How do LA protests compare to past?
Trump supporters: Links can't be made with January 6
By: Joey Meyer
USA Today
WASHINGTON - One group was considered a rampaging mob whose members bear-sprayed and beat police officers while breaking into the seat of American democracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
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The other was a more dispersed and uncoordinated group of violent agitators burning empty cars, looting and throwing rocks at police.
..... In the first incident the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, then-President Donald Trump never called in the National Guard, despite pleas from local officials as some congressional lawmakers. They said troops were needed to prevent further violence form an angry mob that Trump himself had riled up to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.
..... The contrast between Trump's actions in 2021, when the U.S. Capitol was overrun by a violent mob, and this month [06/2025] in Los Angeles is proof, his critics say, the president is using the U.S. military for political purposes.
..... But some supporters of the president say the more appropriate comparison isn't with the 2021 capitol riot, but the riots wand disturbances that rocked American cities in the summer of 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
..... The Floyd pretests showed "you're got to put out small fires before they turn into forest fires," Jay Town, who serviced as U.S. Attorney for the Northern district of Alabama during Trump's first administration, told USA Today.
..... Trump said the troops were needed in Los Angeles to put down a 'from of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States."
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The protests in Los Angeles are seen as more tepid compared to the January 6 riots in terms of constituting a rebellion or threat to the federal government, according to Newsom, other democratic lawmakers and legal experts.
..... They cause Trump - who was impeached and criminally indicted over January 6 [2021] though the charges were dropped after his reelection - of deploying solders to serve his own political ends.
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"There was not plausibly a rebellion in Los Angeles, under any reasonable interpretation of the term," said Chris Mirasola, a law professor at the University of Houston and a former Department of Defense legal advisor.
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Critics saw a cracked mirror image of January 6 [2021] in Trump's mobilization of the Nation la Guard in Los Angeles.
..... "This s a reverse of January 6, [2021] where Trump allowed his most violent supporters to attack the Capitol on his behalf," Representative Eric Swalwell, D-California told USA Today, "and here he is sending in federal troops, to provoke his opponents to attack them."
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"In both instances, his aim is chaos," Swalwell said.
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Four people died during the January 6 [2021] assault on congress and five police officers died in its aftermath - one from a stroke the following day and four by suicide. About 140 other law enforcement officers were injured.
..... More than 1,575 people were charged in connection with January 6, [2021] ranging from misdemeanors such as trespassing to felonies such as assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy. At least 600 were charged with the felony of assaulting or impeding law enforcement, according to the Police Executive Research Forum.
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In the current unrest in California, at least nine LAPD officers and an unknown number of protesters have been hurt, with most sustaining minor injuries.
..... The Los Angles Police Department has arrested more than 500 people in eight days of protests, the majority of
them on minor charges as failure to disperse or not obeying a nighttime curfew. Two were charged with throwing firebombs, authorities said on June 11. [2025]
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Though the extent of damage from the current La protest are unknown, it is far less significant than on January 6, [2021] Democratic lawmakers and city and state officials say.
..... Trump and other administration officials repeatedly have said there' no comparison between January 6 [221] and the Los Angeles violence, and that California and LA officials forced the President's hand by failing to quell the growing protests.
..... Four years ago, a stunned nation watched the Capitol attack unfold, with organize groups including the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia taking leading roles.
..... Trump spent 187 minutes watching the Capitol assault on TV. while mobs ransacked Congressional officers and hunted for Democratic lawmakers and even his own vice president, Mike Pence, according to a House committee investigating the attack.
..... Hours later, only after the crowd began dispersing, Trump posted a video on social media at 4:71 PM.: "Go home We love you, you're very special."
..... It wasn't until 5"20 PM. on January 6 [2021] that the first National guard troops arrived at the Capitol, while police secured the complex.
..... In a bipartisan way, on January 6 [2021] - with violence against the Constitution, agenting the Congress and against the united States Capitol p we begged the president of the United States to send in the National Guard," former House Speaker canny Pelosi, D-California, told reporters. "He would not do it.
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"And yet, in a contra-constitutional way, h4e has sent the National Guard into California," Pelosi said on June 10. [2025] "Something is very wrong with this picture."
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On June 13, [2025] the 9th U.S. Circuit court of Appeals temporarily halted a federal judge's order blocking Trump's Guard mobilization in Los Angeles.
..... On his first day back in office in 2025, Trump pardon all but 14 of the approximately 1,270 convicted January 6 [2021] rioters.