He stressed that protests were “nowhere near” the level required to deploy the troops.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell sharply countered Donald Trump’s claims that the city needed National Guard support, emphasizing Wednesday that protests were “nowhere near” that level.
McDonnell’s remarks come after Trump cited the police chief as validating the White House’s decision to send in troops to address largely peaceful protests over immigration raids.
When asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins if Trump had correctly described his position, McDonnell disputed the president’s statement.
“No, we were not in a position to request the National Guard,” he said. “We’re nowhere near a level where we would be reaching out to the governor for National Guard at this stage. And my hope is that things are going in the right direction now and that we wouldn’t have had to have done that, or we won’t either.”
We can beat them and shoot the journalists with rubber bullets just fine, thank you.
Sending in the troops is a grievous insult to their well-established ability to abuse the people of Los Angeles without help.
I get what you’re saying, and you’re not wrong, but I seriously doubt that protests would have escalated to the point that LAPD would be using pepper balls, rubber bullets, and tear gas if not for the national guard being federalized. To me that was an escalation in itself.
It’d be like 3-4 officers standing in a line across from protesters just watching in case things were to get out of hand. Then all of a sudden a sheriff from another state insults the protesters, sends 20 other officers in riot gear to stand next to you, and they start walking at the protesters to intimidate and beat them. So sure LAPD is more than capable of being huge pieces of shit, but what is the sheriff supposed to do in this situation? Pull his officers off the streets entirely? It’s still his jurisdiction. That’d be wholely irresponsible.