Less than 20% of the nearly 5,000 National Guard and Marine troops deployed to Los Angeles were actually on the ground in the city as of earlier this week, according to text messages by a state official with direct knowledge of staffing.
That level is so low a former National Guard commander called it “awful” in an interview with the Chronicle and questioned whether the $134 million deployment is justified.
Of the 4,946 National Guard members and Marines deployed by President Donald Trump to Los Angeles in response to protests of immigration raids, just 978 were in the city, the state official with firsthand knowledge of National Guard staffing levels wrote Wednesday in the text messages obtained by the Chronicle…