Marines Absent from LA Streets, Spotted Practicing Hand-to-Hand Combat

The 700 Marines sent to Los Angeles by President Donald Trump remain on standby and are engaging in nonlethal training, rather than being on active street duty.

On Tuesday, aerial footage showed a group of Marines practicing hand-to-hand combat and managing crowds at Seal Beach field, which is located just south of Los Angeles County.

Trump called up the Marines along with around 4,000 National Guard members following a weekend of violent protests where mobs damaged property and attacked law enforcement with rocks and Molotov cocktails.

President Trump deployed 700 Marines to Los Angeles amid protests, but troops remain on standby completing nonlethal weapons training while California’s governor challenges the federal intervention. (KTTV)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, said the Marines and National Guard troops were being deployed to keep the city safe.

“The mission in Los Angeles, as you know well, sir, is not about lethality. It’s about maintaining law and order on behalf of law enforcement agents who deserve to do their job without being attacked by mobs of people,” Hegseth said under grilling from Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.

“We are very proud that the National Guard and the Marines are on the streets defending the ICE agents, and they will continue.” 

Hegseth said “there is plenty of precedent for the U.S. supporting law enforcement officers.” 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testifies during a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee on June 11, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

A federal judge on Tuesday night declined California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request for an immediate temporary restraining order to restrict Trump’s deployment of Marines and National Guard troops to quell ongoing anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) riots in Los Angeles. 

Newsom has had a public war of words with Trump administration officials, accusing the president of having “commandeered” thousands of the state’s National Guard members “illegally, for no reason” without consulting California’s law enforcement leaders. 

The Trump administration, meanwhile, said its ICE operations are aiming to get “criminal illegal immigrant killers, rapists, gangbangers, drug dealers, human traffickers and domestic abusers off the streets.” 

Fox News’ Liz Friden contributed to this report.