Santa Ana, anticipating protests and “possible civil unrest,” enacts overnight curfew

Anticipating protests against police violence and “possible civil unrest,” the city manager of Santa Ana enacted a curfew Monday night, barring everyone but law enforcement, news reporters and first responders from the city’s streets and public spaces between 10 p.m. Monday and 5 a.m. Tuesday.

Beyond those exempt groups, only people who are seeking emergency medical care, “fleeing danger,” or traveling to and from their jobs or religious services are allowed out during the curfew, the city manager, Kristine Ridge, said Monday.

Ridge said the city “supports the public’s right to peaceably assemble and protest outside of the curfew hours.”

Protesters massed on Sunday outside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Compton station, decrying the death of Andres Guardado, 18, and demanding to know what prompted a sheriff’s deputy to open fire last week, killing him near an auto-body shop where his family said he worked as a security guard.

Top officials, including Sheriff Alex Villanueva himself, have yet to say why Guardado was shot or what prompted deputies to initiate contact with the teenager. Guardado’s family said he moonlit as a security guard for an auto-body shop, but Capt. Kent Wegener of the sheriff’s homicide bureau said the teenager wasn’t wearing a uniform that identified him as a security guard. Nor, Wegener said, was Guardado licensed to work as one.