The Brief

Is it safe to do yard work? Should I test my house for asbestos? How can I know whether schools and parks are safe? These are questions hundreds of Tustin residents still don't have clear answers to more than a month after a fire torched a massive World War II-era hangar.

As the 17-story tall blimp hangar burned, testing by public health officials and asbestos experts showed the fire sent asbestos, lead, and other toxins spewing into the surrounding community. Debris from the fire was reported more than three miles from the site, according to county documents obtained by LAist.

Officials say air quality tests in recent weeks have shown no cause for concern, and specialized remediation crews continue to clean up asbestos-laden debris from the former military base and in the surrounding community.

The status of ash and soot is less certain — private testing inside some residents' homes has found asbestos and lead. Officials have not publicly released any test results from ash or soil since the early days of the fire.

Without access to more data and without a long-term strategy for testing, some residents say they don't feel safe.

"If I could, I would move tomorrow," Sean Storm, a Tustin resident, told LAist in a phone interview. Storm lives in the Columbus Square neighborhood, right across the street from the fire-gutted hangar, with his wife and four young kids.

He said his grandfather died from cardiac arrest after long-term exposure to asbestos. "His lungs were completely deteriorated from it," Storm said. "The doctor told us when he was dying it's like a small razor blade that just cuts you over and over with every breath."

Now Storm fears that asbestos-laden dust and ash from the fire could linger undetected in the grass and mulch that covers nearby parks and common areas in his neighborhood. "You're always going to wonder, am I putting my children at risk of a health factor later down the road?"

LAist interviewed and requested information from local, state and federal officials, and outside experts, about the post-fire recovery efforts and residents' health and safety concerns.

Many questions remain at least partially unanswered, but here's what we found out, including links to key documents and websites.

The historic blimp hangar, at right, seen as it burned on Nov. 7, 2023.

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Jae C. Hong

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Associated Press

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What’s known about potentially toxic building materials in the hangar?

Multiple assessments carried out in recent decades on the now-destroyed hangar and the other, nearly identical, blimp hangar nearby have found that asbestos and lead paint were used extensively throughout their construction.

Asbestos was present in roofing materials, wall panels, pipe insulation and floor tiles, according to a 2019 report. Some of this asbestos was "friable," meaning it breaks or crumbles easily and therefore poses a greater risk of being inhaled, which can cause long-term health consequences.

The wood that makes up the bulk of the construction was treated for fire-resistance with a product called Minalith. Chris Dunne, a Navy spokesperson, told LAist in an email that samples of the treated wood were analyzed in the past and found to contain "detectable concentrations of aluminum, arsenic, boron, barium, calcium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, sodium, nickel, phosphorus, lead, silicon, and zinc."

In the days after the fire first broke out on Nov. 7, air quality officials detected lead and arsenic in the smoke plume, but nowhere else, which Orange County Public Health Officer Regina Chinsio-Kwong told LAist was "reassuring."

She said her office also tested for lead at Legacy Magnet Academy and Heritage Elementary on the heaviest days of smoke and did not detect elevated levels. The two schools are located within a mile from the hangar that burned.

Oladele Ogunseitan, a public health professor at UC Irvine, told us the information about chemicals in the wood was "concerning."

"So far, the data which has been shared shows very low levels of these toxicants, but it is hard to tell the amount released into the air during the early hours of the fire igniting," Ogunseitan wrote in an email to LAist. That's because air quality testing for asbestos and other potential toxins didn't take place until the afternoon of Nov. 7 — about 12 hours after the fire began, according to public documents.

Veterans Sports Park, across the street from where the hangar burned, reopened on Dec. 13, more than a month after the fire broke out.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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What’s known about air and soil quality in adjacent communities?

Here's what testing in the community has shown:

• The day after the fire broke out, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) detected asbestos in debris and ash falling on the surrounding community. Samples of debris collected from around the hangar detected up to 37% asbestos.  
• A mobile air monitoring device deployed by AQMD on the day the fire broke out and for several subsequent days found elevated levels of arsenic and lead inside the area of the smoke plume. However, the majority of results showed no elevated levels of heavy metals, according to public officials and documents. 
• After the first week of the fire, which burned through Dec. 1, air quality testing has not shown elevated levels of asbestos, lead, arsenic or other heavy metals. 

You can see the latest air quality reports and results from early testing on the city's website. Reports of particulate matter, a standard measure of air pollution, are posted daily on the city's website. Currently, air quality is being tested at 30 monitors around the hangar site and throughout the community by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Officials we spoke with say asbestos has been detected primarily in solid pieces of debris from the fire. They say that’s why the city’s cleanup response has focused on removing that debris from the community.

"Right now, at least, we think that the fallout, the fines [fine particulate matter], the soot from the plume probably was not as big a problem," Ben Castellana, on-scene coordinator for the EPA, told LAist in an interview late last week.

"But certainly the debris, the large pieces of the hanger that landed in the community, those needed to be removed as quickly as possible."

Chinsio-Kwong, the Orange County health officer, told LAist that all of the data collected by public health and environmental officials in recent weeks "has been reassuring."

Many residents have asked health officials to do more testing of soil and dirt in communities adjacent to the fire — or, if testing has already occurred, to share it with the community. (A spokesperson for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control told LAist they had information to share. We will update this story as soon as we learn more.)

Storm, the Tustin resident, noted the extensive measures being taken to secure the soil and ash immediately around the hangar. Tustin hangar fire cleanup crews applied a plastic substance to the soil around the burnt structure early this month to prevent asbestos from getting kicked up.

"If you're saying the dirt on the opposite side of the street is not safe, then how is the dirt on my side of the street safe?" he asked.

The EPA is monitoring air quality around the perimeter of the former military base and in multiple locations in the surrounding community.

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What’s known about air and soil quality in nearby schools?

According to county documents, in the days after the fire broke out, asbestos-laden debris was detected at Tustin schools, including at Hicks Canyon Elementary, which is about three miles from the burn site, and at Tustin High School, which is two miles from the site.

All Tustin Unified schools were closed for several days starting on Nov. 9. Most schools were reopened by Nov. 15 after clearance from the district-contracted asbestos consultant.

Chinsio-Kwong, the public health officer, said air quality authorities read up on toxic materials in the building when the fire broke out and consequently, tested the air for a broad range of heavy metals and volatile organic compounds.

At Heritage Elementary School, which was open during the first two days of the fire, Chinsio-Kwong said certified asbestos consultants took air samples and dust samples using a technique called micro-vacuuming to test for asbestos. Those tests came back negative, she said, adding that she believed they were conducted in heavily trafficked areas of the school.

Parents of students at the school, including Storm, have asked for details about the testing, including how much of the school has been tested and whether outdoor surfaces and playground equipment have been tested.

Storm said he was concerned safety issues may linger if “classroom window seals and door frames and carpet in every single classroom” haven't been tested.

Chinsio-Kwong said she didn't have precise details about the testing. The Tustin Unified School District has not responded to LAist's multiple requests for interviews and/or comment since Dec. 5.

At a community meeting on Dec. 7, Tustin school board trustee Allyson Muñiz Damikolas echoed Chinsio-Kwong, saying that preliminary testing at Heritage and Legacy, which are both still closed, was "encouraging," but she said the district did not yet have final results.

As for when the students at Heritage and Legacy might go back, Chinsio-Kwong said she won't recommend reopening those schools until the work to take down the hangar doors and adjacent structures is complete and the resulting dust and debris is secured, "so that once kids return to school, they can freely run around outside instead of being indoors."

That work is not expected to be completed until later this month. So far, the hangar doors have been lowered. Work to remove the "pillbox" structures that framed the doors started Tuesday, according to the city's latest update.

Work to lower the doors of the hangar finished on Dec. 11. This image was taken Dec. 7, when the work was beginning.

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Did ash and debris contaminate homes?

According to county documents, some 10,000 homes were affected by the hangar fire in the cities of Tustin, Irvine and Santa Ana.

Public agencies have not tested inside of people's homes affected by the fire. But some residents have paid to get their own testing done. Lana Clay-Monaghan, a Tustin resident, has publicly shared an informal survey she spearheaded of residents near the fire.

Of the 19 residents who said they had indoor testing done by a certified asbestos contractor, nine reported results showing the presence of asbestos. Chinsio-Kwong, the public health official, told LAist one resident who took the survey had emailed her the results of her home test. Chinsio-Kwong said was still working with experts to understand exactly what to take away from the results.

Castellana, the EPA coordinator, said a resident had also shared home testing results with him. But Castellana said the results lacked important details. They didn't include the lab report or specify the detection limit used and therefore don’t “really answer a lot of questions."

"If I test for asbestos in my house, for example, you're probably going to find a fiber or two," Castellana said. "It's naturally occurring, it's in a lot of manufactured products, both in our houses and building materials, as well as cars. … So, it's all over in our environment. And that's not to say it also hasn't come from the [hangar] site.”

Castellana said he hoped asbestos consultants hired by residents would give thorough information about their test results, including whether their home is safe.

Asbestos consultants are required to be certified by the state of California. You can check whether a consultant has up-to-date certification on the website of the state Department of Industrial Relations. You can also look up contractors to see whether they're certified to perform asbestos-related work.

Clay-Monaghan said she and her family, including two toddlers, moved out of their home after it tested positive for asbestos and lead.

"We had to make the difficult and expensive decision to remove ourselves from that environment," she said. She told LAist she hopes to move back after her home is fully remediated.

What are the health risks associated with asbestos and lead?

Exposure to asbestos can cause some forms of cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute, and usually emerges decades after the initial exposure. Health risks increase with heavier and/or longer-term exposure.

Smoking severely increases the risk of developing cancer for those exposed to asbestos. "So the major lesson that I would want to impart to all the residents and children of the area is don't smoke," said Richard Castriotta, a pulmonologist at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine.

Exposure to lead is especially dangerous for children under the age of 6. Even small amounts can cause long-term damage to the brain and nervous system, according to the O.C. Health Care Agency. Blood testing is the only way to determine whether a child has lead poisoning.

An empty park in the Columbus Square neighborhood, which was hardest hit by the fire, on Dec. 1, 2023. All city parks were open as of Dec. 13.

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Should I clean my house and/or yard?

Outside

Chinsio-Kwong said that if a resident's yard has been inspected and remediated by a certified asbestos contractor, it should be OK to mow the lawn and do yard work. If you still need help from a certified contractor, contact the city's hotline: 714-426-2444 or report the debris through the city's online portal.

"As long as there's no longer any debris, then technically, if they were given the green light, they should be able to return to landscaping activities and mowing and leaf blowing," she said.

Castriotta, the pulmonologist, said mowing the lawn shouldn't be a problem since most electric lawn mowers collect grass directly into a bag. He said wearing an N95 mask while doing yard work would significantly decrease the risk of exposure.

"They have to live their lives," Castriotta said of residents. "If there's a chance of the ash being around in an inhalational form, then an N95 mask will protect you."

If a resident is still waiting for the city's asbestos contractors to assess their yard and collect fire debris, Chinsio-Kwong said they should wait to do yard work so as not to disturb the debris.

According to the latest update, of the 1,094 debris reports submitted to the city's online portal, some 75% have been remediated and cleared.

But residents have wondered aloud whether this clearance really means their homes are safe since the city's contracted asbestos experts are only picking up large pieces of debris.

At a community meeting last week, Darren Terry told LAist his rain gutters are still full of ash from the fire. He was frustrated homes have been cleared by the city’s asbestos contractors when the roofs, windows, gutters and plants have not been remediated.

Chinsio-Kwong said residents should rinse off or wipe down their window screens and doors if they still contain soot from the fire.

Inside

Chinsio-Kwong recommends that residents whose homes were affected by the Tustin fire use wet wipes to clean surfaces and a vacuum with a HEPA filter on floors.

She told LAist she has been looking for guidance in the residential cleaning studies carried out after the World Trade Center buildings collapsed following the 2001 terrorist attack, spreading toxic dust over streets and into apartments in lower Manhattan.

An EPA study dated November 2008 of different cleaning methods in contaminated homes concluded that wet wiping surfaces and vacuuming the floor — sometimes multiple times, depending on the amount of contamination — "was successful in reducing concentrations to levels below health-based benchmarks."

A separate study found that dusting or sweeping without using water was associated with high numbers of respiratory problems among residents affected by the tower collapses.

Can I run my HVAC system?

Chinsio-Kwong said residents can use their HVAC systems as long as they have a well-maintained filter — the EPA recommends filters rated "MERV 13” or higher to remove fine particulate matter from smoke. Residents may need to replace their HVAC filter or, for help, consult an HVAC technician.

Chinsio-Kwong acknowledged that advice on whether Tustin residents should run their HVAC systems initially wavered in the early days of the fire. She said that's because she was concerned people might not know whether their HVAC system has an updated filter, which is key to safety.

More than 600 disaster remediation workers have been dispatched to clean up fire debris tainted with asbestos on the former military base and in surrounding neighborhoods.

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Is there funding assistance to pay for home testing?

Asbestos

Currently, public agencies are not offering assistance for asbestos testing inside of homes affected by the Tustin hangar fire. At a recent community meeting, Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner said state law prohibited the county from using general taxpayer money to set up a fund for individual homeowners affected by the fire.

"We just don't have a legal right to do that," he said.

Some homeowners told LAist their insurance has paid for testing inside their homes. But, according to Clay-Monaghan's informal survey of residents, nearly three-quarters said they couldn't afford it.

One-quarter of the 1,075 homes in the Columbus Square neighborhood, which was hardest hit by fire debris, are designated for very low- to moderate-income families.

Clay-Monaghan said residents who had paid for testing reported paying around $2,500.

If the state declares the Tustin fire an emergency, it could free up resources for the city and for individuals. Wagner said the state had been "dragging its feet" on a declaration.

Brian Ferguson, spokesperson for the Governor's Office of Emergency Services, told LAist in an email earlier this month that the city and county would first have to demonstrate that "effective response is beyond [their] capabilities" in order for the state to step in with aid.

Ferguson said Wednesday there were no additional updates. He did not respond to our request to clarify the damage assessment process.

Initial damage estimates totaled about $31.7 million as of mid-November, according to the emergency management team that coordinated the initial response to the fire. That includes money spent by the county, Tustin Unified School District and city of Tustin.

The final total is likely to be far higher. Last week, Tustin Mayor Austin Lumbard told LAist that the city had committed $30 million of its own funds to date.

Lead

If you’re worried about potential lead in your home from the Tustin fire and have small children, the O.C. Health Care Agency has a program that provides consultation and assistance for environmental investigations. Call 714-567-6220 for more information.

Chinsio-Kwong, the public health officer, said parents concerned that their children may have been exposed to lead should have them tested by a physician.

Crews working to clean up after the Tustin hangar fire.

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What is the status of cleanup on the former military base?

Work finished Monday, Dec. 11, to remove the hangar's 150-ft. tall metal and wooden doors, which were lowered to the ground and will be covered in an adhesive substance designed to keep dust and potentially harmful particulate matter from getting into the surrounding air or soil.

Dunne, the Navy spokesperson, told LAist that the "tackifier" substance, trademarked Gorilla-Snot, is being used to cover debris in the footprint of the destroyed hangar. The Navy does not have plans to spread the tackifier on other parts of the 84-acre former base, he said, but city contractors are cleaning up fire debris on the land.

Asbestos-laden debris collected on the former military base will remain there until the Navy develops a disposal plan.

Some relief for property owners?

The O.C. assessor recently sent a letter to property owners in the vicinity of the fire advising that they could qualify for a temporary value adjustment to their home, meaning lowered property taxes, if they can demonstrate that the fire caused $10,000 or more in damages.

It's unclear how many, if any, homes could meet that threshold. For more information, you can call the county assessor’s office at 714-834-2727.

MacArthur Park got an unexpected guest Tuesday: Justin Bieber, who joined several members of his band for an impromptu performance.

Social media videos show Bieber, 32, sitting on the grass, playing percussion and singing as people gather around. He performed several songs to a handful of people, including his 2025 hit “Yukon,” according to videos from the impromptu performance.

A source close to Bieber told E! News that he visited the park to distribute gift cards and other resources to unhoused people. A spokesperson for the singer could not be immediately reached for comment.

Bieber, who headlined Coachella earlier this year, played a stripped-down performance with his band. Some people in social media video walked by the set, while others recorded the set.

His surprise appearance adds a different kind of attention typically focused on MacArthur Park. In the last several months city officials, law enforcement and community groups have taken different approaches to addressing conditions at the park and activating the space.

For Brenda Aguilera, director of the Community Transformation Collective, the reaction to Bieber’s visit is part of a larger conversation about the changes at the park. 

Her organization has been working with a neighborhood volunteer group of about 60 MacArthur Park-area residents since March. The group includes parents, caregivers and vendors who meet regularly to identify neighborhood priorities and work with city agencies and community organizations.

Residents involved with the group have reported greater awareness of available services and said they feel safer in the park, Aguilera said. But she added that the people who live in and around the park should be at the center of any assessment of how conditions are changing.

“They’re not in the park. They don’t live in those neighborhoods, so they have to speak to the local community members to hear about their perspectives,” Aguilera said, referring to elected officials.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli pointed to Bieber’s performance as a sign of progress at the park.

Bieber performing an impromptu set at the park is “a testament to the progress we are achieving to take back the park from drug dealers and enliven it for families,” Hochman wrote on X.

Essayli wrote: “Bieber in MacArthur Park. That’s progress. Amazing what can happen when criminals and drug dealers are removed from public spaces.”

Over the summer, the Los Angeles Police Department and federal agents carried out a multi-phase operation targeting drug activity in and around the park, including a June operation that resulted in 13 arrests. Hochman also held a picnic at the park over Labor Day weekend after saying he would return with his family if he believed it was safe enough.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez’s office, however, pointed to a longer history of work at the park in response to Bieber’s visit.

“We’re excited to see Justin Bieber enjoying MacArthur Park, just as countless other Angelenos do every day, experiencing what nearly four years of sustained investment and community partnership have made possible,” said Naomi Roochnik, a spokesperson for Hernandez.

The councilmember has invested more than $27 million in the park, including Peace Ambassadors, round-the-clock clean teams, overdose response, street medicine, youth programming, arts and culture and infrastructure improvements, according to Hernandez’s office.

“MacArthur Park’s progress belongs to the residents, workers, promotoras, outreach teams, and community organizations who do this critical, lifesaving work every single day,” Roochnik said.

Community Transformation Collective’s promotoras are among those working directly with residents, Aguilera said, helping connect them with services and providing what she described as “warm handoffs” to organizations that can offer support.

For Aguilera, that community perspective matters when officials assess what is happening at the park.

“It’s not up to us or these elected officials that are in these government bodies to just speak on behalf of our communities,” she said. “They could speak about their efforts, but they can’t speak about the entire perspective. It’s really those that live there that could share that perspective.”

The post You better Beliebe it. Justin Bieber played a set at MacArthur Park appeared first on LA Local.

Michael Angel Alvarez made headlines earlier this year when he was arrested while working as a peace ambassador for the nonprofit Healing Urban Barrios in MacArthur Park. Federal prosecutors alleged Alvarez was “leading a violent street gang, while claiming to be a gang interventionist for the City.”

But they didn’t charge him for violent or gang-related crimes.

He spent three months in custody under a different charge: illegally possessing body armor. He pleaded not guilty, and a trial date was set.

Alvarez was released from custody this month, nearly a week after a federal judge dismissed his case on Sept. 9, ruling that a juvenile court finding that Alvarez killed a man while a minor could not be counted as a violent felony conviction that would make owning body armor illegal.

Alvarez spoke with LAist after his recent release, saying he believes the case against him was politically motivated and shows a lack of understanding about what it takes to intervene with gang members to reduce violence in communities. He acknowledged gang affiliation, but said he was not a gang leader and had not committed any crimes since being released from prison in 2024.

Federal prosecutors told LAist in a statement they are looking into options to appeal a federal judge’s decision to dismiss the recent indictment against Alvarez. No one from the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A. has responded to LAist’s requests for comment about Alvarez’s assertion that the case was politically motivated.

Before the federal prosecutors filed their case against Alvarez, the L.A. County District Attorney’s office filed a separate case against him on May 20 in Los Angeles Superior Court also based on possessing body armor. A preliminary hearing in that case is set for Oct. 27. He pleaded not guilty. A spokesperson for the District Attorney’s office did not comment on whether they intend to continue pursuing the case now that the federal case has been dismissed.

Why the federal case was dismissed

Alvarez was a minor when he was found guilty of a gang-related murder in 2002. At 15 years old he was charged and tried as an adult. He was convicted of first-degree murder for shooting and killing a man in Pico-Union. He was sentenced to 50 years to life. But after a change in state law increased the age at which minors could be sentenced as adults to 16, Alvarez’s case was sent back to juvenile court and he was released in 2024. At that point, he had served about 24 years.

On Sept. 9, U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang found that same law that led to Alvarez’s release also bars the court from considering him to have been convicted of the killing, because juvenile court determinations are not criminal convictions. Without a violent felony conviction, Alvarez is not prevented from owning body armor by state or federal law. She dismissed the federal prosecutors’ case against him.

What Alvarez is saying following his release

In an interview with LAist last week after his release, Alvarez said he thinks federal prosecutors wanted to score political points by targeting community violence intervention work, not because he posed any risk to public safety.

“ I almost got killed as a result of trying to change the community for the best,” said Alvarez, who showed photos to LAist of what he described as stab wounds in his abdomen and arms that were taken in February 2025. He said that assault took place while he was working in MacArthur Park. “ And for whatever reason you had the individuals who are part of the Republican Party who went after me because of the Democrats, the people that I worked for.”

Alvarez’s former employer, Healing Urban Barrios, has not responded to LAist’s requests for comment since the case was dismissed. Christina Navarro, the nonprofit’s founder and executive director, said in a statement to LAist back in May of this year that Alvarez was innocent until proven guilty and that the organization was continuing its work despite the allegations against him.

“We are not stepping back,” Navarro wrote in the statement. “We are doubling down.”

Healing Urban Barrios was contracted to work at the park by Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America’s L.A. chapter. Her office says community violence intervention workers have been effective for decades in interrupting cycles of violence in ways traditional law enforcement cannot.

Naomi Roochnik, a spokesperson for Hernandez, told LAist in May they were not aware of allegations against Alvarez before his arrest and that peace ambassadors are employed and supervised by community-based organizations.

Alvarez was removed from the peace ambassador program earlier that same month, she said.

“We will always take misconduct seriously and hold our partners to high standards, but we will not allow an individual case, or efforts to politicize it, to undermine proven community-based public safety work,” Roochnik said Friday in an emailed statement.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who heads the office that brought the case, has been critical of the city’s gang intervention program.

Federal prosecutor Bill Essayli heads the U.S. Attorney's office in L.A.

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“The hardworking tax payers of Los Angeles deserve better than to see their money shelled out to a convicted gang murderer,” Essayli wrote on social media on May 29, the day his office announced the charge against Alvarez.

Essayli was appointed by the Trump administration to lead the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A. and was previously a Republican member of the California State Assembly, where he represented part of Riverside County.

Spokespersons for the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A. have continued to speak out against Alvarez since the body armor case was dismissed. In statements sent to LAist via email by spokespeople Ciaran McEvoy and Shawn Lewis, the department called Alvarez ”a convicted murderer and a documented member of the 18th Street gang” who was indicted by grand jury on the body armor charges.

“These facts are not in dispute. It is unfortunate that he now benefits from a California law that effectively allows him to erase his murder conviction, something his victim cannot do.”

Adding: “He has no legitimate role serving as a ‘peace ambassador’ in a public park or receiving taxpayer-funded compensation.”

The department said they are currently considering their options to appeal what they called “a narrow technical legal issue.”

About the case

Most people can legally own and wear body armor in the United States — it’s typically worn as a vest, either made of durable fibers like Kevlar or with steel or ceramic inserts designed to stop bullets. It becomes illegal to own or possess body armor under federal and state law if a person has been convicted of a violent felony.

But U.S. District Judge Hwang agreed with Alvarez that he did not have a violent felony conviction on his record.

Alvarez admits he shot and killed 22-year-old Mauricio Miguel Masis on Aug. 17, 2000.

He told LAist he was 15 and in a gang when he and a 13-year-old friend, who was not gang-affiliated, were approached by what he described as three older gang members. Masis was one of the men, he said.

“ They're already in their mid-20s and tried to kill both of us,” Alvarez said. He told LAist he shot Masis, but claims it was to defend his friend and himself.

Convicted as an adult in 2002, he could have spent his entire life in prison after being found guilty.

“ I was 17 years old when I was walking Supermax,” he told LAist, “level four maximum security prison.”

In 2018, Senate Bill 1391 passed in the California legislature, to only allow minors 16 years and older to be considered for adult court.

The new law gave Alvarez a way out of prison, allowing his case to be resentenced in 2024.

By then he’d served about 24 years. Because of his age at the time of the killing, under the change in the law his case was sent back to juvenile court where his adult conviction was set aside and he was declared a ward of the court — or under its supervision and control.

Alvarez was released from prison and put on probation for two years.

The following year he was also sentenced to two years of probation for a separate felony offense in November 2023 that was considered non-violent — possessing a weapon while in custody.

Alvarez acknowledged having the weapon while he was in prison, and told LAist that most people had hidden weapons there, often as a deterrent from being attacked.

“Of course I had a weapon,” he said. “You would have one too if you were there. You're trying to do everything in your power to survive.”

In early 2025, Alvarez began working for Healing Urban Barrios as a peace ambassador.

“ They wanted individuals who had the respect, I suppose, of the streets [and] in prison,” he told LAist.

Alvarez said gang members are more willing to talk with someone from their own background than with police officers or city officials, and he said he was able to speak to them to avoid violence and other safety issues around MacArthur Park.

“There's hundreds — if not thousands — of gang members who flow through that area due to the fact that a lot of them are addicts now,“ Alvarez said.

He told LAist he believed the peace ambassadors in the area had made a difference in reducing the number of people using drugs, fighting and lighting fires in the park since he started working there in 2025.

“ There used to be a lot of fights,” he said. “ We're able to talk to the guys right there and be like, ‘Look, work something out with each other.’"

Alvarez showed LAist photos of people he said he had given CPR while on the job to prevent them from dying of drug overdoses and a woman he said he identified to authorities as a missing person and helped get to safety.

Federal agents arrested Alvarez in May, after LAPD officers found two body armor plates in his car during a traffic stop earlier that month.

Alvarez told law enforcement officers after his arrest that the plates were for an art project, court documents show, and his lawyer argued in court that Alvarez did not have a vest to wear the armor in.

Prosecutors argued in court documents that he could have used the armor plates without a vest, and that he may have had a vest for the plates elsewhere.

Alvarez told LAist he was planning to use his laser engravers to write poetry on the plates and his cousin was going to paint them with graffiti to get the attention of the youth he served.

“With youth, especially youth that are in gangs, you gotta show them some different type of art,” he said. “  It would've hit them hard, you know?”

The U.S. Attorney’s office charged Alvarez with possessing body armor. But they made additional allegations against him apart from the charges, which they have not proven in court.

For instance, prosecutors claimed in court documents that Alvarez was “leading a violent street gang, while claiming to be a gang interventionist for the City,” and that they were investigating him for additional crimes that would carry “great sentencing exposure.”

Prosecutors alleged in court documents that members of the 18th Street gang described him as a leader of the gang in recorded jailhouse phone calls. Alvarez claimed the way the prosecutors described the conversations wasn’t accurate. He told LAist he was never a gang leader and, instead, was using the respect he had with the 18th Street gang to prevent further violence.

No one from the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A. responded to LAist’s questions about whether they intend to pursue other charges.

LAist asked Alvarez to clarify whether he was an active member during our interview last week.

“ When you're a gang member, for the most part, you're always a gang member, you know?” He said, “There's two types of ‘actives.’ There's active where you're actively involved in the violence and all that stuff, but there's also being active when you're actively involved in your community, and that's what I've been doing.”

Alvarez said he hopes to continue working in gang violence reduction programs now that the federal case against him has been dismissed.

“I know that what we did was good,” he said, recalling how parents of children he had worked with around MacArthur Park reached out to thank him while he was in federal custody as his recent case was ongoing.

“It'd be nice to have the support all the way around and not have, especially, people who are pushing politics,” Alvarez told LAist.

Councilmember Hernandez’ office and Healing Urban Barrios have not responded to questions about whether they would consider allowing Alvarez to return to his position as a peace ambassador.

After the Palisades and Eaton firestorms in January 2025, one story captured how Los Angeles County’s emergency management system seemed to have failed. Anthony Mitchell Sr., an 80-year-old man who used both a prosthetic and a wheelchair, and his 35-year-old son, Justin, who had cerebral palsy, died in their Altadena home waiting for evacuation assistance.

Anthony Mitchell had called 911 twice, identifying himself and his son as disabled, and was assured help was coming.

Of the 31 people killed in the fires, 27 were over 65, and at least six had mobility issues, according to news reports.

The tragedy led California and L.A. County to consider adopting “disaster registries,” an emergency management strategy used around the country for assisting people who might require additional help in emergencies due to their age, disability or other health conditions.

The California Commission on Aging issued a report in November that noted evacuation centers lacked data on older and disabled residents who would need assistance. That led to a shortage of equipment and expertise to address the specialized needs of those residents. The commission recommended that the state consider implementing a statewide registry.

Even before the commission’s recommendation, Los Angeles County supervisors had directed its Aging and Disabilities Department to study the feasibility of a registry.

But neither initiative has moved forward.

“We have not seen much movement on exploring a disaster registry,” said Patrick Smith, the state Commission on Aging’s legislative director.

The Los Angeles feasibility study was “paused” last year while the county reviewed its emergency operations with the McChrystal Group, said Liz Odendahl, a spokesperson for Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-sponsored the resolution authorizing the study.

The arguments against registries

Some advocacy groups in California and the state Office of Emergency Services have argued against registries, Smith said. In fact, OES’ official guidance on registries is that “jurisdictions should not use them.”

Registries typically are voluntary, and registrants are responsible for keeping their information up to date. Because of that, they are unreliable sources of information, which is one reason some emergency managers and many advocates for older and disabled people oppose them.

They also point out that registries could give a false sense of security to people, who may assume assistance is guaranteed when it is not.

“This false assumption is dangerous and can lead to an overall decrease in personal disaster preparedness,” the California Office of Emergency Services says on its website.

Registries are hard to keep current, the office notes, and the personal information people provide may be challenging to safeguard.

Why some places have registries anyway

With data showing older people far more likely to die in natural disasters — and climate change making disasters more frequent and severe — several states have taken the opposite approach, establishing registries to better assist older adults and people with disabilities in emergencies.

Florida’s statewide Special Needs Registry is often cited as a model because it connects the state’s Health Department with emergency management in all 67 counties. Florida also requires its counties to establish shelters for people with special medical needs.

Delaware, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Texas and Utah also have statewide registries, as do many municipal emergency offices across the country.

In California, three of 58 counties have registries — Mono, Siskiyou and Butte.

Butte County’s registry was in place in 2018, when the Camp Fire killed 85 people, 67 of whom were seniors. Emergency managers can’t say how many or if any of the older adults who died in that fire were on the registry.

But they say the registry remains a useful tool.

“If we didn’t have the list, we wouldn’t have had any idea at all who needed extra assistance evacuating,” said Butte County Emergency Manager Angie Mannel, who was a 911 dispatcher during the Camp Fire.

Older adults, like many Americans, are not prepared for disasters. A 2023 AARP survey found that under one-third of older adults have a comprehensive plan for natural disasters, and only 10% have opted into apps or text notifications that alert people to emergencies.

“You can’t just throw a bunch of information out there and expect everyone to be able to act on it,” said Lindsay Peterson, a gerontology researcher at the University of South Florida. “Some people just can’t.”

Her research has shown that technology can be a barrier for older adults, especially those living independently but with limited technological skills and income.

While acknowledging that “registries are controversial,” Peterson said state and local governments must find ways to ensure the most vulnerable older adults will be protected.

Florida’s Special Needs Registry

That’s what Florida set out to do with its Special Needs Registry. But it does not guarantee emergency assistance, which the Health Department notes when people register. Still, the Florida Division of Emergency Management advises older adults needing this assistance to register, because registries can be useful planning tools and may save lives, even if they are incomplete.

Each of Florida’s county emergency management offices decides how it will use the registries to provide assistance. Seminole County, in eastern Florida, offers transportation assistance to registrants who request it. Three days before a tropical storm or hurricane is expected, the county Office of Emergency Management calls registrants about the approaching storm and advises them to evacuate. They must agree to leave at that time in order to receive transportation, said Steven Lerner, division manager.

“We’re like Enterprise; we’ll pick you up,” he said. The county uses a fleet that includes school buses and ADA-compliant vans.

Lerner’s main concern about Seminole’s registry of 1,700 people is who is not on it. He focuses his outreach efforts on new residents who may never have experienced a hurricane season, and those aging at home who may overestimate their ability to evacuate themselves.

In Lee County on Florida’s western coast, the Office of Emergency Management used public transportation to help evacuate people when Hurricane Ian hit in 2022. More than half of Lee County’s 800,000 residents were ordered to evacuate a day before the hurricane made landfall. Many were forced to weather the storm at home or in shelters, as 10 inches of rain inundated areas, winds gusted up to 140 mph and storm surge reached 15 feet. The storm killed 149 Floridians, including 72 Lee County residents. Most of the fatalities were people over 65.

County spokesperson Betsy Clayton wouldn’t say how many registrants emergency crews helped to evacuate during Hurricane Ian. But she said the county has assisted about 1,000 registrants in each major storm Florida has experienced in the past two decades, providing paratransit and ambulance services.

A California example

In California’s Butte County, emergency managers believe the registry will save lives if a disaster on par with the Camp Fire strikes again.

After igniting on Nov. 8, 2018, the Camp Fire grew rapidly, overwhelming the county’s emergency management plans and destroying its communication systems. It incinerated Paradise, a town of 27,000 people, in four hours.

The California auditor’s 2019 after-action review of the county’s emergency plans recommended Butte use registry data in evacuation planning, so emergency responders know who will need help before a disaster.

Tiffany Rowe manages Butte’s Special Needs Awareness Program, which notifies registered people of emergencies and evacuation orders and assists in evacuating them if needed.

The voluntary registry pinpoints who will require assistance in particular evacuation zones and what they’ll need. Most warnings are automated, but if the emergency is expected to affect 10 or fewer registrants, Rowe calls them herself.

After the pandemic and the busy fire seasons of 2022 and 2024, the number of Butte County registrants increased by over 50%. Today, around 2,200 older adults and people with disabilities are registered.

“Being a disaster-prone county,” said Mannel, Butte’s emergency manager, “our perspective is always focused on the safety of our citizens.”

Timothy Lane is a writer with the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Journalism School and covered this story through a grant from The SCAN Foundation.

Insurance companies are starting to write new policies in California again after years of holding back as wildfire risk climbed higher.

The state Insurance Department says that means outgoing Commissioner Ricardo Lara’s new regulations, intended to boost insurance availability, are working. Each time a company declares its plans to sell policies again, the department touts it as a win. But the state has not released the number of new policies the companies have written so far.

Enter Consumer Watchdog, the advocacy group that often butts heads with the department. It released an estimate of new policy commitments: 12,189 since January 2025, when Lara’s so-called sustainable insurance strategy went into effect. The strategy allows insurers to use catastrophe modeling, which they say more adequately takes risk into account because it includes forward-looking models, and to factor in reinsurance costs when setting their rates.

Consumer Watchdog, whose numbers come from combing through insurance companies’ rate filings, says that number is low, considering insurers have requested or secured $571 million in rate increases under the new regulations.

The insurance department disagrees with the group’s analysis, saying it intends to release its own data and analysis, and discounting the group’s numbers as “incomplete and premature.”

Ben Armstrong, Consumer Watchdog’s actuary, is tracking voluminous but publicly available rate filings. He looked at insurers’ statements about the number of new policies they promise to write, and compared the new filings with each company’s previous rate filings. Armstrong told CalMatters it’s “not an exact science” because the filings mention commitments, not actual sales, and in some cases don’t include an exact timeline.

The new rules allow insurers to factor in catastrophe models and their reinsurance costs as long as they commit to increasing sales in high-risk areas. Of the 10 companies that requested rate increases under the new rules, only five have committed to selling more policies, the group’s analysis shows.

The regulations call for insurance companies to choose one of these options: Write 85% of their market share in high-risk areas; grow their policies 5% in such areas; or increase their number of policies 5% by taking customers out of the FAIR Plan. Some of the companies that have requested or secured rate increases claim they already meet the 85% threshold.

“What we’re looking at is the reality right now for Californians who have been saddled with rate hikes for the promise of more policies in the future,” said Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.