u/infernoenigma

Yesterday in Downtown Los Angeles, the LAPD assisted federal agents in uniforms and vests marked FBI, DEA, ATF, and IRS-CI. They conducted a raid on Skid Row, tearing into tents and arresting people they described to the media as known drug dealers.

I spotted Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli in a DEA vest, and I spotted Robert Port, the LAPD’s Director of Strategic Communications, who the LA Material reported last week appears to be working on the development of a new “ridealong” reality show about the LAPD.

After the federal agents and the LAPD largely left, folks returned to that block of 5th to find tents cordoned off with caution tape and bearing federal notices of property seizure.

This past weekend at Belvedere Park Lake and Mariachi Plaza in East Los Angeles, community groups rallied to recognize the 56th Annual Chicano Moratorium.

In 1970, thousands of Chicanos marched in East Los Angeles against the Vietnam War. The day culminated in horrific acts of mass police brutality that left three dead, including LA Times columnist Ruben Salazar. He was having a beer at the Silver Dollar Café on Whittier Blvd, which was away from the main rally, when a Sheriff’s Deputy from the LASD fired a fin-stabilized tear gas canister directly into the bar at head height, killing the journalist… who was a prominent critic of policing in Los Angeles.

Most speakers spoke about how much there is to learn from history, from people who came before, from their mistakes and triumphs. We’re not going through things alone; people have faced these things before, and many are still around to learn from.

During public comment at today’s meeting of the LAPD Board of Police Commissioners, Mary Houlihan took the podium and said, “I’m a comedian, so it’s an honor to meet you, Jim McDonnell, fellow Irish-American clown.”

At today’s meeting of the LAPD Board of Police Commissioners, Commissioner Jeff Skobin asked about the status of a report about how the commission can receive faster reports.

They’ll have to get back to him on that one.

At today’s meeting, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said that on Saturday (08.08.2026), “15 to 20” demonstrators followed a federal officer to a parking garage and assaulted him. That’s not even the story being alleged by the officer in question, who claims he was punched while trying to subdue a protester in the parking garage away from the main demonstration, and that he then returned to the crowd a block away to find another suspect, and he then pulled out his firearm.

When community members stood up to call out the lie of omission — that McDonnell neglected to mention that when most of the protesters first encountered him, the federal officer had no uniform, did not identify himself, did not give verbal commands, and instead waved a gun at protesters & grabbed a woman as if to take a hostage — those community members were removed from the room for being disruptive.

During public comment, a legal observer named Blanca told the commission about Saturday.” If you watch the video, that’s my voice screaming ‘No! No! No!’” she said. “I thought he was going to shoot her in the back.”

At today’s meeting, the LAPD presented an “after-action report” about last June’s protests, and they said today that in preparing the report, they didn’t have access to arrest data or use-of-force numbers, and also that the report was “impartial,” because the officer who prepared it wasn’t even really sure what “No Kings” is, or who called for it, or what other groups were there those days and why, so politics couldn’t have affected his report on the LAPD’s crowd control tactics.

He just wrote in his report — using, and I quote, “no editorializing language” — that there were, and I quote, “hostile actors” in the crowd, who were identified as such because they were spotted by, and I quote, “Shadow Teams,” who saw them as said “hostile actors” were distributing, and I quote, “countermeasures to chemical agents.”

Gas masks, in other words.

We know the protesters were hostile because they were giving out gas masks.

At today’s meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners, multiple people addressed the board regarding Daniel Flores, an LAPD officer facing more than a decade in prison for recording his fellow officers — in the recruiting department! — making racist, homophobic, and sexist remarks.

Today’s meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners was the first for new commissioner Heather Aubry, who used to work for the City Attorney’s Office, where she defended the LAPD on behalf of the city… up through two months ago. And now, with the approval of the LA City Council, Mayor Karen Bass has appointed Aubry to the LAPD’s civilian oversight board.

That room has heard so much pain.

This city’s in a bad way, y’all!

Last night, a federal agent pulled his gun on protesters at the Metropolitan Detention Center in DTLA, which serves as an 🧊 processing facility. For several nights in a row, observers had documented children in vans being brought into the building; last night, after a scuffle with protesters, a federal agent seemed to snap. He stalked up and down the block with his hand on his gun, grabbed a woman who had her back to him — who was actively washing mace out of her eyes at the time — and held his gun to her back as protesters screamed for him to stop.

Protesters protected the woman who’d been grabbed and they followed the federal officer with the gun into a nearby parking garage, where a second officer had a firearm pointed at the protesters from an elevator.

LAPD showed up… let them drive away… and arrested a protester who didn’t disperse quickly enough.

Folks will be protesting there again this evening, gathering at 5PM to demand an end to this campaign of terror. Calls to action going around social media are headlined ¡BASTA YA!

Enough already!

—

Video credit: @razkull6 on Instagram. He posted much longer footage, including the scuffle leading up to the gun incident — which involved that federal agent repeatedly punching a protester in the head.

I wasn’t there until after this happened and have no context to add about what caused it, beyond the videos on social media.

On February 4th I went downtown to photograph a march led by thousands of high school students who had walked out in protest of 🧊.

As the students marched past City Hall, demanding and begging for protection, city politicians and donors were holding an event on the lawn to announce the LA Jazz Festival.

I heard AirBnB exec Justin Wesson — son of former City Council President Herb Wesson — say that AirBnB was happy to sponsor the event, which he said would be indicative of LA opening its doors to say, “You are welcome here.”

…As thousands of students marched past because they feared what was happening to their families, friends, and neighbors at the hands of immigration enforcement.

While that was happening, I got a tip that an 🧊 agent had just hit a protester with their car back at the detention center. I ran back and watched as LAPD arrested the man who’d been hit, while an 🧊 agent in a police mask and an RPG-patterned Hawaiian Shirt — favorite choice of the Boogaloo Boys — lounged on the back of a squad car.

So here we are months later — on the other side of AirBnB giving $750K to a PAC to re-elect Bass, and Bass including a relaxation of short-term rental rules in her budget — the LA Jazz Festival was cancelled yesterday hours before it was due to begin.

Any postmortem of this festival should reckon with what got ignored back in February so politicians could focus on helping AirBnB rehab the city’s image.

As counterprogramming to the police-led “National Night Out” events around the country last night, Mar Vista Voice organized the West Side’s Night Out for Safety & Liberation in Mar Vista Park.

Attendees enjoyed live music, free food, rousing speeches, street vendor buyouts, games for the kids, and lots of represented community organizations focusing on healthcare, immigration, police violence, elections, transit infrastructure, combating fascism. organizing mutual aid, and more!

Orgs included, but were not limited to, Healthcare 4 US, Hand In Hand: The Domestic Employers Network, West Los Respuesta Rapida, Angeles Workshop School, DSA-LA, 826LA, VillageWell Books, FALAZINE, and more, apologies if I missed you & feel free to add yourself in the comments!

At yesterday‘s meeting of the LA City Council — their first back in session after their summer recess — the story of the day was the Scattergood modernization project.

Several hundred people showed up to demonstrate outside City Hall, including union members from IBEW Local 18 and employees of the LADWP. They wanted City Council to deny an appeal to the project’s approval, which argued that the project had not undergone sufficient environmental review and/or public comment period.

Scattergood, which is just off Dockweiler Beach at the very southern tip of Traci Park’s district, is a power plant pegged for “repower” upgrades that’ll cost an estimated $800M, getting the plant ready for a switch to hydrogen power that may or may not ever be possible.

LADWP’s own website says: “The necessary infrastructure for the production, delivery, and storage of green hydrogen needed to support the Proposed Project currently does not exist. While it is anticipated that a sufficient market supply of green hydrogen may be available to support the Proposed Project dual-fuel CCGS when it is fully commissioned by the end of 2029, the details of the green hydrogen system are currently unknown.”

After hearing from members of the public, including former IBEW boss Brian D’Arcy, and after impassioned speeches from Adrin Nazarian and Traci Park about putting people to work, the council voted 10-3 to deny the appeal and move forward with the project.

Eunisses Hernandez, Nithya Raman, and Katy Yaroslavsky voted against.

A coalition of groups from around California gathered today in front of the courthouse in DTLA for a press conference. Justice LA Now, Racial Justice Coalition of SD, the Ella Baker Center, and more joined with the families of people killed & beaten in Men’s Central Jail, including the families of Joseph Perez, Jalani Lovett, and Chris De Arman.

They demanded that California Attorney General Rob Bonta follow through on his lawsuit against the inhumane conditions at Men’s Central Jail, which the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to close in 2020.

It’s still open.

Since then, about 50 people a year have died while in custody there. Roughly 50% of inmates have mental health conditions, but they are often denied treatment until it’s way too late.

The groups lined up 23 pairs of shoes — one for each person who’s died at Men’s Central Jail this year so far — and after multiple emotional testimonials, they chanted slogans like “You can’t get well in a cell” and “No more delay! Close MCJ!”

Last night, after word spread of the death of Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine — killed by 🧊 at a traffic stop in front of his three year old daughter — folks gathered in remembrance at the Metro Detention Center in DTLA.

On Friday, several of these same people were attacked by Jake Lang’s gang of Proud Boy sidekicks in Plaza Olvera. Despite repeated online threats from said Proud Boys — Proud Boys posting various AI images of Jake Lang & pals showing up with guns; a pledge that they were “No longer standing back. Stand by.” — folks stuck it out until after midnight, sharing hugs, food, and encouraging words as they mourned all lives lost to and destroyed by 🧊. Some folks kept watch to alert the crowd of approaching danger; others focused on the task of documenting the comings and goings of 🧊 cars without license plates and transport vans carrying detainees.

Mostly, it seemed like people just wanted to be together, to remind each other that we’re not alone in our grief and anger, in our conviction that this is WRONG and must be stopped.

Monday was Day 403 since 🧊 invaded Los Angeles.

…only in LA will you be running around during a chaotic street brawl against Nazis — trying to find a medic to treat your friend who’s bleeding from the head after being punched by a J6er Proud Boy — and realize that the Nazis seem to be getting mid-chaos image touchups from — literally — Anna Nicole Smith’s former hairdresser/bestie.

What a town, y’all.

(Also, that second-to-last slide depicts at least four cops from at least two different police departments, watching as one of Jake Lang’s crew puts multiple cattle-prod-style tasers — which they’d used on women, which people told cops who did not care — away in the backpack of a guy dressed all in camouflage, as the group was allowed to walk off into Union Station and away from the people they’d just injured. They were not detained.)

(Also, disclaimer — this is not intended to be a comprehensive account of a complex event with many moving parts and numerous people being injured. My friend is thankfully okay, and Reddit doesn’t allow photos with blood, which limits what I can include here. There are videos all over the internet of the violence and the injuries; this post is intended only to highlight one odd aspect of the story I haven’t seen others point out.)