A number of local and national media outlets are under fire over lax coverage of this weekend’s anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles. CNN has received perhaps the greatest amount of scrutiny for describing the unrest as “lawful protests with some unrest.”

As violence was erupting across Los Angeles County for the second straight day, CNN’s Juliette Kayyem described the day’s events as “lawful.”

“So there’s unrest. Let’s start with there’s protest, lawful protest, which is allowed in this country. There is some unrest generally dealt with by local law enforcement, and there needs to be state support through state police and sometimes even National Guard under a governor’s authority,” she said in a massive downplaying of the unrest.

Social media users noted that the statement harkened back to an infamous CNN segment from the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, which killed dozens and caused billions in property damage across the country. In the infamous segment, a network chyron described the situation as “fiery but mostly peaceful” as fires burned in the background.

CNN was far from the only network to downplay Saturday’s county-wide violence. One local reporter with ABC 7 Los Angeles described the “protests” as “mostly peaceful” as rioters could be seen in the background.

“Demonstrations had been going on right outside the federal detention center. Most of those demonstrators were very peaceful. They were chanting, they were shouting. People were driving by honking their horns,” the reporter said. “And again, they were expressing their anger about the detention of so many immigrants at the federal center.”

The reporter then seemingly suggested that federal agents were to blame for the unrest. “Most of the evening, the federal agents stayed inside the building, but at a certain point, some of the demonstrators got very close to the property. In fact, some of them went onto the property, started tagging the building, started banging on fences. And shortly after all that happened, the agents started firing off tear gas, and then they came out,” she said.

Rioting erupted in the city on Friday night when mobs surrounded U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers who were conducting immigration enforcement actions in the city. Rioters pelted projectiles at agents and later surrounded the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles.

As agents battled rioters armed with clubs and hammers, the Los Angeles Police Department took more than two hours to respond after Mayor Karen Bass and Police Chief Jim McDonnell failed to respond.

The unrest widened on Saturday when rioters attacked an ICE staging area in the community of Paramount. Rioters hurled rocks at agents as they attempted to leave the area, leading to several injuries and cracked windshields that just about led to fatal crashes.

Additional mobs clashed with federal agents and blocked their vehicles in other parts of Los Angeles County as well, while the violence started to spread to New York City by Saturday afternoon.

President Trump on Saturday night announced that 2,000 California National Guard personnel would be deployed at the direction of the federal government after California Governor Gavin Newsom failed to quell the unrest. The deployment will last for at least 60 days, or at the discretion of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.