Los Angeles Guard Deployment Raises Specter Of Kent State

Originally published at: Los Angeles Guard Deployment Raises Specter Of Kent State - TPM – Talking Points Memo

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation. Responding to street protests in Los Angeles against federal immigration enforcement raids, President Donald Trump ordered 2,000 soldiers from the California National Guard into the city on June 7, 2025, to protect agents carrying out the…

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He’s just itching for a reason to declare nation-wide martial law, isn’t he?

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@BrianVanDeMark, I don’t see any parallels to Kent State, at least not yet. I think we should let things play out a while. I believe Newsom is doing a good job of deescalating the situation.

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And then you have idiocy like this - not only calling for snipers to shoot the protesters, but bringing back the racial animus from the Rodney King riots.

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Calling out the National Guard against peaceful protests is essentially like declaring war on your own country during peace time.

I guess if you cannot make war against a foreign adversary (presumably Mexico, Canada, Denmark and Panama are not cooperating) then what is a Republican King gotta to do to have his war? Well, we got our answer.

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From an AP article in our local paper: “In a signal of the administration’s aggressive approach, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also threatened to deploy active-duty Marines “if violence continues” in the region.”

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Troops untrained in crowd control and riot tactics can make some serious mistakes as we saw at Kent St but it still took an order from an equally untrained officer IIRC so we’ll have to hope CA natl guard are a little more prepared.

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Yesterday, the LAPD/CHP/LCSO had vehicles parked on the interstate, some under a bridge. Protestors were on the bridge. First the protestors were dropping their signs and what appeared to be rolls of toilet paper onto the cars. As police advanced on the protestors, they shot tear gas. Protestors promptly grabbed the canisters and threw them at the cars and officers below.

Press reporting “Protestors are throwing things at the police cars,” leaving out the rest. Not all media, but enough.

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Yeah, going along with what appears to be a general sentiment here, the Kent State shootings are an obvious cautionary tale, but the Guard these days is probably better trained, and so far they’ve been positioned as backup with local police and ICE doing the actual crowd contact.

If a protester is killed, it will probably be by an ICE goon, the way things are going. I’m seeing people thrown and pinned to the ground to be handcuffed. The murder of George Floyd by police is maybe a better reference point for what could happen in LA and elsewhere.

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To you or I. But to the Trump regime, it is a blueprint.

They are looking to shoot some folk.

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Well they’ve already shot an Australian jouranlist.

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Yes indeed, and has been ever since January 6, 2021.

However, we should probably not let this stop us from lodging protests, peaceably assembling, speaking against the Maladministration. That’s just preemptive compliance. Giving in to the bully without any resistance.

Remember, the worse things he does, the more Americans will oppose him.

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New York Times is reporting

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I’m sorry, but this is weak sauce by Newsom. He should call the Adjutant General and emphasize that according to the law Trump invoked, orders to the State National Guard must still go through the governor and Newsom is ordering the National Guard to stand down. If the Adjutant General fails to do so, fire him and appoint someone who will.

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I agree that’s one of the goals. Fortunately, they’re too incompetent to figure out that California National Gard members may have qualms about shooting their neighbors.

What Trump should have done, is send in the Guard from a deep Red state like Alabama or Mississippi, where the members might have more animus against California hippies and immigrants.

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That’s the second journalist they’ve shot in as many days.

The same weekend, British photographer Nick Stern was injured when a 14mm “sponge bullet” tore into his thigh while he was documenting a standoff between protesters and police in the city of Paramount, Los Angeles County.

“Some of the protesters came and helped me, and they ended up carrying me, and I noticed that there was blood pouring down my leg.”

Stern underwent emergency surgery at Long Beach Memorial Medical Centre. He said he had been clearly marked as press, as is his usual practice during hostile situations.

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It’s not that simple. Trump is using (or misusing) a rarely applied law that allows the President to activate state Guard units. Newsom could still try ordering the state Guard to disobey the order and stand down, but it’s probably going to have to go through the courts to determine if it’s legal for Trump to do this to quell protests instead of an “invasion.” From a NYT article on it:

Governors almost always control the deployment of National Guard troops in their states. But the directive signed by Mr. Trump cites “10 U.S.C. 12406,” referring to a specific provision within Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services. Part of that provision allows the federal deployment of National Guard forces if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

It also states that the president may call into federal service “members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws.”

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Let me quote the part of the law that the NYTimes failed to include [emphasis mine]:

Orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States or, in the case of the District of Columbia, through the commanding general of the National Guard of the District of Columbia.

The Cali National Guard is effectively breaking the law by not following the Governor’s orders. He is fully within his rights to order them to stand down or, them failing to comply, firing the Adjutant General for disobeying a direct order from the State’s Commander-in-Chief.

If Trump wants to take the National Guard over the objections of the State’s Governor, he had to invoke the Insurrection Act. This is the law that previous President’s have used, like JFK and LBJ in the 60s, to federalize National Guards over the state’s objection.

No complying in advance, Gov Newsom.

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I’m having issues logging in to TPM Hive. I have multiple systems open, but my personal laptop is demanding an email link and none has arrived.

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I lived in Akron, pretty near Kent Ohio. My stepsister went to Kent State and was there on the day of the shooting, although her classes were, fortunately, on the other side of the campus from the shootings. I later worked with a guy who had been injured by being shot by the National Guard. This is becoming horribly like what went down back then. I can only hope it doesn’t get worse and that we somehow manage to avoid another Kent State. If we can’t, then I suspect Trump’s next move is Tienanmen Square. I’m still planning on going to the June 14 protests. If we dont stand up now, soon we won’t be able to stand up at all.

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