Donald Trump made a presumably unwitting reference to his personal previous utilization of a infamous quote attributed to a Miami police chief who cracked down on protests in Black neighborhoods on Saturday as he threatened native and state officers in California with a large federal response.
The president issued an announcement on Truth Social on Saturday night forward of his attendance at a UFC match in response to demonstrations throughout town of Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday — themselves the results of ICE raids throughout town.
His assertion, which asserted that “looters” had been current amid the chaos, was not but supported by any publicly-available proof — which signifies that the demonstrations are centered across the Los Angeles Federal Building after phrase unfold that ICE detainees had been allegedly being held on the location. Other particular person clashes between residents and members of ICE had been reported across the metropolis as raids had been carried out at companies and different areas.
“If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can’t do their jobs, which everyone knows they can’t, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!” the president wrote on Truth Social, utilizing an epithet for the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
His reference to “looters” didn’t instantly seem to have any connection to the truth on the bottom in Los Angeles.
But it does harken again to comparable statements he made throughout the closing yr of his presidency, when passionate demonstrations broke out in practically each main metropolis across the nation in response to the stunning police bodycam footage of the homicide of George Floyd by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin.
The coronary heart of that keenness was centered on the time in Minneapolis, the positioning of Floyd’s homicide. Days of violent confrontations between heavily-armed police and demonstrators was condemned by the Republican president in a tweet that claimed the protesters had been dishonoring Floyd’s reminiscence.
“These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!” he wrote in the summertime of 2020, earlier than his post-January 6 Twitter ban.
The phrase utilized by the president within the penultimate sentence of his 2020 tweet was copied from a Miami police chief, Walter Headley, who coined it in 1967 — amid heightened racial tensions nationwide and the push for Black civil rights. Headley was thought to go on to repeat the phrase to justify violent suppression of riots within the mostly-black Liberty City neighborhood of Miami, the place riots befell the next yr after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Trump has not repeated the phrase verbatim since being referred to as out for utilizing it. He has proven no hesitation towards utilizing different dehumanizing language, nonetheless, and through a rally for Ohio’s now-Senator Bernie Moreno in March of 2024 stated of undocumented immigrants, “in some cases, they’re not people.”
Critics say Saturday night’s escalation of federally-deputized power in California marks an authoritarian flip to the second Trump presidency that was previewed throughout Trump 1.0 when the president ordered legislation enforcement businesses to clear a park in Washington, D.C. to ensure that him to conduct a photograph opp at a church. As protests continued into Saturday night and pictures of a burning car within the metropolis’s Compton neighborhood circulated on social media, the president ordered 2,000 California National Guard troops to deploy and quell the demonstrations.
“President Trump has signed a Presidential Memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester. 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,” stated press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
She added: “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.”
Local leaders in California attacked the motion as an pointless escalation of the protests. Governor Gavin Newsom accused the president on Twitter of looking for a violent “spectacle”.
“The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles — not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle. Don’t give them one,” urged the governor. “Never use violence. Speak out peacefully. “
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-ice-los-angeles-looting-shooting-b2765852.html