Po­lice ar­rest­ed more than 20 peo­ple, most­ly on cur­few vi­o­la­tions, on the first night of re­stric­tions in down­town Los An­ge­les and used crowd-con­trol pro­jec­tiles to break up hun­dreds of pro­test­ers demon­strat­ing against Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s im­mi­gra­tion crack­down, of­fi­cials said Wednes­day.

But there were few­er clash­es be­tween po­lice and demon­stra­tors than on pre­vi­ous nights, and by day­break the down­town streets were bustling with res­i­dents walk­ing dogs and com­muters clutch­ing cof­fee cups.

Of­fi­cials said the cur­few was nec­es­sary to stop van­dal­ism and theft by ag­i­ta­tors look­ing to cause trou­ble af­ter five days of protests, which have most­ly been con­cen­trat­ed down­town.

The cur­few cov­ers a 1-square-mile (2.5-square-kilo­me­ter) sec­tion that in­cludes an area where protests have oc­curred since Fri­day in the sprawl­ing city of 4 mil­lion. The city of Los An­ge­les en­com­pass­es rough­ly 500 square miles (1,295 square kilo­me­ters).

Some 2,000 Na­tion­al Guard sol­diers are in the city, and about half of them have been pro­tect­ing fed­er­al build­ings and agents, said Army Maj. Gen. Scott Sher­man, head of Task Force 51, which is over­see­ing the de­ploy­ment of Na­tion­al Guard and Marines to Los An­ge­les.

About 700 Marines will soon join the Guard troops, but they are still un­der­go­ing train­ing and will not be mo­bi­lized Wednes­day, Sher­man said. An­oth­er 2,000 Guard troops should be on the streets by Thurs­day, he said.

De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Gov. Gavin New­som has ac­cused Trump of draw­ing a “mil­i­tary drag­net” across the na­tion’s sec­ond-largest city with his es­ca­lat­ing use of the Na­tion­al Guard, which Trump ac­ti­vat­ed, along with the Marines, over the ob­jec­tions of city and state lead­ers.

New­som asked a court to put an emer­gency stop to the mil­i­tary help­ing fed­er­al im­mi­gra­tion agents. The as­sis­tance in­cludes some guards­men now stand­ing pro­tec­tive­ly around agents as they car­ry out ar­rests.

The gov­er­nor said the mil­i­tary pres­ence would on­ly height­en ten­sions and civ­il un­rest. A judge set a hear­ing for Thurs­day, giv­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion sev­er­al days to con­tin­ue its ac­tiv­i­ties.

The change moves the mil­i­tary clos­er to en­gag­ing in law en­force­ment ac­tions such as de­por­ta­tions, as Trump has promised as part of his im­mi­gra­tion crack­down. The Guard has the au­thor­i­ty to tem­porar­i­ly de­tain peo­ple who at­tack of­fi­cers, but any ar­rests would be made by law en­force­ment.

The pres­i­dent post­ed on the Truth So­cial plat­form that the city “would be burn­ing to the ground” if he had not sent in the mil­i­tary.

Demon­stra­tions have spread to oth­er cities na­tion­wide, in­clud­ing Dal­las and Austin in Texas, and Chica­go and New York, where thou­sands ral­lied and mul­ti­ple ar­rests were made.

New York City po­lice said they took 86 peo­ple in­to cus­tody dur­ing protests in low­er Man­hat­tan from Tues­day evening in­to Wednes­day morn­ing. Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Jes­si­ca Tisch said the vast ma­jor­i­ty of demon­stra­tors were peace­ful.

In Texas, where po­lice in Austin used chem­i­cal ir­ri­tants to dis­perse sev­er­al hun­dred demon­stra­tors Mon­day, Re­pub­li­can Gov. Greg Ab­bott’s of­fice said Texas Na­tion­al Guard troops were “on stand­by” in ar­eas where demon­stra­tions are planned.

Guard mem­bers were sent to San An­to­nio, but Po­lice Chief William Mc­Manus said he had not been told how many troops were de­ployed or their role ahead of planned protests Wednes­day night and Sat­ur­day.

LA may­or puts cur­few in place

Los An­ge­les May­or Karen Bass de­clared a lo­cal emer­gency and said the 8 p.m.-to-6 a.m. cur­few is ex­pect­ed to last sev­er­al days.

“We reached a tip­ping point” af­ter 23 busi­ness­es were loot­ed, Bass said Tues­day.

The cur­few doesn’t ap­ply to res­i­dents who live in the des­ig­nat­ed area, peo­ple who are home­less, cre­den­tialed me­dia or pub­lic safe­ty and emer­gency of­fi­cials, Po­lice Chief Jim Mc­Don­nell said.

He said “un­law­ful and dan­ger­ous be­hav­ior” had been es­ca­lat­ing since Sat­ur­day and that the cur­few was need­ed to pro­tect lives and prop­er­ty.

Trump says he’s open to us­ing In­sur­rec­tion Act

Trump left open the pos­si­bil­i­ty of in­vok­ing the In­sur­rec­tion Act, which au­tho­rizes the pres­i­dent to de­ploy mil­i­tary forces in­side the U.S. to sup­press re­bel­lion or do­mes­tic vi­o­lence or to en­force the law in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions. It’s one of the most ex­treme emer­gency pow­ers avail­able to a U.S. pres­i­dent.

“If there’s an in­sur­rec­tion, I would cer­tain­ly in­voke it. We’ll see,” he said from the Oval Of­fice.

Lat­er the pres­i­dent called pro­test­ers “an­i­mals” and “a for­eign en­e­my” in a speech at Fort Bragg.

Trump has de­scribed Los An­ge­les in dire terms that Bass and New­som say are nowhere close to the truth.

In a pub­lic ad­dress Tues­day evening, New­som called Trump’s ac­tions the start of an “as­sault” on democ­ra­cy.

“Cal­i­for­nia may be first, but it clear­ly will not end here. Oth­er states are next,” he said.

New­som warned peo­ple against in­cit­ing vi­o­lence, but he urged them to stand up to the pres­i­dent’s ac­tions.

The protests be­gan Fri­day af­ter fed­er­al im­mi­gra­tion raids ar­rest­ed dozens of work­ers in Los An­ge­les. Pro­test­ers blocked a ma­jor free­way and set cars on fire over the week­end, and po­lice re­spond­ed with tear gas, rub­ber bul­lets and flash-bang grenades.

Thou­sands of peo­ple have peace­ful­ly ral­lied out­side City Hall and hun­dreds more protest­ed out­side a fed­er­al com­plex that in­cludes a de­ten­tion cen­ter where some im­mi­grants are be­ing held fol­low­ing work­place raids.

De­spite the protests, im­mi­gra­tion en­force­ment ac­tiv­i­ty has con­tin­ued through­out the coun­ty, with city lead­ers and com­mu­ni­ty groups re­port­ing U.S. Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment present at li­braries, car wash­es and Home De­pots. School grad­u­a­tions in Los An­ge­les have in­creased se­cu­ri­ty over fears of ICE ac­tion, and some have of­fered par­ents the op­tion to watch on Zoom.

Los An­ge­les po­lice made 197 ar­rests on Tues­day, in­clud­ing 67 who were oc­cu­py­ing a free­way, ac­cord­ing to the city’s chief.

The ma­jor­i­ty of ar­rests since the protests be­gan have been for fail­ing to dis­perse, while a few oth­ers were for as­sault with a dead­ly weapon, loot­ing, van­dal­ism and at­tempt­ed mur­der for toss­ing a Molo­tov cock­tail. At least sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers have been in­jured. —LOS AN­GE­LES (AP)

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Sto­ry by JAKE OF­FEN­HARTZ, JAIMIE DING, LOLI­TA C. BAL­DOR and TARA COPP | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Bal­dor and Copp re­port­ed from Wash­ing­ton, D.C. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Do­rany Pine­da and Christo­pher We­ber in Los An­ge­les, Amy Tax­in in Or­ange Coun­ty, Cal­i­for­nia, John Seew­er in Tole­do, Ohio, Jim Ver­tuno in Austin, Texas, Hal­lie Gold­en in Seat­tle, and Greg Bull in Seal Beach, Cal­i­for­nia, con­tributed to this re­port.