Wednesday, 27 May 2026
Troops in Los Angeles can detain individuals, but no arrest authorities
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. military troops deployed to Los Angeles are allowed to temporarily detain individuals until law enforcement agents arrive to arrest them, a senior U.S. military official said on Wednesday.
Major General Scott Sherman, who is leading the deployment of the 4,700 troops, said the troops on the ground did not have the authority to arrest individuals.
Sherman said that the 700 Marines are receiving training on how to handle civil disturbances and they would not have live ammunition in their rifles during the deployment.
He added that the Marines would not be deployed to the streets of Los Angeles on Wednesday, but they would be there "soon."
Hundreds of U.S. Marines were undergoing refresher training in riot and crowd control just outside of Los Angeles and will move into the city soon, a military official said, as protests over President Donald Trump's immigration raids spread from California to other parts of the country.
Trump's decision to dispatch National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles over the objections of California's governor has sparked a national debate on the use of the military on U.S. soil.
Protesters marched in New York, Atlanta and Chicago on Tuesday night, chanting anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement slogans and at times clashing with law enforcement, while downtown Los Angeles spent its first night under a mandatory curfew after five days of demonstrations.
The protests are likely to expand on Saturday, when several activist groups have planned hundreds of anti-Trump demonstrations across the country. That day, tanks and other armored vehicles will rumble down the streets of Washington, D.C., in a military parade marking the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary and coinciding with Trump's 79th birthday.
Trump says the military deployment in Los Angeles prevented the violence from raging out of control, an assertion California Governor Gavin Newsom and other local officials have decried as untrue.
"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," Newsom, a Democrat widely expected to mount a presidential run in 2028, said in a video address on Tuesday.