background. “The moment we’ve feared has arrived.”

What moment exactly is he referring to?

President Trump has put Marines and National Guardsmen on the streets of Los Angeles, and granted himself the power to put them anywhere. Wednesday, a top military leader said those forces could “detain” protesters, but not outright arrest them, though — despite what you see on right wing media — most protesters have been peaceful.

But every would-be authoritarian ultimately faces a decisive moment, when the fear they have generated must be enforced with action to solidify power.

The danger of that moment for the would-be king is that it is also the time when rebellion is most likely, and most likely to be effective. People wake up. In using force against his own citizens, the leader risks alienating supporters and activating resistance.

What happens next in Los Angeles between the military and protesters — which group is perceived as the aggressors — may likely determine what happens next in our democracy. If the military is the aggressor and protesters remain largely peaceful, Trump risks losing support.

If the protesters are violent, public perception could further empower Trump.

The president’s immigration czar Tom Homan, said on CNN that what happens next, “It all depends on the activities of these protesters — I mean, they make the decisions.”

Welcome to that fraught moment, America.

Who would have thought Newsom would lead on it so effectively?

“Everybody who’s not a Trumpist in this society has been taken by surprise, and is still groggy from the authoritarian offensive of the last five months,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at the embattled Harvard University, and author of “How Democracies Die.”

Levitsky told me that it helps shake off that shock to have national leaders, people who others can look to and rally behind. Especially as fear nudges some into silence.

“You never know who that leader sometimes is going to be, and it may be Newsom,” Levitsky said. “Maybe his political ambitions end up converging with the small d, democratic opposition.”

Maybe. Since his address, and a coinciding and A-game funny online offensive, Newsom’s reach has skyrocketed. Millions of people watched his address, and hundreds of thousands have followed him on TikTok and other social media platforms. Searches about him on Google were up 9,700%, according to CNN. Love his message or find it laughable, it had reach — partly because it was unapologetically clear and also unexpected.

“Trump and his loyalist thrive on division because it allow them to take more power and exert even more control,” Newsom said.

I was on the ground with the protesters this week, and I can say from firsthand experience that there are a small number of agitators and a large number of peaceful protesters. But Trump has done an excellent job of creating crisis and fear by portraying events as out of the control of local and state authorities, and therefore in need of his intervention.

Republicans “need that violence to corroborate their talking points,” Mia Bloom told me. She’s an expert on extremism and a professor at Georgia State University.

Violence “like in the aftermath of George Floyd, when there was the rioting, that actually was helpful for Republicans,” she said.

Levitsky said authoritarians look for crises.

“You need an emergency, both rhetorically and legally, to engage in authoritarian behavior,” he said.

So Trump has laid a trap with his immigration sweeps in a city of immigrants to create opportunity, and Newsom has called it out.

And it calling it out — pointing out the danger of protesters turning violent and yet still calling for peaceful protest — Newsom has put Trump in a precarious position that the president may not have been expecting.

“Repressing protest is a very risky venture,” said Levitsky. “It often, not always, but often, does trigger push back.”

Levitsky points out that already, there is some evidence that Trump may have overreached, and is losing support.

A new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 76% of Americans oppose the military birthday parade Trump plans on throwing for himself in Washington, D.C. this weekend. That includes disapproval from more than half of Trump supporters.

A separate poll by Quinnipiac University found that 54% of those polled disapprove of how he’s handling immigration issues, and 56% disapprove of his deportations.

Bloom warns that there’s a danger in raising too many alarms about authoritarianism right now, because we still have some functioning guardrails. She said that stoking too much fear could backfire, for Newsom and for democracy.

“We’re at a moment in which the country is very polarized and that these things are being told through two very different types of narratives, and the moment we give the other side, which was a very apocalyptic, nihilistic narrative, we give them fodder, we justify the worst policies” she said.

She pointed to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when some protesters placed flowers in the barrels of soldiers’ guns, and act of peaceful protest she said changed public perception. That, she said, is what’s needed now.

Newsom was clear in his call for peaceful protest. But also clear that it was a call to action in a historic inflection point. We can’t know in the moment who or what history will remember, said Levitsky.

“It’s really important that the most privileged among us stand up and fight,” he said. “If they don’t, citizens are going to look around and say, ‘Well, why should I?”

Having leaders willing to be the target, when so many feel the danger of speaking out, has value, he said.

Because fear may spread like a virus, but courage is contagious, too.

Renewed violence by armed groups Boko Haram and ISIL (ISIS) has forced thousands of people to leave their homes in Nigeria.

Despite repeated government pledges, the military has been unable to end the unrest.

So why is it continuing – and what threats does it pose?

Presenter: 

Elizabeth Puranam

Guests: 

Kabir Adamu – Managing director at Beacon Security and Intelligence in Abuja

David Otto – Deputy director of counterterrorism training at the International Academy for the Fight Against Terrorism in Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Ovigwe Eguegu – Peace and security policy analyst at Development Reimagined in Abuja

A group of Black lawyers use a little-known law to win a case previously thought to have been lost. Their victory set a legal precedent still used in US courts today.

Five Black women from Chattanooga survived a shooting by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1980. While the criminal courts handed a light sentence to the shooter and allowed two of the men to walk free, the women were adamant about holding the white supremacist group accountable for their crimes. Using legal ingenuity, the lawyers and the group of women devised a plan to bankrupt the Klan and bring justice to the community.

How to Sue the Klan is a documentary film by John Beder.

AFP via Getty Images

Timeline of UK-Israel tensions

A phalanx of police officers on horseback surround a person who has been knocked to the ground and repeatedly pummeled with batons.

An Australian TV news reporter winces in pain as she’s shot by a rubber bullet while wrapping up a live broadcast.

A crowd milling above the 101 Freeway lobs rocks and chunks of concrete down on California Highway Patrol officers detaining protesters, prompting a volley of flash-bang grenades.

Those incidents and others captured on video have gone viral in recent days as immigration protests reached a boiling point in Los Angeles.

Leaders at the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have long maintained that they have no role in civil immigration enforcement. And yet the region’s two largest police agencies are suddenly on the front lines of the Trump administration’s crackdown, clashing in the street with demonstrators — most peaceful and some seemingly intent on causing mayhem.

Waymo taxis burn on Los Angeles Street as thousands protest ICE immigration raids throughout the city.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell condemned the actions of those carrying out the “disgusting” violence.

“This thing has gotten out of control,” McDonnell said at a news conference Sunday when asked whether he supported President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops. After news broke Monday that the president was sending hundreds of Marines to the city, McDonnell said that without “clear coordination,” adding more soldiers to the mix creates “a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city.”

Sheriff Robert Luna told The Times that deputies are prepared to support federal agents in certain circumstances — even as the department maintains its official policy of not assisting with immigration operations.

“They start getting attacked and they call and ask us for help, we’re going to respond,” Luna said.

Both publicly and behind the scenes, the situation has led to tensions with Los Angeles officials who have questioned whether local law enforcement is crossing the line with aggressive crowd control tactics — or being put in a lose-lose situation by Trump, who has cast blame on the LAPD chief and others for not doing enough.

“The federal government has put everybody in the city, and law enforcement in particular, in a really messed up situation,” said City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson. “They started a riot, and then they said, ‘Well, you can’t handle the riot, so we’re sending in the military.’”

Los Angeles police officers push back protesters near a federal building in downtown Los Angeles on Monday.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

The LAPD said in a statement that officers made a combined 50 arrests on Saturday and Sunday, mostly for failure to obey a dispersal order. They also arrested a man who allegedly rammed a motorcycle into a skirmish line of officers, and another for attempted murder with a Molotov cocktail.

Five officers were injured while policing the protests, the department said, while five police horses also suffered minor injuries. The department said officers fired more than 600 so-called less lethal rounds to quell hostile crowds.

Although the LAPD has changed the way it handles protests in recent years — moving away from some of the heavy-handed tactics that drew widespread criticism in the past — the city still pays out millions for crowd control-related lawsuits every year.

As of Monday, Internal Affairs had opened investigations into seven complaints of officer misconduct, including the shooting of the Australian TV news reporter, said LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas, who runs the department’s professional standards bureau.

Additionally, he said, the department’s Force Investigations Division, which reviews all serious uses of force, was investigating two incidents “because of possible significant injury,” including one incident in which a protester was struck in the head with a rubber bullet.

“We’re continuing to review video and monitor the situation,” he said.

The high-profile incidents caught on video — combined with mixed messaging by L.A. officials — have created opportunities for the White House to control the narrative.

On Saturday, Mayor Karen Bass told reporters that the protests were under control, while the LAPD chief publicly lamented that his department was overwhelmed by the outbursts of violence. Trump seized on those comments, writing in a post on Truth Social that the situation in Los Angeles was “looking really bad.”

“Jim McDonnell, the highly respected LAPD Chief, just stated that the protesters are getting very much more aggressive, and that he would ‘have to reassess the situation,’ as it pertains to bringing in the troops,” Trump wrote on the right-wing social media platform shortly after midnight on Monday. “He should, RIGHT NOW!!! Don’t let these thugs get away with this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Protesters clash with police downtown near the VA Outpatient Clinic on Sunday in Los Angeles.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

On the streets over the weekend, local cops often found themselves playing defense while confronting unruly crowds.

Cmdr. Oscar Barragan in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Operations Division described the scene Sunday when his unit responded to a protest near a Home Depot in Panorama. While rumors of a raid targeting migrant workers at the store spread on social media, Barragan said the real issue was a federal immigration office nearby that was being used as a staging area.

“Social media took over and a false narrative started growing and it just grew out of control,” he said.

Barragan said there were “people launching mortars at us and rocks and things” as the scrum moved west toward the 710 Freeway and the Compton border. He said some people put nails and cinder blocks in the street trying to block the police response.

“It got pretty hairy,” Barragan said. “They just kept launching every type of firework you can imagine and it was consistent.”

He said local law enforcement tolerates protests — but has to step up to restore order when things start to get out of hand.

“The sheriff has made it clear that we allow the peaceful protests to occur, but once violence occurs we’re not gonna tolerate it,” he said.

On Sunday outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, a group of roughly 100 protesters spent hours chiding California National Guard members and Department of Homeland Security officers near the entrance to the immigration jail, calling them “Nazis” and urging them to defy orders and defend the public instead of a building.

At one point, a Homeland Security officer approached one of the more vocal demonstrators and said he “didn’t want a repeat” of Saturday’s violence, urging protesters to stay off federal property and clear a path for any vehicles that needed to enter. But around 1 p.m. on Sunday, guardsmen with riot shields moved to the front of the law enforcement phalanx on Alameda and charged into the protest crowd, screaming “push” as they rammed into people. They launched tear gas canisters and smoke grenades into the street, leaving a toxic cloud in the air.

A protester is hurt near the 101 Freeway in clashes with law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

It left an enraged crowd of protesters, who had otherwise been peaceful all morning, for the LAPD to contend with.

After National Guard troops and Homeland Security officers retreated to the loading dock, LAPD officers found themselves in an hours-long back and forth with protesters on Alameda. Officers used batons, less lethal launchers and tear gas to slowly force the crowd of hundreds back toward Temple Street, with limited success.

The LAPD repeatedly issued dispersal orders from a helicopter and a patrol car loudspeaker. Some members of the crowd hurled water bottles and glass bottles at officers, and the windshield of a department vehicle shattered after it was struck by a projectile.

One officer grabbed a sign from a protester who was standing near a skirmish line, broke it in half and then swung a baton into the demonstrator’s legs. Another officer was seen by a Times reporter repeatedly raising his launcher and aiming at the heads of demonstrators.

In one particularly wild moment, two people riding motorcycles inched their way to the front of the protest crowd, revving their engines and drawing cheers. At some point, they got close to the LAPD’s skirmish line and skidded out.

Both were handcuffed and led away, their feet dragging across asphalt covered in shattered glass and spent rubber bullets. LAPD later alleged at least one of the motorcyclists rammed officers.

The tensions spilled into Monday.

City workers repair broken windows on Spring Street at Police Headquarters.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

At police headquarters, where city workers were spotted boarding up the ground-level windows, a row of officers in riot gear began assembling outside. With some government offices urging their employees to work from home, the surrounding streets were emptier than usual. Those who came downtown kept their heads down as they hustled past the now-ubiquitous “F— ICE” graffiti.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday afternoon that Trump had ordered another 2,000 National Guard troops to the city, doubling the previous total. In response, the governor said, he had worked with other law enforcement agencies on a “surge” of an additional 800 state and local law enforcement officers “to ensure the safety of our LA communities.”

McDonnell said at a news conference that the department was seeking to strike a balance between “dealing with civil unrest on the streets, [while] at the same time trying to protect peaceful protests.”

Some community leaders were left deeply unsatisfied with the police response.

Eddie Anderson, a pastor at McCarty Memorial Christian Church in Jefferson Park, argued that the LAPD was effectively doing the work of protecting Trump’s immigration agents.

“We asked them to pick a side: Are they going to pick the side of the federal government, which is trying to rip apart families?” Anderson said. “Donald Trump would like nothing more than for Angelenos to resort to violence to try to fight the federal government, because his whole scheme is to try to show L.A. is a lawless place.”

Times staff writers David Zahniser and Matthew Ormseth contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The governor and the president are talking past each other.

The two men, despite their politics and ambition, have worked together before, through devastating fires and a pandemic. But as immigration raids roil Los Angeles, President Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom cannot even agree on how they left their last conversation, late on Friday evening on the East Coast, as protests picked up around the city.

Aides to Trump told The Times he issued a clear warning: “Get the police in gear.” His patience would last less than 24 hours before he chose a historic path, federalizing the National Guard against the wishes of state and local officials.

The governor, on the other hand, told MSNBC the account is a lie. In their 40-minute call, not once did the president raise the prospect of wresting control over the National Guard from state and local officials.

They have not spoken since, a White House official said.

Trump went even further on Monday, raising the specter of Newsom’s arrest and supplementing the National Guard operation with a historic deployment of active-duty U.S. Marines.

The troop deployment is yet another extraordinary effort to quell simmering demonstrations across Los Angeles, some of which have turned violent, in protest of flash raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in recent days.

‘Subjecting himself to arrest’

Newsom’s government said Monday it would sue the Trump administration over the deployment and issued scathing criticism of Trump’s leadership, calling his Defense secretary a “joke” and the president “unhinged.” But the president and his top advisers responded with an especially pointed threat, suggesting the governor could be arrested for obstruction.

“It is a basic principle in this country that if you break the law, you will face a consequence for that,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Times in an interview. “So if the governor obstructs federal enforcement, or breaks federal laws, then he is subjecting himself to arrest.”

Earlier in the day, Tom Homan, the president’s so-called border czar, said that no one is above the law and that anyone — including the governor — who obstructs immigration enforcement would be subject to charges.

“I would do it if I were Tom,” Trump said, pursing his lips as he appeared to consider the question as he was speaking to reporters on Monday. “I think it’s great.”

“He’s done a terrible job,” Trump continued. “I like Gavin Newsom. He’s a nice guy. But he’s grossly incompetent. Everybody knows.”

The White House is not actively discussing or planning Newsom’s arrest. But Newsom took the threat seriously, vehemently decrying Trump’s remarks as the mark of an authoritarian.

“The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,” Newsom wrote on X.

“It would truly be unprecedented to arrest a governor over a difference in policy between the federal government and a state,” UC Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky said Monday. “Even when Southern governors were obstructing desegregation orders, presidents did not try to have them arrested.”

A backfiring effort at deterrence

Leavitt said that Trump’s initial decision to deploy the Guard was “with the expectation that the deployment of the National Guard would hopefully prevent and deter some of this violence.”

“He told the governor to get it under control and watched again for another full day, 24 hours, where it got worse,” Leavitt said. “The assaults against federal law enforcement upticked, the violence grew, and the president took bold action on Saturday evening to protect federal detention spaces and federal buildings and federal personnel.”

The opposite occurred. The worst violence yet took place on Sunday, with some rioters torching and hurling concrete at police cars, hours after National Guard troops had arrived in L.A. County.

The protests had been largely peaceful throughout Friday and Saturday, with isolated instances of violent activity. Leavitt said that Newsom and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, have “handicapped” the Los Angeles Police Department, “who are trying to do their jobs.”

Local leaders “have refused to allow the local police department to work alongside the feds to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, and to detain and arrest violent criminals who are on the streets of Los Angeles,” she said.

“As for the local law enforcement,” she added, “the president has the utmost respect for the Los Angeles Police Department.”

‘All options on the table’

Leavitt, in a phone call on Monday afternoon, said she would not get ahead of Trump on whether he will invoke the Insurrection Act, a law that allows the president to suspend Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the military from engaging in local law enforcement.

But she took note that, on Monday, the president referred to some of the rioters as insurrectionists, potentially laying the groundwork for an invocation of the law.

“The president is wisely keeping all options on the table, and will do what is necessary to restore law and order in California,” she said. “Federal immigration enforcement operations will continue in the city of Los Angeles, which has been completely overrun by illegal alien criminals that pose a public safety risk and need to be removed from the city.”

The president’s order, directing 2,000 National Guard troops to protect federal buildings in the city, allows for a 60-day deployment. Leavitt would not say how long the operation might last, but suggested it would continue until violence at the protests ends.

“I don’t want to get ahead of the president on any decisions or timelines,” she said. “I can tell you the White House is 100% focused on this. The president wants to solve the problem. And that means creating an environment where citizens, if they wish, are given the space and the right to peacefully protest.”

“And these violent disruptors and insurrectionists, as the president has called them, are not only doing a disservice to law-abiding citizens, but to those who wish to peacefully protest. That’s a fundamental right this administration will always support and protect.”

Wilner reported from Washington, Wick from Los Angeles.

To hear our national leaders tell it, Los Angeles is in chaos and our governor and mayor are out to lunch with the police, blissfully ignoring reality as the city burns.

“These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT BE TOLERATED,” President Trump wrote on social media, shortly after ordering the National Guard onto our streets.

“To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States,” he wrote in a memo Saturday, authorizing 2,000 National Guard troops to be deployed in L.A. for at least 60 days.

Put down your matcha lattes and trade in your Birkenstocks for boots, folks. We are the revolution, apparently, so dangerous only a seasoned military can stop us. The only problem, of course, is that Los Angeles is not in chaos on this particular sunny Sunday and the vast majority of Angelenos are just trying to enjoy the weekend without becoming a federal prisoner.

Trump’s memo will go into the history books as a moment when presidential power expanded to put under his control a military force aimed at U.S. civilians. Although not unprecedented, the dean of UC Berkeley’s law school, Erwin Chemerinsky, said it was “stunning.”

All the more so because the deployment is based on a lie. Yes, there has been some violence in the last few days as federal immigration authorities round up criminals and regular folks alike in deportation sweeps. If you keep the camera angle tight on those protests, as many media outlets have done, it does look dire.

Rocks being thrown, even Molotov cocktails. Masked protesters hammering at concrete pillars outside a downtown federal building. Cars on fire.

All of this is terrible and those responsible should be arrested — by our local police and sheriffs, who are more than up to the job of handling a few hundred protesters.

But 99% of this city is business as usual, with brunches and beach walks and church and yoga classes. And even in those few pockets where the protests are happening, such as a march downtown Sunday, this is Los Angeles — I’ve seen more chaos after a Lakers game.

Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School, told my colleague Seema Mehta that although it’s extremely unusual for a president to take federal control of troops, it’s not unprecedented and maybe not illegal. It happened in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict.

“One of the exceptions is when there is violence and the inability of the federal government to enforce federal laws,” Levinson said. “And that is exactly what the president is arguing is happening.”

My intrepid colleagues at this paper have been on the ground since the first protests began, and, as their reporting shows, the majority of what is happening is peaceful and isolated.

Even the cops agree. And seriously, when the cops are agreeing there’s no riot — there is no riot.

“Demonstrations across the City of Los Angeles remained peaceful and we commend all those who exercised their First Amendment rights responsibly,” the LAPD wrote in a statement Saturday night.

Still, by Sunday morning, those troops, in full military gear with guns in hand (presumably with less lethal ammo, I hope), were arriving. The U.S. Northern Command tweeted that the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team has some members on the ground in Los Angeles, with more to come.

“These operations are essential to halting and reversing the invasion of illegal criminals into the United States. In the wake of this violence, California’s feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, further explained before they arrived.

Also, as you plan your week, there is now a dress code — at least for civilians, not the authorities intent on hiding their identities.

“(F)rom now on, MASKS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to be worn at protests. What do these people have to hide, and why???” Trump wrote.

All this, Gov. Gavin Newsom said, is “not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis.”

He’s right — Los Angeles has landed a starring role in Trump’s war on brown people. It makes sense. We are a city of immigrants, of all colors, and a Democratic — and democratic — one at that. What’s not to hate?

Mayor Karen Bass told my colleague Rachel Uranga that her office had tried to talk to the White House to tell them “there was absolutely no need to have troops on the ground,” but got nowhere.

“This is posturing,” Bass said.

“They want violence,” Newsom added in a Sunday email. “Don’t give them the spectacle they want.”

I’m not sure that’s possible. There will always be the bad actors, the violent ones, at any protest. And again — they should be arrested.

But Trump is going to laser-focus on those few to make an example of this city, and to increase his own power.

Because although this “insurrection” is a fantasy, his dream of more power seems all too real.

WASHINGTON — When racial justice protests roiled cities across America at the depths of the pandemic, President Trump, then in his first term, demonstrated restraint. Threats to invoke the Insurrection Act and to federalize the National Guard never materialized.

This time, it took less than 24 hours of isolated protests in Los Angeles County before Trump, more aggressive than ever in his use of executive power, to issue a historic order. “The federal government will step in and solve the problem,” he said on social media Saturday night, issuing executive action not seen since civil unrest gripped the nation in the 1960s.

It was the latest expression of a president unleashed from conventional parameters on his power, unconcerned with states’ rights or the proportionality of his actions. And the targeting of a Democratic city in a Democratic state was, according to the vice president, an intentional ploy to make a political lesson out of Los Angeles.

The pace of the escalation, and the federal government’s unwillingness to defer to cooperative local law enforcement authorities, raise questions about the administration’s intentions as it responds to protesters. The administration skipped several steps in an established ladder of response options, such as enhancing U.S. Marshals Service and Federal Protective Service personnel to protect federal prisons and property, before asking the state whether a National Guard deployment might be warranted.

Local officials were clear that they did not want, or need, federal assistance. And they are concerned that Trump’s heavy-handed response risks escalating what was a series of isolated, heated clashes consisting of a few hundred people into a larger law enforcement challenge that could roil the city.

The president’s historic deployment prompted fury among local Democratic officials who warned of an infringement on states’ rights. Trump’s takeover of the California National Guard, Gov. Gavin Newsom said, was prompted “not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle.”

“Don’t give them one,” he said.

Vice President JD Vance, calling the anti-ICE protesters “insurrectionists,” welcomed the political pushback, stating on X that “one half of America’s political leadership has decided that border enforcement is evil.”

Protests against ICE agents on Friday and Saturday were limited in scale and location. Several dozen people protested the flash raids on Friday afternoon outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, with some clashing with agents and vandalizing the building. The LAPD authorized so-called less-lethal munitions against a small group of “violent protesters” after concrete was thrown at an officer. The protest disbursed by midnight.

On Saturday, outside a Home Depot, demonstrators chanted “ICE go home” and “No justice, no peace.” Some protesters yelled at deputies, and a series of flash-bang grenades was deployed.

“What are you doing!” one man screamed out.

Times reporters witnessed federal agents lobbing multiple rounds of flash-bangs and pepper balls at protesters.

Despite the limited scale of the violence, by Saturday evening, the Trump administration embraced the visuals of a city in chaos compelling federal enforcement of law and order.

“The Trump Administration has a zero tolerance policy for criminal behavior and violence, especially when that violence is aimed at law enforcement officers trying to do their jobs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Saturday night. “These criminals will be arrested and swiftly brought to justice. The commander-in-chief will ensure the laws of the United States are executed fully and completely.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a statement Saturday, said the administration is prepared to go further, deploying active-duty U.S. Marines to the nation’s second-largest city. “This is deranged behavior,” responded California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.

Trump’s decision Saturday to call in the National Guard, using a rarely used authority called Title 10, has no clear historic precedent. President Lyndon Johnson cited Title 10 in 1965 to protect civil rights marchers during protests in Selma, Ala., but did so out of concern that local law enforcement would decline to do so themselves.

By contrast, this weekend, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department said it was fully cooperating with federal law enforcement. “We are planning for long-term civil unrest and collaborating with our law enforcement partners,” the department said in a statement.

The 2,000 Guardsmen called up for duty is double the number that were assigned by local authorities to respond to much wider protests that erupted throughout Los Angeles in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

Tom Homan, the president’s so-called border czar, told Fox News on Saturday evening that the administration was “already ahead of the game” in its planning for a National Guard deployment.

“This is about enforcing the law, and again, we’re not going to apologize for doing it,” he said. “We’re stepping up.”

National Guard troops began arriving in Los Angeles on Sunday morning, deploying around federal buildings in L.A. County.

“If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can’t do their jobs,” Trump wrote on Truth, his social media platform, “then the federal government will step in and solve the problem.”