Cities and towns throughout the United States are expected to see growing protests this weekend against President Donald Trump’s deportation regime and aggressive tactics to repress and intimidate protesters. After witnessing the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of tear gas, bean-bag munitions, and rubber bullets at recent protests, anyone planning to attend demonstrations this weekend likely knows they could encounter police aggression.

But not all police forces opt for the same tactics — and protesters can keep themselves safer if they know what to expect.

Different cities’ police departments are, in theory, constrained by local and state laws, though that doesn’t mean police always follow them. Take California, where legislators passed a law in 2021 prohibiting police from shooting rubber bullets and pepper spray at protesters, except in response to a “reasonable,” objective threat to life or of serious injury. The LAPD still fired rubber bullets at protesters last weekend, and there’s little sign they’ll refrain in the days to come.

While it’s impossible to predict how exactly a police department or federal force will respond to a protest, past precedent and legal limitations can help demonstrators prepare to keep themselves safe. Beyond Los Angeles, The Intercept reviewed police practices in six major cities where protests are expected this weekend, plus best practices for attendees to defend themselves.

Rubber bullets are just one type of what’s called “less-than-lethal” ammunition — a misnomer, according to legal advocates who have represented protesters severely injured by police using them. Police might also shoot bean bags or water cannons, which are similarly not supposed to kill the person they hit, but can still inflict serious injury. Several cities temporarily banned tear gas, another popular choice, after protests against police brutality in 2020. It’s banned in war, but not for police responding to public demonstrations and showed up in response to recent protests against ICE and earlier protests against the genocide in Gaza.

Other departments rely more on tactics like kettling, when police encircle protesters and keep them from dispersing, often used in concert with curfews, which give law enforcement a pretext for making arrests for people who don’t comply, or are physically barred by police from doing so.

“The key really no matter where you are or what you’re doing is situational awareness,” said Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counsel to the National Press Photographers Association. “When you start to see officers on bikes encircling you, you need to have probably thought of this before, but certainly at that point, look for a place to exit.”

Osterreicher is also a uniform reserve sheriff’s deputy in Erie........

© The Intercept