Former LAPD Chief: Sending Troops To Los Angeles Is A Major Mistake

Failures

from the oil-(with-guns)-meet-water-(with-guns) dept

At some point, there’s supposed to 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines added to a volatile mix that already includes peaceful protesters, some not-so-peaceful protesters, definitely-not-peaceful peace officers, and a large migrant community already on edge.

Piled on top of this is mindless, harmful rhetoric steadily flowing from the mouths of Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, DHS head Kristi Noem, and pretty much every elected Republican in DC.

None of this mixes well. The GOP seems to desire martial law. Los Angeles residents just want ICE to leave. The LAPD and LASD seemed to have a handle on this before the interlopers arrived, even if they — like seemingly every police force in the nation — are better at picking fights than de-escalating conflict.

The current LAPD chief has already issued a statement that said the deployment of military units was unnecessary at best, and possibly dangerous at worst, given the lack of communication from the federal government. Meanwhile, the Guardsmen who have already been sent to LA are sleeping on floors and going without pay because, with this administration, it’s action first and logistics last.

A former LAPD chief, Michael Moore, says the current situation is a powder keg in search of a lit fuse. Moore would know. He was an officer during the riots that followed the Rodney King beating verdict. What he saw then doesn’t exactly paint a promising picture of the near future:

I was an officer during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, when federal troops were last deployed to our streets. I witnessed the confusion and the risks created by sending soldiers trained for combat into a civilian environment. Even basic commands like “cover me” were misunderstood — interpreted by troops as calls for gunfire rather than tactical positioning. Whereas police officers are taught to use time, distance and de-escalation, soldiers are trained to apply overwhelming force.

We can argue about what officers are actually being taught, as well as what teachings they choose to deploy, but we can’t argue the fact that military mindsets are different than law enforcement mindsets, even though those lines have become increasingly blurred over the past couple of decades.

What’s impossible to ignore are the facts on the ground: Los Angeles is not overwhelmed by violent protests. What there is of that is relegated to an extremely small subsection of the city. Given that fact, it’s completely possible for local law enforcement to manage protests on their own.

There is no question that serious unrest and violence have occurred in parts of downtown Los Angeles. Attacks on buildings and threats to public safety must be taken seriously. But this is not an insurrection. These incidents are localized, and local law enforcement agencies are fully capable of addressing them.

The optics of sending in troops is already bad enough. And the Trump Administration has already had its commandeering of local National Guard troops blocked by a federal court. What’s happening here appears to be illegal, and the Trump Administration is openly daring courts to stop its steady march towards a fascism and martial law.

The outcome of this envelope-pushing will have a very human cost. The administration is playing with people’s lives literally as it tests the boundaries of its power. What happened years ago should be a cautionary tale, but it seems like Trump and his GOP enablers would be more than thrilled with this sort of death toll:

History reminds us of the dangers of blurring these lines. The tragedy at Kent State, where unarmed student protesters were gunned down by National Guard troops, offers a stark warning. The federal government’s deployment of military personnel now risks causing the same escalation, tragic error and lasting damage to public confidence.

Kent State appears to be the blueprint, rather than the barricade. If Californians need to be killed by members of the military so ICE can pack another bus with meaningfully employed migrants, so be it. You’d hope that someone in the administration with the power to push it back from this precipice would speak up. But it’s been five months and it appears every single batshit urge of Trump’s has been waved through like a cargo van full of Afrikaners at the Mexican border.

And despite protests to the contrary by California lawmakers and actual law enforcement officials in the state, this is what we’re seeing happen now: a scene that looks like it’s taking place in a foreign country but is actually nothing more than an untargeted ICE raid of a Los Angeles swap meet:

Absolutely chilling. People selling stuff to other people, rudely interrupted by ICE agents and US military members, performing stall-to-stall searches like they’re strolling through an open-air market in Iraq. This is fucked up. And it’s only just beginning.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, ice, immigration, lapd, los angeles, martial law, national guard, protests