You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six.
Forty KIM six mo Kelly here, as we continue to follow the live events of what's happening downtown and in Santa Ana, and for what it's worth, we always try to put context in this as far as how people are characterizing what's going on, what we see, what it looks like. It may lead to just this is anecdotal, but KTLA has left its coverage of what's going on downtown and in Santa Ana. K CAL has stayed with it.
So nothing is happening at this moment. There is a police line still in downtown LA at this moment, it is not advancing. There has been no new information about any type of order to disperse. There definitely hasn't been any information about a curfew. And I would assume at this point, and I think it's a reasonablest pump that if we haven't received anything at this point, it's going to have to escalate considerably for there to be a curfew,
because why we're we're looking at it. You know, it's tit after eight already, after a point, it almost like me, what's the point, because we'll be in the middle of the night after a certain point that hasn't happened.
There doesn't seem to be any escalation.
In fact, I can't find any television coverage correct me if I'm wrong, Twela television coverage of anything going on in Santa Anna at this point.
No, I don't really see anything happening anywhere, just protests. People are out there, peaceful and police presence for now.
Yeah, we can tell you what's happening now. We can't tell you what it will look like in forty five minutes. I mean, when forty five minutes rolls around and we get there, we can tell you what it looks like, but we can't tell you what it might be, what might happen. But at this moment, there is no escalation, and I think that's what all.
Of us are hoping for, or at least what I'm hoping for.
Again, I try to remind people, and I was going back and forth with people on my social media and if you go to my Facebook page at mister bo Kelly or at Lady with mo Kelly, I was giving you my thoughts about this.
I have no dog in this fight.
I have not talked about this in the sense of any narrative.
I try to give you some history. I try to give you some context.
I try to compare it to other events which are similar, other events which have been not characterized as a riot, even though the same things have been happening. Oh, I'll give you a perfect example. After the super Bowl in February, there were six people who were arrested for assaults on police officers. There were at least fifty people arrested in totality. There was looting, there were cars set on fire, there was a big bonfire in the street. There were two
people shot. That's after the super Bowl. It was deemed a celebration violence for violence. It's not unlike what we've seen in LA as of Saturday. No telling what is going to happen in the future, but as of Saturday, there were comparable events. In fact, there was more which
happened in Philadelphia, and that was called a celebration. That's why I think we should be very very careful about how we characterize these events for our personal or political purposes, or how what I call wish casting, what you would like them to be, or how you want them perceived. And I want to reiterate that it's not. When you try to talk about these things in absolutes, you'll probably be absolutely wrong. There is a level of nuance if
we're responsible, that we can apply to this. Anyone who tries to tell you that this was a holy, peaceful protest is I don't want to say they're lying. Some people are lying, but it's factually untrue. There are too many incidents and things that we can point to to dispel that myth or characterization. It has not been wholly peaceful and it hasn't been a riot. Now, there have been things which people think like because well, if you set a waybo on fire, that's that's a that's a riot.
I don't think so.
I mean there are it's still under control. What is happening now. Things happened, and you saw what happened to the WAYMO and you saw like the the scooters that they were throwing off the freeway on the police cars. But again credit to LAPD, credit to La County Sheriff's Department, they kept it all contained, they did, and there was no real further escalation beyond that. What happens tonight we will see if we can keep that positive momentum going
but it hasn't been wholly peaceful. It has not. Have there been at of course, have there been people who have with their own agendas and their own motivations. Absolutely, but we have to be careful not to be reckless with our rhetoric. I can't speak for you toal because I don't know what you've been listen to. But I've been hearing people throw around words like invasion. It's like, no, it's not an invasion. It's not. It's not some sort of war which is going on.
It's not.
There are some really questionable activities going on out there, and yes, there has been violence against police officers. Not pushing that aside, but we have to be very careful to keep it in its context and not reach for terminology and reach for imagery because we want to cast it a certain way.
Kf I am six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app I'm Okelly as we continue our coverage of what's going on downtown, and also, I guess to a lesser degree in Santa Ana, we are not seeing the same reports or coverage of that. But if it should change and direction will have that for you.
You're listening to later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty six.
Mo Kelly here, as we continue our live covers of the ongoing events to protest downtown and in Santa Anna. There seems to be some movement downtown. It seems the police line is beginning to move forward again. There is vehicle activity where police you know what, Stephan, let's bring up the audio on cake House. We can get some context of what's happening there.
He's been watching protesters go by as well.
Tom hither Suzy.
So we moved actually because we saw all those officers. There's voter officers zooming up first streets. So we came
up to City Hall. That's where we are right now, right outside of the City Hall, and you can see, uh, there's a sort of scattered amount of crowd there, people kind of lingering here, and then there's a very like solid line of police in you know, heavily armed, got their right gear, their shields, all all kinds of things there that they're equipped with, and they are standing in stage here right now, and you know, doesn't look like there's that sort of tense, volatile situation that we've seen
playing out in the last few days we you know, we as we've been talking about, this crowd is very much sort of dispersed, and it's scattered and there's just remnants in little pockets of people here and there and kind of just wandering around, I think, people trying to figure out maybe what to do, where, where to go. But you know, LAPD their strategy seems to have worked, which was to kind of break up the crowd, create kind of a situation where there was no real place
to reconstitute a crowd. So by you know, either by closing down streets or by you know, by placing you know, a high concentration of officers in different spots, and so it just kind of created this, like I think for the people who are out here, a bit of chaos and a bit of inability to kind of create some continuity. So now which you have is just a lot of people just kind of wandering around, looking like, well, what do we do next? It doesn't seem like there is
a lot of organization out here. It certainly did not seem that organized earlier either.
We just sort of huge.
Boom a few blocks away that could have been fireworks or any number of things, but it was a very large boom sound.
Maybe that's in the area where Lori Perez is.
But yeah, so you know, obviously some people are kind of you know, making comments and saying some some insulting some of the officers here, but for the most part, others sort of standing there looking at them and just yeah,
they're The posturing is definitely different than it was. You know, we we've seen the situation play out where you have protesters in some cases, you know, trying to antagonize federal officers or police officers, either verbally or you know, throwing things at them, you know, walking up to them with their cell phones and you know, saying things to them.
But while that's happening on a smaller scale right now, it's nothing compared to what we saw, and it doesn't seem like we're in that sort of hair trigger situation, you know, where one little thing could happen and then the whole situation explodes and there's clashes.
It just it seems different.
And obviously, you know, given what we've seen in the last few.
Nights, I think, okay, I'm going to jump in there and if you just only heard a snippet of that, let me just kind of recap what the reporter was saying for ke Cow, it's dissipating. People are walking away largely orderly. If you check out our YouTube, you can see some of the video where police are moving fullar and it's not like they're encountering as much resistance as maybe an hour and a half ago. There has not been an order officially to disperse from what I know.
And this kind of goes back to what LAPD Chief Jim McDonald was talking about, because obviously LAPD has a plan and it was unclear not only to me as a layperson, but also was unclear to Chief McDonald as far as what role the Marines would play when obviously you had the National Guard guarding the Federal building. What the hundreds of other marines were going to add? Do you have that statement in front of you, by chance, Mark, which one exactly from Jim McDonald. I had it just
a second ago. It will give me, well, I'll give you some time, but it's I think it's interesting here.
We are all right, go ahead.
LAPD Chief Jim McDonald has issued a statement saying the possible arrival of federal military forces in La absent clear coordination presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of US charged with safeguarding the city.
If well, I not even say if.
Since more National Guard have been sent now by President Trump to the area, you got to ask the question, does this help or hinder the management of the protests.
Well, we know that the LAPD isn't exactly pro dirty hippie protesters, and they've been saying all weekend that they had the situation under control. If you were on top of that stuff. They do not seem thrilled with the extra help. They didn't want it.
Well, when I say they were on top of it, I'm characterized if someone doesn't know what he's talking about.
But I guess they know better than Jim McDonald as well.
Well, and we're also hearing now that in Washington, legislators are scrambling to deal with how the military would be deployed because then we're getting into posse comitatis area there.
Well, let's explain that for folks.
And basically the law is you cannot use the armed forces as a law enforcement group.
Yeah, they're a very narrow circumstance. Is that allow that?
But from the way it's being presented, it seems that the Marines would be in a law enforcement position.
Yeah, so we're getting into some dicey territory here, and I want to remind people be really cautious consumers of news, especially if you're getting it from social media. Click through to the source, make sure that it's not just influencers and propagandas. Look for credentialed news professionals that you're getting your information from, because situations like this, it's rife with misinformation and you don't want that to color how you look at this situation.
This is when we talk about Oh, I should say, we do talk about media literacy a lot, but this is one of those times where it's really really important. And I understand the Customarily, I'm not working in a news capacity.
I'm on air personality. I'm giving opinion and editorial.
I try to keep it more to the facts of information during breaking news like this, because it's very very important not to push people in an unknown necessary direction about how I feel or my politics.
And I keep trying to remind folks I do not have a dog in this fight. I do not.
I try to give you some history. Let's compare this to twenty twenty. Let's compare this to nineteen ninety two after the Rodney King, Stacy Kuhn Lawrence Powell verdict. But I'm not trying to tell you or how you know, what I think about Donald Trump threatening to arrest Gavin Newsom. That's not the news of the day. That's not what's really important. That's not going to impact your lives right now.
In other words, is this going to impact you if there is a greater conflagration, if there is an escalation that impacts you. You know, so we can talk about some of the underlying issues. We can do that, but I'm not here to talk about politics.
It used to be a.
Mark Rono remembers this, and I know Taala Sharp remembers this. Before there was cable news, you just had broadcast news and you'd have the who, what, win, where, why?
How?
That was it? That was it?
There was no really no editorial, and if so, there would be a whole segment what they told you this is an editorial and made it very clear that the anchor was giving his or her opinion. We have lost that now because we have cable news, which is not governed by any rules. Actually, you don't have the rules of news reporting on cable news.
That's why.
MSNBC is really no different than Comedy Central. And I'm being serious, because you can have someone deliver quote unquote their thoughts on the news. Sometimes it could be comedic like Comedy Central in the Daily Show, or it could be in a news and editorial format like Lawrence o'donald or something. And people don't really understand that distinction because
we don't teach media literacy anymore. So to Mark's point, you have to be very judicious about where you get the facts, the who, what, where, when, why and how. Most of the time we don't get that in our news coverage. We just start with how I feel that hearing Bass messed this up. That's where people start, and that's not actually news coverage, that's just opinion and editorial. So what is happening tonight? We're telling you as it's happening.
And if you look at the imagery on k CAL nine right now, I can't quantify it, but I can qualify it.
A lot of the people have gone home.
There is not this mass demonstration what it looked like it was going to turn into two hours ago. We're not there. And kudos to the LAPD for what they've managed to do. And also you know they obviously had a plan and they've stuck to it. Now, there were questions that I had, and there are questions that Michael Monks had, and will continue to watch this because it could turn on a dime. If you know history, you
know it could turn on a dime. But it's moving in a direction where it seems to be de escalating, not escalating. If I am six forty, I'm O Kelly. We're going to continue to follow this wherever it goes, wherever it leads. We're live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
K IF I am sixty Kelly here live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app. And this is I guess nervous time because the sun is down and most of the what I would call the legitimate protesters are going home. This is when, unfortunately, we will see the knuckleheads. This is when we'll see the agitators. This is when we'll see the folks who have no business being out there other than to cause trouble. But up until now, it has been well managed it has been disciplined. As far as
LAPD and its approach, they are slowly moving forward. And I guess there's still no curfew, there's still no official order to disperse. And these are just some random thoughts have just been bumping around my head during the break. If we take a larger view, we pull out and look at the macro view of these ICE protests. Now we know that ICE they usually do their arrests in the early portion of the day. We know that everything
started on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. In the early portion of the day, ICE they would go to their set locations, their predetermined locations, and they would enact their arrests. They're not doing it now. In other words, and Twale, you made a great point. There's nothing to protest now. LAPD is not ICE. LAPD has not been assisting in these
arrests on behalf of ICE. So if you're out there now protesting in the dark against nobody in particular related to the actual ICE arres and raids, however you want to characterize them, then you're obviously not there in good faith. And I know there are a lot of bad faith actors out there. And look, I try to look at this through the lens of the constitution. I personally don't see the value in waving a Mexican flag if you're trying to protest, I personally don't see it. But constitutionally
I support your right to do it. You know, I don't think it gains you anything. But at the same time, as a wave a Mexican flag right now looking on k Cow, yes, that's your right to I'll just say cloud the issue, to confuse the issue, to make it seem like you're not here for the right reason.
But here's something else we need to consider.
This is most definitely what some have called like the beta testing for what's going to happen in other cities.
What is happening right now.
When I say what is happening right now, this is inclusive of the ice raids. You're going to see it in other cities, other major cities. And this is the only politics I really mentioned tonight. They will happen in democratically run cities capital d In other words, if there's a democratic mayor, you can expect these particular raids and procedures to be followed.
I expect to see this in Miami.
I expect to see this in New York, I expect to see this in Chicago, and out of that, I expect a similar response. You will see a similar response from the community. And what you're seeing now, you're going to see another spots around the community. And from a political standpoint, this is nothing bad for President Trump. This is exactly what he wants. This is exactly what he is looking for. These are the optics that he would prefer.
This is what he ran on. And as far as what he's going to say about it, you know, these are promises that he made, and these are promises that he is fulfilling. So he is just fine with these ice raids. And if there should violence, have more violence breakout, I'm quite sure he would support that as well, because the optics favor what he has been looking for. You know, this is something that he ran on, this is something that he was elected on.
So it's not like there's going to be fewer of these. No, If.
Politically it serves his purpose, his purposes here in LA, then that means politically it's going to serve his purposes in Miami, Chicago, New York, and maybe Houston and some other border cities. And I'll say southern states as well, or even the southwest portion of the United States, We're going to see more of this. I think that's just a reasonable assumption, not necessarily a politicization of what's happening right now. It's hard to look at this without acknowledging
the larger immigration discussion here in America. This is something which has been front and center of our politics, I want to say since maybe two thousand and eight, because Barack Obama did run on immigration reform for his first and second term, didn't get it done, and we know within private citizen Trump when he came down the escalator in twenty fifteen, made it a central part of his would be campaign. So this has been an America's conscience
for at least a good seventeen years. And that's saying nothing of going back to Reagan and the Immigration Amnesty Act of nineteen eighty six. So this is something that our nation has been wrestling with for quite some time, and we're coming to one of those inflection points where we're going to have to go through this, and we're going to go through it together, and hopefully we'll go through it non violently, and hopefully we'll go through it
and come out on the other side better. But we're gonna have to get through this right now, right now.
It's La.
There will be other cities, and we will have this conversation again with those other cities, and you will probably see the National Guard sent in those other cities. You may see marines sent in in those other cities. Because this will be the playbook going forward. Like it, loath it, if you may not agree with it, but this is where it is headed.
K IF I AM six forty. I'm O Kelly. We're live everywhere the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
KFI AM six forty, We're live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app. As we continue to follow the events of downtown and Santa Ana. I want to check back in one more time with kfi's own Michael Monks, who's pretty much on scene. Michael, I get the sense if I look at just television coverage. Kick Hal has pulled back, Katla has pulled back. There's really not much to see from a television standpoint from where you are.
What's the move.
Well, it looks like we're hearing from the police chief right now. My understanding is that they did order folks to disperse, and the people who refuse to do so have been kettled. As they say that is surrounded by police. There's a few dozen people there apparently that have been kettled by police and now face arrests. That includes some members of the press, according to one report that I've seen.
But I now understand that members of the media will be able to leave that kettling and then those few dozen folks will face arrests. And I believe police Chief Jim McDonald may be speaking now on this issue. So we talk about the media pulling back because things seem to be a bit calmer, and that seems to be because the police did not pull back this time. They wanted to nip this in the bud a little more quickly, and we're not messing around when they issued those orders to disperse.
At this point, I know we can't predict what's going to happen five minutes from now or two hours from now. Can you see whether law enforcement is pulling back? In other words, do they have the same number of units and officers on scene now as they did two hours ago, or is there slightly less.
That tactical alert is still in effect as of right now, is my understanding, which means that all officers who were on duty when that call went out earlier today were to remain on duty until further notice. So the LAPD is trying to keep as much strength as they can. The images that I can see indicate a pretty significant law enforcement presence. So what motivated this change in strategy,
I'm not sure. I do know that the protest downtown today was not able to get to be as large as it had been over the past couple of days leading up to this, and that has to do with an adjust in strategy. They shut down all of those entrance ramps and exit ramps so you could not get in or out of the Civic Center area of downtown
Los Angeles. They were blocking access to a lot of surface streets, so while there were a lot of protesters downtown, they were never really allowed to converge together as one. So the strategy by the LAPED this time around appears to have kept folks separated, and now they've got the folks that have refused to leave the scene and that they may now face arrest.
From what you can see, has there been any movement of the National Guard? Are there fewer in number? Are they just going to ride out the whole night guarding the federal building? And any word on when Marines the Marines might arrive on scene.
We don't know exactly when the Marines are supposed to arrive because it's not a local jurisdiction, but it is supposed to be within the next twenty four hours. We know that there's about seven hundred Marines deployed to one thousand additional National Guard troops deployed. The ones who are on the ground, Those California National guardsmen who are on the ground now have pretty much kept to their original assignment,
which is around that Federal building at Alameda Street. Another key difference for tonight's protests compared to yesterday certainly is nobody was getting near that federal building. They kept people far away from that. So all of the action that we're seeing so far today seems to just involve either the LAPD, maybe some sheriff's folks, and then the CHP, the California Highway Patrol blocking some of those freeway exits.
So it is clear mo that the LAPD decided they needed to adjust their strategy here, and we may see an end to any unrest a little bit earlier than we have in previous days.
Nobody shot you, huh, It's still early in downtown Los Angeles, man, I got to keep three eyes open.
I am pulling for you.
I can say I've had pepper spray, you know, shot around me, and you don't even need to be next to the You can be like thirty feet away and pepper spray will say hello to you. I can't speak for tear gas, but if you were to describe it, I know you know there's nothing good about it is all the way horrible. But as best you can describe the feeling, is it eyes burning, nausea?
What is it?
Yeah?
It was really interesting.
You know, when you're in the news as long as we have been, tear gas is something we write about or mentioned that. Maybe it was deployed because some suspect in some crime had holed up in a property and so they deployed tear gas and flash bangs and that sort of thing, and it does often lead to their exit because it is such an irritant. My first experience yesterday in tasting it close and personal, was interesting.
It was immediate.
Coughing fits. As soon as you inhale it, it wants to get out of your Your body wants it out, so you're choking, you're coughing.
It's disgusting.
About a minute, maybe two minutes later, it's hard to remember exactly in real time how it worked. You start to feel the burning in the eyes and it's extraordinarily irritating, and then the water starts, and that's why they call it tear gas, and you are crying. I mean, there are tears coming out, flowing out of your eyes. I managed to turn away from it fast enough to not have a direct hit.
I certainly suffered from it.
It got me good, but some of my colleagues in the media got it much worse and looked like hell afterwards, a lot of spit coming out of their mouths. But people mobilized because by now, with all the protests we've experienced over the past half decade and the tear gas that can even hit us in the media, folks seem to turn to milk as a remedy for this.
So a lot of times.
You'll see protest even before the s hits the fan that there's just kind of milk about just an anticipation of this taking place and knowing that you need to douse yourself in it. A lot of folks dumping water. I was fortunate I really didn't need to put any liquid on my face. What helped me was I went under an overpass or a bridge or something, and the shade blocking the sun really helped, and then I was just able to kind of dab from my shirt and
get the irritant out. What was really interesting about the tear gas is how long it felt like it lingered, because you know, a couple more hours would pass after this solitary incident involving the direct tear gas, and I'd be walking around the protest scene and suddenly I'd get another whiff of it, and it's like it's still in the air. I mean, that stuff hangs out for a while.
I guess you got a good story to tell you kids or grandkids.
My cat didn't seem so interesting. It's just me and AM sitting here monitoring all these screens tonight. I'll tell you didn't want to hear about it all. I just wanted to treat.
You and Mark must be like brothers from another mother. Something dis similarities between your lifestyles and your history. Yeah, tear gas in common.
It really is hard to tell us apart now what you're gonna find when you get home, Michael, that you got to take off all your clothes because they're all gonna smell like tear gas.
You're gonna have to watch the hell out of everything that you've been wearing.
Oh, you know, it was laundry day yesterday and I couldn't do it because it ended up being such a long day, so that that jacket still stinks a little bit. But it is true, Marca, you and I do have a certain surly nature and gray hair.
And okay, let's not get too personal here. I'm trying to get you down town about it.
Well, Michael, first, thank you for all your reporting, and yes, you were in harm's way. We may have a laugh about it, but it does not belie the danger, the actual danger that you were in. And we appreciate you reporting despite the danger and remaining as safe as possible so you can give us the facts of what was going on.
Well, I appreciate you saying that. I do think we need to be clear though, the federal government is not going to slow down these raids. They are going to execute the immigration policy that this president ran on, and this is a place that they are targeting for that. So while maybe tonight is fizzling out, thankfully hopefully as uneventful relative to the previous days, there could be many more days ahead and we'll be here to keep an eye on and I know you will, and I will, and even Runner will.
Even Mark Ronner, thank you. Get some rests, Michael Monks. I certainly will, Thanks so much. We'll talk tomorrow. If I am six forty, I'm Kelly. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
As FI and KOs T HD two Los Angeles, Orange County.
More stimulating talk