Were there riots in Los Angeles in 2025?
Executive summary
Yes — in June 2025 protests erupted in Los Angeles after federal ICE raids and a proportion of those demonstrations involved clashes, property damage and arrests that many officials and some media described as “riots,” even as other reporters and scholars emphasized that most demonstrations were contained and largely peaceful [1] [2] [3] [4]. Competing narratives about scale and responsibility—ranging from federal agencies calling the events violent to academics and local reporting stressing limited geography and damage—make the term “riot” contested depending on which sources and metrics are used [5] [1] [4].
1. What set the scene: ICE raids, protests and rapid escalation
The immediate catalyst was a series of ICE enforcement actions in early June 2025 that organizers said detained dozens and prompted mass demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles beginning June 6–7; activists and legal groups reported at least 45 people detained in multiple raids, and crowds gathered at federal buildings and detention centers in response [1] [6]. Local and national outlets documented sustained protests over several days, with demonstrators blocking streets and assembling outside the Robert Young Federal Building and Metropolitan Detention Center, leading city officials to impose curfews as tensions rose [2] [6].
2. Evidence labeled “riots”: federal and congressional descriptions
Multiple federal statements and a House resolution framed the events as violent riots, describing assaults on federal officers, vandalism, slashed tires, and large crowds surrounding and attacking federal facilities; the Department of Homeland Security released a statement asserting “over 1,000 rioters” and detailing alleged attacks on ICE officers [5]. The House introduced a resolution condemning “violent June 2025 riots in Los Angeles,” listing arson, looting, property destruction and assaults on officers as part of the record legislators cited [7].
3. A different account from local press and scholars: mostly peaceful, contained unrest
By contrast, several news investigations and scholars argued the protests were largely peaceful and spatially limited, concentrated within a roughly five-block stretch of downtown rather than sprawling citywide, and bearing little comparison to the 1992 Los Angeles riots in scale or damage; The Guardian and local reporting emphasized widespread peaceful participation even as clashes occurred in specific hotspots [3] [1]. CalMatters and other local outlets described life in downtown during ongoing demonstrations and noted the presence of National Guard and federal law enforcement amid a mix of peaceful demonstrators and more confrontational actors [6].
4. The federal response: troops, National Guard and legal fallout
President Trump deployed National Guard units and Marines to Los Angeles; federal and military involvement became a focal point of controversy as state and local leaders objected, and later reporting documents legal challenges and a federal judge ruling the Guard deployment illegal months afterward, signaling institutional disagreement over the characterization and handling of the unrest [2] [8]. Commentators and policing scholars warned that militarized responses can escalate volatility — a point raised in reporting about the tactical choices made in Los Angeles during the protests [4].
5. Who’s saying what and why it matters: political framing and investigations
Republican members of Congress and DHS framed the events as violent and tied them to organized outside funding or agitators, including investigations into alleged foreign funding and partisan claims linking groups to broader networks; the Oversight Committee launched inquiries into funding claims while partisan op-eds and activist sites presented both alarmist and defensive narratives [9] [10]. These competing framings reflect clear political incentives: federal officials emphasizing violence to justify a forceful response, and local reporters and scholars emphasizing containment to critique federal overreach — both of which shape why some call the episode “riots” and others do not [5] [4] [3].
6. Bottom line and reporting limits
The factual record shows that substantial protests occurred in Los Angeles in June 2025 and that some of those protests involved confrontations, arrests, and property damage that federal actors and a congressional resolution called “riots,” while local reporting and scholars stress that most demonstrations were peaceful and geographically limited; precise counts of arrests, injuries, and total damage vary by source and are not uniformly reported across the materials provided here, so final metrics remain contested in the available reporting [1] [7] [6] [5].