On Saturday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti stressed during a press conference pertaining to the ongoing riots that the city would not “call in the National Guard.” A short while later, Garcetti tweeted that “the California National Guard” was coming to LA.
“Would you support calling in the National Guard?” asked a reporter.
Garcetti replied:
No. I spoke with the governor earlier today. This is not a city – this is not 1992. We’re not going to evoke what happened then and call in the National Guard, but that’s also on all of us. Let’s just all deescalate. We’ve trained police officers to learn more and more about deescalation, and we still have more to do, but all of us as human beings can deescalate. You can escalate without a weapon. You can provoke without a baton. So, let us all deescalate, and no, I do not anticipate in any way needing to call in [the] National Guard. We got this, Los Angeles. Let’s show our better angels.
Garcetti was, of course, referring the 1992 LA Riots, which followed the acquittal of four Los Angeles police officers who brutally beat African American man Rodney King.
Later, Garcetti changed course, issuing the following tweet: “The California National Guard is being deployed to Los Angeles overnight to support our local response to maintain peace and safety on the streets of our city.”
The California National Guard is being deployed to Los Angeles overnight to support our local response to maintain peace and safety on the streets of our city.
— MayorOfLA (@MayorOfLA) May 31, 2020
On Sunday, Garcetti said the following during a press conference:
In the early evening last night, I spoke with Governor Gavin Newsom to provide him with an update on what was happening here in Los Angeles. I described the situation, I explained how it [had] become clear that a small group had turned a non-violent gathering into acts of violence and criminal acts against our local businesses. He offered to declare a state of emergency and send in and supplement National Guardsmen and women – everyday citizens who put on a uniform – that could come here to help us, and I said yes.
We’ve declared states of emergency for fires and earthquakes. We’re in one now for COVID-19. My heart breaks that we had to declare one because some people, some of them from outside of our communities, started fires and threw rocks and other dangerous items, people who drove from across town in caravans, in cars, to jump out to loot, get back in the car, and do it again. That’s the worst of us, and that’s clearly an emergency.
After this declaration, my office coordinated with the state’s Office of Emergency Services on our deployment of our 500 National Guardsmen and women, and another 500 that have headed here, I know, to back up the sheriff’s department. All of these steps are not to instill fear, they are not to exact punishment on anyone.
The Mayor of Los Angeles has issued a second curfew beginning Sunday evening at 8 p.m. local time. The first curfew, which was issued on Saturday, ran from 8 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. local time.
Currently, the curfew will apply to downtown Los Angeles between the 110 fwy on the west, Alameda on the east, and 10 fwy on the south, and 101 fwy on the north between 8 p.m. and 5:30 a.m.
— MayorOfLA (@MayorOfLA) May 30, 2020
Following days of rioting in cities across the nation, some states and localities are asking for National Guard deployment in order to help bolster their law enforcement presence and tamp down on the escalating disruptions.
These ongoing protests and riots began following the killing of 46-year-old African American man George Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer used his knee to pin Floyd’s neck to the ground. The officer in question, Derek Chauvin, was fired and has now been arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, as previously reported by The Daily Wire.
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