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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're going to check in live with Los Angeles now. There are competing narratives about the events unfolding in LA. If you ask the President, Los Angeles has been ransacked by "animals" and "foreign enemies," necessitating his deployment of California's National Guard, and now active-duty Marines.

California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass acknowledged the unrest. The city has been under an 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM curfew since Tuesday, but argued that the presence of the military members has further inflamed agitations. Meanwhile, attendees might say that the demonstrations have been largely peaceful, but a few bad actors have colored the overall image. Here's Governor Newsom on Tuesday.

Governor Gavin Newsom: This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers, and even our National Guard at risk. That's when the downward spiral began. He doubled down on his dangerous National Guard deployment by fanning the flames even harder. The President, he did it on purpose. As the news spread throughout LA, anxiety for family and friends ramped up. Protests started again.

By night, several dozen lawbreakers became violent and destructive. They vandalized property. They tried to assault police officers. Many of you have seen the video clips of cars burning on cable news. If you incite violence, I want to be clear about this. If you incite violence or destroy our communities, you're going to be held to account. That kind of criminal behavior will not be tolerated. Full stop. Already more than 220 people have been arrested.

Brian Lehrer: Governor Newsom speaking to his state and really to the nation on Tuesday. With us now with a take on what's actually happening on the ground in Los Angeles is Gustavo Arellano, columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Among his pieces this week, one called Trump Wants LA to Set Itself on Fire. Let's Rebel Smarter. Gustavo, thank you so much for joining us early your time. Hello from New York. Welcome to WNYC.

Gustavo Arellano: Thank you for having me. A quick correction. You said the city was under a curfew. All of one square mile is under a curfew. It's 0.25% of the city of LA, so the narrative that LA is under siege, right off the bat, it's completely, completely false.

Brian Lehrer: Talk about why that small patch of LA and why not the rest?

Gustavo Arellano: Because that's where the protests have been happening. To put it into context, where the protests have been happening is mostly outside the Metropolitan Detention Center. This is where all the people who are getting captured at this point, that's the best way to put it, by ICE agents are being put and then processed. That's where the majority of the protests, and it's right next to Downtown, within walking distance of City Hall, within walking distance of Olvera Street, which is the birthplace of Los Angeles, and also within the 101 freeway.

There's been some protests outside the federal building in Westwood on the west side of Los Angeles, near UCLA, but nowhere else in the city. That's where all the protests, peaceful protests, chaos that has happened have been happening. Unlike what Trump and his allies are trying to say, they're trying to make it seem like neighborhoods are under siege, vandals are going all the way to Brentwood just like the ravaging innocent communities. That is nowhere even close to the case. The fact that people are even buying it just shows how little people actually want to know about the truth.

Brian Lehrer: What'd you think about that Newsom clip that we played? An accurate representation of the situation or how would you contextualize it?

Gustavo Arellano: No, it's absolutely true. Look, what happened on Sunday evening, where you had cars on fire, a row of Waymo cars, and also, most notoriously, I would argue, people over the 101 freeway overpass throwing cement chunks and e-scooters on highway patrol vehicles. That was a little bit crazy, but the rest of the stuff that was happening in cities like Paramount, cities like Santa Ana, where I'm based in Orange County, it rose up to the level of the Dodgers losing during the World Series. It's the type of mayhem that you saw in Philadelphia after the Eagles won the Super Bowl. Since it's Los Angeles, evil brown, Asian, gay Los Angeles, that, therefore, means it's enemy territory for the Trump administration, and it needs to be made an example of.

Brian Lehrer: Any other Angelenos listening in right now or anybody with ties to the city or ties to anyone who's been personally affected by this? Want to call in and help us report this story, or ask Gustavo a question? 212-433-WNYC, call or text, 212-433-9692. I want to roll back the clock by a few days to how this started. I think there's been so much focus on the protests and the response to the protests that we need to stop sometimes and remember what triggered the protest. It was these raids on workplaces and arrests of people going to actual scheduled court appearances or other immigration check-ins, and then getting detained. Here's a clip of a protester speaking with a reporter from Vox over the weekend in personal terms.

Protester: My aunt and stuff like car, they talked about how they got taken on the way to dropping their children at school, so not too good. They're just ripping families apart. It's not okay.

Brian Lehrer: Gustavo, fill everybody, who's not in LA, in on what happened, maybe Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, last week.

Gustavo Arellano: Oh no, it goes back months. This has been a long time coming. These types of captures have been happening for months, although it has increased in recent weeks. All this time, there has been volunteers creating so-called "rapid response networks." Namely, they are relying on people calling them in with tips, saying, "Hey, we have spotted ICE or suspicious-looking federal vehicles somewhere in the city," across Southern California for that matter.

People would show up and protest and, in some cases, even try to stop ICE agents from trying to go into a house or business. What really kicked off what we're seeing now started on Friday, where SEIU California President David Huerta, a labor leader, very respected, has been in the trenches for decades. He was in front of a van that was trying to execute a search warrant in the garment district near Downtown Los Angeles. Something happened. There was some altercation with a federal agent. Huerta gets knocked down to the ground, arrested. That goes viral.

People then start go to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Downtown LA and start doing the same thing. That's when the LAPD was called in. Then Saturday, the same thing happens in the tiny suburb of Paramount, which is south of Los Angeles, still in LA County, 80%-some Latino. There was an altercation or there was skirmishes there with a Home Depot. That's when people start throwing rocks and water bottles at some of these cars. Leads to right next door in Compton, right down Alondra Boulevard across the LA River. Same thing happens.

Again, that's what happened. Most Angelenos just shrug like, "Eh, it happens," but that's what motivated Trump to call in the National Guard over the objections of Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass. Sunday is when the most violence we've seen has happened. Again, in just such a concentrated area. Then, yes, Monday, that's when the National Guard really starts coming out. Now, we're waiting for the Marines. Apparently, they just completed their training. What that training is, a city waits with bated breath.

Brian Lehrer: You wrote your column that I mentioned in the intro, Trump Wants LA to Set Itself on Fire. Let's Rebel Smarter. What's rebelling smarter?

Gustavo Arellano: Oh, doing civil disobedience, throwing chunks of concrete at law enforcement. I'm sorry, but you deserve the arrest that you're going to get. Standing, laying down, and just willfully disobeying what you think are unjust laws. That's good trouble. That's the type of trouble that we have lionized. Big sections of American society has lionized as part of what is civil rights. Also, you're seeing Newsom and Bass doing it, pursuing lawsuits against the federal government, again, over the use of National Guards and deployment of the Marines.

Also, more than anything in this day and age, broadcasting what's going on, going on social media, and showing this is the over-escalation of what's essentially now an occupied city or section of the city in Los Angeles, but also in the city of Santa Ana, where we also have the National Guard on a historically Latino corridor of business, forestry like Calle Cuatro. That's what you need to broadcast to the world. That's what anyone who is offended by the overreach by the Trump administration should be doing.

Brian Lehrer: Who's committing the violence, and who might respond to a call to rebel smarter?

Gustavo Arellano: Oh, well--

Brian Lehrer: Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, and I'm going to--

Gustavo Arellano: Yes, no, no, sorry. I'll start with the rebel smarter part. These rapid response networks, these are people whose family members are undocumented or who feel that no human being is illegal or community residents who have been here for decades, being literally shoved into a car, given no reason why, having no access to be able to talk to a lawyer or loved ones and do that.

Now, the violence parts. It's so easy to blame antifa, communists, whatever you want to call. I hate to say this. When you are in a crowd, as people should know, crowd dynamics can turn on a whim. When I was in Santa Ana and covering this in real time, I was seeing teenagers who have been probably never even paid attention to any sort of politics, but out there so angry. They see a rock. They're holding that rock.

I did not see them throw that, but I did see people who are definitely not antifa throwing water bottles at them. What I argue is that the people who are a little bit more even tempered should be telling those people, "Don't--" and I saw that. I reported when I did my dispatch from Santa Ana, someone on a bullhorn saying, "Do not throw water bottles." For us, it's just a water bottle. For law enforcement officer, it is assault with a deadly weapon, and they will respond in kind.

Brian Lehrer: Now, Trump has described those on the streets as foreign actors. NPR spoke with an official from the Department of Homeland Security who stated that, "There's some activity on the ground that it seems is highly coordinated, and that there might be a financial backer that could even be a foreign adversary." That's from Trump's Department of Homeland Security. Does anything that you've seen substantiate or disprove that claim?

Gustavo Arellano: Oh, look, the rapid response networks, there's no secret about that at all. What they're trying to now do, it's very evil, actually. They have now sent out letters. What is it? I believe a congressional committee for the Department of Homeland Security. They're sending out letters to nonprofits that have been helping out undocumented people with citizenship, health clinics, and health for decades.

The main target, this group, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, better known as CHIRLA, they got a letter from US Senator Josh Hawley saying, "Hey, you keep all the records, texts, emails that you've been doing for God knows how long, because we are accusing you of possibly financing all of this." It is just such overreach, such imperial overreach, and also, frankly, trying to find a blame agent in all this. In Southern California, I'll say this, people say, "Really, CHIRLA? This radical agent? Give me a goddamn break." There's far more radical agents who are doing absolutely nothing because this is not their bailiwick, so to speak.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a call from LA. Jeff, you're on WNYC. Hello, Jeff in LA. Hello from New York.

Jeff: Hello, Brian. Yes, your guest could not be more cogent. This is just nonsense. There is no imminent danger in LA. I spoke to a guardsman yesterday. He was here from Bakersfield. Nice guy, but they were bored. They were wondering what they were doing here. It is just trumped up. This is the Reichstag fire that Trump wants and Stephen Miller wants. I fear that during these peaceful protests on Saturday, some agitator or, like you mentioned before, some teenager is going to throw a rock, and that's all it's going to take. We need to do this smartly. We need to do this peacefully. We need to be very careful because this is the fight they want.

Brian Lehrer: Jeff, thank you very much. One more from LA with, I think, a similar sentiment. Pamela in Downtown LA. Pamela, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Pamela: Hi, Brian. I listen to your show every morning. I'm a former New Yorker, so thank you for taking my call. Yes, I'm Downtown. I'm a few blocks from the epicenter of the situation. I just wanted to share that, again, agree 1,000% with what Gustavo is saying. Absolutely correct on every count. I live and work here. I'm seeing it personally. One thing that I wanted to mention, a concern that I have, an ongoing concern, and I'm not sure how to deal with this, is the language that we're using for Trump's ludicrous claims.

I'm concerned that it normalizes behavior. Overreach is, to me, a kind of innocuous word for something that's just straight-out lies, intentional disinformation, that kind of thing. I just feel like we're watering down what's happening by using this language that's somewhat innocuous about it. I just want to make one other quick point. I was really glad to hear Gustavo give the sports analogy, the Eagles-Super Bowl analogy, because that's what I say when people from other cities ask me, "What's really going on?"

Of course, like in any major crowd and any huge crowd, there are going to be the majority of people who are there to have a good time and be together and celebrate, things that unify us. Of course, in any big city, in any big crowd, there are going to be knuckleheads doing stupid [beep]. The situation overall is just ludicrous. The last thing is that I haven't heard many people, maybe you've brought it up, talk about the disparity between the reaction to what was going on in the Capitol, which was truly violent, and resulted in injuries and death compared to this response, which is actually not violent at all.

Brian Lehrer: Pamela, thank you for your call. Listeners, if you heard a gap there, Pamela did use one of the words that you're not allowed to say on the radio. We dumped a little portion of her call, but I think you still got the idea. Anything, briefly, Gustavo, to Pamela's concern about language or either of those two LA callers?

Gustavo Arellano: I did call it imperial overreach, so I don't know how that's watering anything down. Trump imagines himself to be an emperor, a king, a philosopher king, if not a demigod at this point. I do appreciate the point. Look, again, this is so concentrated. The other thing that people have been asking me, "Oh, is this like the riots of '92?" Not even close. To even compare it is ludicrous.

The riots of 1992 engulfed the entire city. Huge neighborhoods, 60-some people dead, I believe. Thousands injured, 5,000 buildings set on fire. This, there has not been a single fatality. Thank God, there has been arrests, yes. Again, the curfew zone is just 1 mile. Yes, Trump is looking to make an example of LA. As I said earlier, he despises everything Los Angeles stands for.

The last thing that people should do is run into his trap, because this is the warning I have to people. Even if you are against illegal immigration, you should be concerned about this precedent that Trump is doing. The last time the National Guard was sent anywhere in the United States without at least the consent of a sitting governor was in 1965 in Jim Crow, Alabama. For anyone to sit back and say, "Hey, it's perfectly fine," and on top of that, "call the Marines," you should be frightened beyond belief because it's coming to you.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, a quick program note. We've pulled a clip for our next segment of LBJ at that time in 1965. We have a historian of the civil rights era coming up after the news, Peniel Joseph. We're going to play that clip that we've been talking about on the show and that Gustavo just brought up again. Stay tuned for that, coming up in a few minutes. I want to play one Trump clip from Sunday. He was speaking with reporters about the conduct of demonstrators. You could hear this as encouraging police brutality. Listen.

President Donald Trump: When they spit at people, they spit. That's their new thing. They spit. Worse, you know what they throw at them, right? When that happens, I have a little statement. They say, "They spit, we hit." I told them, nobody's going to spit on our police officers. Nobody's going to spit on our military, which they do as a common thing. They get up to them this far away, and then they start spitting in their faces. That happens, they get hit very hard.

Brian Lehrer: "They spit, we hit. That happens, they get hit very hard." I'm just curious, Gustavo, because I don't think the police or the National Guard or the Marines really want to assault people for spitting at them. Maybe there are some who do, but I think, in general, the training is for as much restraint as they can use. I'm curious if you've done any reporting or seen any reporting on how the LAPD or the National Guard or now the Marines are trying to act professionally while they may be getting goaded on by the President's and other people's rhetoric.

Gustavo Arellano: There's going to be some people who say any law enforcement response is too much. From what I have seen, the National Guard, for the most part, has stood around and done nothing. Yes, bored. They did detain one person that I know of. They cannot arrest people, at least as they're currently positioned, but they're mostly just standing there doing nothing.

On the other hand, you do have Department of Homeland Security officers firing pepper spray, tear gas. I've also seen them, though, insult people. When I was in Santa Ana, one of them was mocking a woman, saying, "Take off your mask. Take off your mask." Meanwhile, this same guy was wearing a mask. LAPD, I have seen them yesterday-- what would have been? Wednesday evening and during the day, I did see them more aggressive.

The curfew at that little spot in Downtown LA, the square mile is one. It starts at 8:00. The first night at nine o'clock, they were still getting people out and not arresting people. By 8:15 last night, they were already arresting people. The escalation of what they're doing is definitely happening. Also, as journalists, we cannot forget what we saw live on camera, the Australian television reporter who was hit with a rubber bullet by an LAPD officer.

If you see the camera, it seems like he was pointing directly or in the direction of that woman instead of, say, shooting on the ground. The more this happens, the more the tension escalates. I really fear for what happens. All that said, at least, Sheriff Robert Luna and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell are stressing, "We have nothing to do with immigration. We are just here to make sure that streets don't get overtaken. If you're going to assault our officers, you're going to be arrested." I'm sorry. You might not like the police. If you try to punch a police officer, if you try to throw something at them, that, under the law, is assault with assault of a law enforcement agent. Guess what? You're most likely going to be arrested. You're lucky if you don't at that moment.

Brian Lehrer: LA Times columnist Gustavo Arellano. Among his articles this week, Trump Wants LA to Set Itself on Fire. Let's Rebel Smarter. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time early in LA.

Gustavo Arellano: Gracias.

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