The Brief

Orange County can now arrest and fine unhoused individuals immediately for camping along flood control channels, in county parks or on other county-owned land. The new policy was approved by the O.C. Board of Supervisors on Tuesday by a 4-1 vote, despite concerns Santa Ana could be forced to contend with an increase in unhoused people booked and released from the county’s main jail.

It marks a shift in addressing homelessness that has been echoed in cities and counties across California and the West since a major Supreme Court ruling last year. That ruling, Grants Pass v. Johnson, reversed a ban on criminalizing people for sleeping in public places if no adequate shelter bed was available.

Orange County’s new policy also reverses some parts of a 2019 legal settlement, which has partially expired, that required the county to screen unhoused people for mental health and other needs and to offer shelter and services before arresting or ticketing them for violating anti-camping and loitering laws. That settlement triggered a major boost in the county’s inventory of shelter beds and permanent supportive housing since local officials had to prove shelter was available in order to enforce anti-camping rules.

What supporters say

O.C. officials who support the new approach say the county will not abandon its current policy of sending social workers out with sheriff’s deputies to offer shelter and other assistance to unhoused people camping on county property.

But, they say, the new ordinance gives them an additional tool to protect public safety.

“We are not trying to arrest our way out of this,” Supervisor Katrina Foley, who proposed the measure, told LAist. “We are just making sure that when we have situations where people are taking over public spaces and it's a danger to them and to others … that we are able to enforce anti-camping [rules].”

Foley said the new rules were largely prompted by repeated, failed efforts to clear encampments from areas along the southern end of the Santa Ana River and flood control channels, including Talbert Regional Park and the new Randall Preserve. She said the juxtaposition of multiple jurisdictions with different anti-camping rules has made it difficult to keep encampments from continually re-emerging.

“We wanted to create a uniform set of rules,” Foley said.

What critics say

Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento lodged the sole vote against the new ordinance, calling it a “departure” from the county’s 2019 settlement with unhoused individuals, and the investments made to get people into shelter and housing.

Sarmiento, whose district includes the county’s main jail in Santa Ana, also said he was concerned Santa Ana could, once again, be forced to contend with the entire county’s unhoused population if they are arrested elsewhere, then released outside the jail.

It’s a complaint that Sarmiento, the former mayor of Santa Ana, and other local officials repeatedly lodged during the long and contentious court hearings that led to the county’s 2019 settlement with unhoused individuals.

“ When folks were being detained and arrested and taken in for minor offenses, you started seeing a pattern,” Sarmiento said.

Arrestees were sometimes released “in the middle of the night, with no access to transportation,” Sarmiento said, then ended up living on the streets of Santa Ana.

Despite his “no” vote, Sarmiento said he had “trust and confidence and hope that our sheriffs will continue to enforce [the new ordinance] in a way that's humane and follows the law.”

Homelessness is up, despite county efforts on housing

Since 2019, the county has added some 730 beds and completed close to 1,400 affordable and supporting housing units, according to the 2024 annual Point-In-Time report. The first official count since then, in 2022, showed a decline in homelessness. But between 2022 and 2024, which is the last time Orange County counted, homelessness grew 28%.

Nearly half of the people surveyed in that 2024 count said they had become homeless for the first time over the previous year. Foley acknowledged it’s an “ongoing issue.”

“It's not going to get better because we have the federal government impacting our local government in a dramatic way right now,” she said, referring to the delay and cut in SNAP food benefits, as well as cuts to federal housing and homelessness assistance. “I anticipate us seeing a lot more need.”

She also acknowledged that Orange County still doesn’t have enough affordable housing to meet the need as the cost of living continues to outpace wages.

“ So, what do we do? We have to build more housing,” Foley said. “And we have to make sure that we're thoughtful about the process  so that people can live near where they work.”

Twice a month, a popular night spot in Koreatown is transformed into a makeshift boot camp for a cadre of gamers to achieve mastery of old-school arcade games.

Their recent goal: training to take home the prize at the EVO esport championship in Las Vegas this weekend – where the main attraction is the latest edition of the ‘80s franchise, Street Fighter 6 – and to put SoCal on the map.

The Down Back Club (DBC) meets every other Tuesday at Mama Lion on Western Avenue, the longstanding Koreatown bar.

Down Back Club at Mama Lion in Koreatown.

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The dimly lit cocktail lounge near the Wiltern is typically more of a setting for a first date or a casual business meet-up. But gathered under its chandeliers earlier this month was a group of about 100 people, staring into screens big and small, fingers deftly working a controller stick, as they practice the “down-back” – one of the foundational maneuvers in Street Fighter where a player pushes the down and back buttons together, sending their character into a crouched blocking position.

And yes, the club is named after said move.

From arcade to the living room ...

When Street Fighter debuted in 1987, players played side by side in the arcade, then later, via home consoles in living rooms.

“You were playing IRL,” says Daniel Collette, 30, co-founder of DBC. “Because the core concept of the genre is that you are competing against the person sitting next to you.”

Inevitably, gaming moved online, making for a more isolating experience. Collette, a longtime gamer who’s worked in the gaming industry as a producer and writer, wanted to bring back that human interaction.

Down Back Club.

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Gamers gather at Down Back Club to get better at Street Fighter 6.

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... to now a Koreatown bar

The Down Back Club started in 2023 primarily for hardcore gamers at a small brewery in downtown L.A.’s Arts District. The club moved to Mama Lion last year, as participants expanded to include all levels of play.

One player training at DBC with high hopes for EVO this weekend is Gregory Wells, 26, a local high school field and track coach. He says people in the club lift each other up, but camaraderie isn’t the only reason why he goes.

“Once I started going, I've learned so much more from playing people in person, being able to get instant feedback.”

While personal connection is the goal, the night is structured around tournaments where players pay $20 to compete. First place comes with about $100 in cash prize, Collette says, depending on the bracket size. Spectator attend for free. Besides Street Fighter 6, other standard games at DBC include Tekken 8, 2XKO, Guilty Gear Strive.

While large cash prizes and big prestige are on the line tournaments like EVO, regulars say it’s also about upping the profile of L.A. players in the international scene.

Bragging rights

Gamers at Down Back Club.

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“The goal is that everybody gets really good. So when we all go to a tournament, SoCal f**ks everybody up,” says Paul DeCuir, 42, a kitchen worker and Street Fighter veteran who plays as DeeJay — the happy-go-lucky Jamaican kickboxer.

Historically, Japanese players have dominated. A main reason, DeCuir says, is because videogames occupy a higher cultural perch in Japan than in the U.S.

The idea of someone pouring hours into upskilling at a single videogame may seem baffling to most folks outside the community, but for some players, that discipline has seeped into other areas of life.

Like Daniel Chong, 34, another veteran player and a chef who worked at Nobu and other noted restaurants.

“You need to go! You need to just trust yourself, and any hesitation will get you killed,” he says, kind of like working in a busy and high-stress kitchen. “So it's very in the moment. Nothing else matters – that's kind of what it feels like playing in a tournament.”

In April 2023, the FBI discovered that Rafael Silva, an officer with the Delano Police Department in California’s Central Valley, had made violent threats against transgender people on TikTok.

Under a pseudonym, Silva posted several comments that the FBI found imminently dangerous. One read, “You ain’t safe. We finna change your pronouns soon. Was/were.” Another said that Silva’s “AR will track y’all down.” And yet another read, “The only power you’ll see is the one from a barrel and a 9mm,” according to investigative documents.

Silva is one of the 148 California law enforcement officers who engaged in explicitly biased conduct between 2014 and 2024, according to an investigation by The California Newsroom and UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program. Records show the officers used racist, sexist and homophobic slurs; mocked transgender people; made violent comments about Black people; and demeaned members of the public, co-workers and incarcerated people, records show.

Yet only about 12% were fired because of their conduct. Silva was not one of them. After leaving Delano, he went on to work for police departments in Avenal and Wasco.

The news organizations reviewed thousands of pages of internal affairs investigations, disciplinary records and court filings obtained from nearly 500 law enforcement and oversight agencies. The records show that some officers accused of overtly biased behavior often faced limited consequences, such as a letter of reprimand or training.

The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST, determines whether to decertify officers, barring them from working in law enforcement in the state. However, the responsibility to investigate misconduct and impose discipline generally falls to individual agencies and local oversight boards, according to POST.

An investigation of California law enforcement records found officers accused of racist, sexist and anti-LGBTQ conduct often remained employed.

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Despite that system, more than 40% of officers identified by the news organizations still work in California law enforcement, excluding corrections officers.

Silva did not respond to requests for comment. The Delano Police Department confirmed that Silva worked there until 2023, but declined further comment.

Attorneys, law enforcement officials and academics said the behavior erodes public trust, raises questions about officers’ credibility in court and undermines efforts to recruit and retain diverse police forces.

Law enforcement officers stand guard during a protest on June 14, 2025, in Los Angeles. 

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Law enforcement officers should be held to a high standard, said Vida Johnson, a Georgetown University law professor who has testified before Congress on white supremacy and policing.

Johnson said people who express explicit bias have no place in law enforcement.

“With such an important job, if someone is exhibiting any type of bias against a member of their community, I just don’t think they should have that job,” she said.

How biased conduct can undermine public trust and the courts

When officers exhibit explicit bias, it erodes trust between law enforcement and the communities they are sworn to protect.

“It undermines our cohesion as a country when you have different perceptions of who our institutions work on behalf of,” Johnson said.

Experts said bias against protected groups — including Black people, LGBTQ people and immigrants — sends a clear message to those communities: We are not here to serve you.

A billboard put up by the Orange County District Attorney’s office that reads, “crime doesn’t pay in Orange County. If you steal, we prosecute,” stands on the southbound 710 Freeway near Del Amo Boulevard in Long Beach, California, on March 11, 2024.

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In a 2022 case, Orange County District Attorney’s Office investigator Eric Franke called a security guard who had asked him to leave a building an “angry Black lady.” In a separate incident, he remarked that Mexican people drink excessively. He received a letter of reprimand and still works for the DA’s office.

In separate cases in 2015 and 2018, Los Angeles Police Officer Armando Magana and San Diego Police Officer Alan Dyemartin ridiculed people for not speaking English. Both received letters of reprimand and kept their jobs.

The LAPD declined to comment on the incident for this story. Spokespersons for the Orange County DA’s office and the San Diego Police Department said the agencies take prejudiced behavior seriously and noted that both employees were disciplined. Franke did not comment. Magana declined to comment, and Dyemartin did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The distrust created by explicitly biased behavior can have real-world consequences, experts said.

When people believe police are prejudiced against them, they are less likely to call 911 or seek help from law enforcement, according to Stefan Vogler, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Vogler and other experts refer to this as the “overpolicing, underprotection paradox,” a phenomenon they say is common in communities of color and LGBTQ communities.

“They’re not getting the services that they’re promised by the state,” Vogler said.

Explicit bias can also undermine trust in the courtroom.

“You become concerned about using their testimony without corroboration,” said Richard Drooyan, former Los Angeles police commissioner. Drooyan recalled the O.J. Simpson case, when defense attorneys used audio recordings and witnesses to discredit an officer who had been a key witness.

Under the Supreme Court decision in Brady v. Maryland, defense attorneys have a right to any information that impacts the credibility of officers who are called to testify.

For justice to be served, it’s imperative that information affecting an officer’s credibility makes its way before the court, said Joseph Trigilio, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and executive director of the Loyola Project for the Innocent.

“A fact finder should look at all that and consider it,” he said. “A jury should hear all of that and ask that question.”

Reporters requested lists of officers whose records must be disclosed to the defense if they’re called to testify, commonly called Brady lists, from every district attorney’s office in counties where the investigation found cases of biased behavior. One office — the Madera County District Attorney’s Office — said it does not maintain such a list. Several district attorneys said they could not locate Brady material on the officers in question, while most declined to say whether the officers appeared on their lists.

Bias extended beyond the public to incarcerated people and fellow officers

The investigation also revealed dozens of instances of biased behavior against Black people, including 23 officers who were disciplined for using the n-word.

“In our profession, there’s no room for us to be able to do that,” said Sheryl Victorian, the chief of police in Waco, Texas, who advocates for strong relationships between police and the communities they serve.

The cases include a number of officers who made comments or shared images mocking George Floyd in the wake of his murder by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. Two weeks after Floyd’s death, an officer shared a meme congratulating Floyd on being “2 weeks drug free.” Another shared a photo of Floyd being held on his stomach with a photoshopped image of a naked man sitting on him.

Two children view a mural of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Friday, as a Hennepin County court weighed the sentence to impose on former police officer Derek Chauvin. 

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Ben Grunwald, a law professor at Duke University, said negative bias is especially troubling because of the vast power given to police officers. He described officers as “street-level bureaucrats” with the capacity to use force, arrest people and put them in jail.

“The idea that these decisions that are really high stakes might be influenced by things like racism, sexism, homophobia — those should raise really serious concerns for everyone,” he said.

More than half of the 61 correctional officers identified by the investigation were still employed at the end of 2024, according to state controller data. CDCR, which employs more law enforcement officers than any other state agency, would not confirm whether they remain employed today.

In two cases at Pelican Bay State Prison, officers made casual comments about killing or shooting at Black people, and both received reprimands. At the California Men’s Colony, an officer taunted a transgender inmate to put lipstick on before going out to the yard, and the officer’s salary was temporarily reduced.

In response to questions from The California Newsroom and UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program, a CDCR spokesperson said the agency takes corrective and disciplinary action when appropriate and that it has “implemented new staff misconduct regulations, designed with the goals of eliminating bias, increasing transparency and improving staff accountability.”

Correctional officers wield immense power over incarcerated people, who depend on them for their basic needs and access to programs that can help them successfully reenter society, said James King, program director for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, a criminal justice reform organization.

“It becomes much deeper than mere words because there’s so much power and authority behind those words,” King said.

Witnessing prejudiced behavior, even when it happens between officers, undermines rehabilitation, he said.

James King stands for a portrait outside the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California, on June 9, 2026. King, who is formerly incarcerated, is now Director of Programs at the Ella Baker Center, where he oversees and works on legislation that provides opportunity for communities that have historically been left out of policy considerations. 

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“If we are really committed to creating a safer world for all of us, then it starts with how we treat people, even as they are incarcerated and preparing to return to society,” he said.

Most of the cases we analyzed — 79% — involved comments or actions between police officers and other members of the criminal justice system, including fellow officers, court clerks, civilian employees and even a judge while court was in session.

In the case files, officers described how explicit bias in the workplace impacted them.

In the Southern California city of Orange, a Black officer reported applying to a different law enforcement agency due to Orange Police Sgt. Darrin Hall’s use of racist jokes and homophobic slurs in the workplace between 2020 and 2022. Hall received a letter stating that he would be demoted and retired later that month.

The Orange Police Department declined to comment on the incident, as it was a personnel matter.

A Los Angeles police officer wears an AXON body camera.

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Drooyan, the former L.A. police commissioner, said prejudiced behavior can create difficult working relationships between officers, leading to a morale problem, and even physical danger in high-risk or volatile environments.

“When they get into a tough situation, if they can’t trust each other, I think it becomes problematic,” he said.

Grunwald said fraught relations among law enforcement officers pose an existential problem as law enforcement leaders are trying to diversify their ranks.

“At a time when police departments are really struggling to retain good officers, and especially at a time when [departments] are struggling to attain officers of color, you’d think that this could be an important area of policy,” he said.

Uneven discipline allowed many officers to remain on the job

Despite the seriousness of explicitly biased behavior — and the fact that it can get an officer decertified — discipline varied across the 148 officers in the investigation.

Of these officers, 39% were demoted, suspended or had their pay reduced. About 20% received a letter of reprimand or were ordered to undergo training — discipline that may not permanently remain in their personnel files.

Experts said the cases uncovered by the investigation likely represent only a fraction of incidents involving explicit bias.

“We have every reason to believe that most of these types of incidents go unreported,” Johnson, the Georgetown law professor, said. “The Blue Wall of Silence. The fact that people are fearful of police. Making a police complaint isn’t easy.”

Even with those barriers, people filed more than 19,600 complaints alleging prejudiced behavior by California law enforcement officers between 2016 and 2024, according to data submitted to the state. Agencies sustained just 349 of those complaints. The figures do not include racially biased traffic stops.

Reporters were only able to examine cases that fell within a narrow band of misconduct dictated by California’s public records laws.

King said officers like Silva, the Delano police officer who threatened to shoot and kill transgender people, are not simply just “a few bad apples.”

“Law enforcement [officers] develop deep-seated cultures that you cannot train away, you cannot address through the hiring process or through the selection process,” he said.

Swift, appropriate action — via verbal reprimand, retraining or more severe discipline — is key to creating a culture of service to the community, according to Victorian, the Waco police chief.

“If nobody actually addresses the behavior when it occurs, then they continue to talk that way, and that behavior becomes acceptable,” she said.

Some officers appealed discipline and succeeded in having penalties reduced at least 38 times. Others resigned before agencies completed disciplinary proceedings.

Silva was allowed to resign rather than be terminated. The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training declined to decertify him.

The city of Wasco confirmed that Silva was still one of its police officers as of June 24, 2026.

Nicole Nguyen of Stanford’s Big Local News and Marquis Mahone-Chambers, Katey Rusch, Elizabeth Santos and Julian Wray of UC Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program contributed to this story. A grant from the Google News Initiative supported the project.

About the data analysis

The Police Records Access Project obtains records from law enforcement and oversight agencies across California involving cases in which agencies determined that officers violated certain policies, including policies prohibiting prejudice against members of protected groups. Project staff compile those files and use algorithms to identify cases in which agencies found policy violations. Staff then review the records to confirm that an agency sustained the allegation.

Reporters from The California Newsroom and UC Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program searched the text of the files and AI-generated summaries of misconduct cases using slurs and terms such as “racist” and “prejudice” to identify cases for further review. Reporters consulted academics, attorneys and law enforcement officials to develop a definition of explicit bias. Three journalists analyzed the cases to determine whether officers exhibited explicit bias against members of a protected group. Experts also reviewed a subset of cases.

To determine whether officers challenged discipline or sought to seal misconduct records, reporters searched local courts for civil lawsuits. Staff also obtained certification and employment records from POST and the state controller’s office to determine whether officers remained employed in law enforcement, including those working for CDCR.

Reporters reached out to district attorneys in the counties where we identified officers who were disciplined for biased conduct to determine if they were on Brady lists. While a few offices confirmed that the officers did not appear in their Brady materials, most said those records are exempt from public disclosure and declined to provide the information.