The Brief

A year and a half after the Eaton Fire burned thousands of homes, Altadena residents are grappling with a question shaping the community’s future: Should rebuilding efforts make room for dense, more affordable housing, or should they seek to recreate the same kind of single-family housing that existed before the fires?

The debate has triggered advocacy around a new bill, lawsuits against L.A. County from developers, petitions from neighbors and emergency town council meetings.

On one side are Altadena residents rallying behind proposed state legislation to temporarily block developers from using California density laws to build multi-unit housing on single-family lots.

They say they want to stop out-of-town developers from building structures like duplexes and bungalow courts, which residents say threaten the neighborhood’s identity and will lead to congestion on narrow roads.

On the other side, developers are looking to build denser housing under existing laws that expedite lot subdivision.

But the county has delayed or denied some of their applications, leading at least three developers to file lawsuits in L.A. County Superior Court.

How we got here

In July 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order allowing local governments to prohibit new duplexes in burn zones such as the Pacific Palisades and Malibu. But the order didn’t include most of Altadena, which technically isn’t in a very high fire-hazard severity zone.

“When residents from my community had initially seen this executive order, they were pretty concerned and upset that they were not included,” state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez said.

“We need protections as well,” said the senator who represents the area.

That’s why some residents are supporting Pérez’s Senate Bill 1090 — which is headed to a full Assembly vote in August.

The frames of new buildings rise next to 411 Punahou St. in Altadena, where a multi-unit complex has been at the center of a rebuilding controversy.

(

Sena Chang

/

LAist

)

On the ground

On Punahou Street, near Farnsworth Park, nearly every single-family home was destroyed by the Eaton Fire.

More than a year and a half after the fire, rows and rows of empty lots remain scraped raw and swallowed by untended weeds. “Altadena is not for sale” signs lay strewn among fallen branches and charred shrubs.

On a handful of properties, wooden frames are beginning to take shape.

Altadena residents began noticing plans to build multi-family complexes this spring.

Their focus was drawn to 411 Punahou St., where a single-family home once stood. In March, neighborhood captain Angela Uriu spotted digital renderings showing a sleek, multi-unit complex with parking spaces.

At a community rally in support of SB 1090, the project at 411 Punahou St. was a topic of discussion.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

For Beautiful Altadena

)

Her home on the same block, a one-story Cape Cod-style house built in 1939, burned to the ground in the fire.

“We have a small street, and it felt like [the developers] made no attempt to be neighborly in the aesthetics of the structure and how they faced our street or the neighbors on either side,” Uriu said.

She soon started a petition opposing the development, which was one signature shy of 1,500 on Thursday.

Uriu is among a growing number of residents who say the rebuilding process has opened the door to predatory outside developers.

“You have speculative developers for whom their entire business plan relies upon purchasing these lots, getting plans approved for the lots, and then flipping them,” said Shawna Dawson Beer, who founded the community activism group Beautiful Altadena in 2015.

“That should not be easier than getting people home and getting people to rebuild their homes,” she added.

A legal battle brews

Recently, developers in Altadena haven’t gotten housing applications approved under SB 1123, leading some to sue the county. Only a few SB 1123 applications were approved after the fire, according to the county’s permit finder.

This spring, L.A. County sent out one-paragraph rejections of SB 1123 applications to developers, saying that the properties’ perimeters were not substantially surrounded by developed parcels — a requirement for projects to qualify for SB 1123.

“We actually voided all applications because [SB 1123] was meant to be infill building, and there’s nothing around,” L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger told the California Assembly at the beginning of July. Barger’s district includes Altadena.

The decision to void the applications was based on guidance from the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development, according to Anish Saraiya, the director of Altadena recovery in Barger’s office.

Kensington Homes, Caldev and other development companies quickly sued the county, alleging that the rejections were based on “a pretextual political decision to prevent increased density in post-fire Altadena.”

The county Department of Regional Planning wrote in a statement to LAist that new applications for multifamily projects under SB 1123 can’t be approved “based on current law.” The department did not elaborate.

At least three lawsuits allege that the delay and denial of these applications were inconsistent with the county’s past actions and messaging.

Brick Work, a land use startup suing the county, submitted applications to build multifamily homes in late 2025.

“We were just going about business as usual,” founder John Jung said.

But county officials in March declared the project ineligible due to the urban infill requirement, Jung said.

Multiple lawsuits cite a now-offline brochure published by the L.A. County Planning Department, which provided guidance on using SB 1123 and SB 9 to split lots for Eaton Fire survivors. They allege that the county changed its position by replacing the brochure this spring.

“Content on the Disaster Recovery webpage is updated regularly to reflect the latest information in the most accessible form, and this particular brochure has been replaced by other content,” the Department of Regional Planning wrote in a statement to LAist.

At the heart of the lawsuits is a thorny question: What counts as urban infill after a neighborhood has burned?

One lawsuit filed by Kensington Homes argues that the definition of a “qualified urban use” can also include remnant residential structures left following the fire. Therefore, it argues, “virtually all of the land in Altadena qualifies for the program.”

Jung argues that although the lots are currently vacant, “the use is still residential, and they’re all in the midst of rebuilding — they’re not going to stay vacant,” he said.

The county’s current interpretation stands contrary to the purpose of SB 1123, according to Jacob Pierce of Abundant Housing L.A., a pro-housing nonprofit.

“The county’s interest in reading a temporary post-disaster condition as disqualification does not pass the smell test,” he said.

But supporters of SB 1090 say that SB 1123’s urban infill requirements were never intended to include burned lots. They argue that fire-scarred blocks should not be treated the same as intact urban neighborhoods.

“There is no question that an entire town that was wiped off the map overnight is not urban infill,” said Dawson Beer, the community activist.

UC Davis law professor Christopher S. Elmendorf says that the statute doesn’t directly address the issue.

But, Elmendorf noted, “it would be strange for the city to declare that the sites are ‘not urban’ because the existing uses burned, while at the same time it issues permits for the rebuilding of single-family homes.”

Rebuilding on their own terms

SB 9 projects, on the other hand, are still being approved by the county. More than 5,600 parcels were damaged or destroyed in Altadena. Fifty-seven, including 411 Punahou Street, have active permits invoking SB 9. Only two have been completed, and 14 are under construction.

But this was enough to unite Altadena residents in opposition. Similarly, a handful of SB 9 applications brought the Palisades community together against “opportunistic developers” last year, leading L.A. Mayor Karen Bass to suspend SB 9 in very high fire-hazard severity zones.

At a June 16 town council meeting in Altadena, more than 450 residents packed the overflow space to voice concerns about the developments and push for housing density exemptions under SB 1090. An “emergency” community meeting on Zoom was held later that month, gathering more than 100 residents.

Recovering and rebuilding after a traumatic event like a large-scale fire can cause friction within communities, said Megan Mullin, a public policy professor at UCLA.

“There can be a tension between what individuals and households need for their own recovery and the vision that a community has for what it wants to be in the future,” Mullin said.

Altadena town council Chair Nic Arnzen addresses Altadena residents at a June rally for SB 1090.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

For Beautiful Altadena

)

Among those who are critical of SB 1090 are residents who plan to earn additional income by renting out secondary units.

Geoff Ramsey-Ray’s insurance claims were not enough to cover the cost of rebuilding his home on two acres of land, leading him to pursue a lot split under SB 9. Selling the second lot is “the only feasible way” he can stay in Altadena, he said.

The SB 9 approval process has been slow, Ramsey-Ray said.

“Ironically, preventing the speculators is also hurting some of us in Altadena who are trying to find a way to afford to rebuild here,” Ramsey-Ray said.

Many SB 1090 advocates say they’re targeting only out-of-town developers, and the latest version of the bill carves out an exemption for community land trusts and affordable housing organizations.

Veronica Jones, president of the Altadena Historical Society, hopes for a middle ground.

“We just want to protect what makes Altadena Altadena,” she said.

Whether that middle ground can be reached — or even exists — remains a question.

What comes next?

After swiftly passing two committee votes in the state Assembly in early July, SB 1090 awaits a full Assembly vote in August. Then it would go to the Senate and, if passed, on to the governor for his signature.

If passed in its current version, the bill would go into effect starting Jan. 1, 2027, which residents say leaves too much time for developers to continue building. They’re now fighting to get an urgency clause added to the bill, which would have the moratorium take effect as soon as the governor signs it.

An "Altadena is not for sale" sign lies on the ground of an empty lot near Punahou Street.

(

Sena Chang

/

LAist

)

“We might still be able to move forward even if the moratorium passes, because there might be language in there that allows existing projects to still move forward,” said Jung, one of the developers suing the county.

Meanwhile, the land on 411 Punahou Street was sold, with site plans for a multi-unit building approved last December. The empty lot has been cleaned and leveled.

Uriu, the neighborhood captain who lost her home nearby, is distressed.

“To think,” Uriu said, “that I’m spending my retirement and going to have to work the rest of my life to build this new home and have a five-unit complex with two stories next door looking into my backyard — it’s just a really hard pill to swallow.”

Residents say that the debate around SB 1090 is only one piece of a much larger recovery process mired in permit delays and insufficient insurance payouts. More than 18 months after the Eaton Fire, only 1% of homes have been rebuilt, and some survivors have left L.A. altogether.

“Everybody who wants to come home should be able to,” said Katie Clark, the co-founder of the Altadena Tenants Union. “And the reality on the ground is that for many of us, that is an uphill battle.”

The findings of the 2026 homeless count held in January across most of L.A. County are scheduled to be officially announced this Friday, July 24, by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, ahead of that official release, has acknowledged that the annual tally will show a rise in the city of L.A.’s unhoused population after two years of declines.

What the mayor is saying

Bass was responding to a report late Wednesday by Fox 11 that the numbers had gone up. Bass, who was briefed on the findings, acknowledged to Fox 11 that the city's unhoused population has increased, although she didn't share a specific percentage. The mayor blamed state funding cuts and federal policy changes for the rise.

On Thursday, the mayor’s office shared a longer written statement with LAist:

“For two years straight, we drove down homelessness by historic margins — but as expected, last year our efforts ultimately couldn’t keep up with policies and funding cuts at the federal and state levels that pushed more people onto the streets,” Bass said.

When asked to clarify, Bass’ office said she was most concerned about state reductions to the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention grant program, known as HHAP.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass speaks at a press conference before L.A.'s annual homeless count on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025, in Los Angeles.

(

Carlin Stiehl

/

LAist

)

Bass also said she believed the Trump administration has played a role in more people going unhoused. She said the administration's policies have “driven up the cost of gas, groceries, and rent” and “slashed critical safety net funding.” More broadly, she said city leaders have ignored the homelessness crisis for decades and that the “lack of adequate services provided by L.A. County continues to be a real problem.”

Several people briefed on the findings also confirmed to LAist that this year’s results show the area’s unhoused population increased.

Why it matters

The point-in-time census, which is mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and takes place yearly in L.A., provides a data snapshot. Local officials use it to gauge year-to-year fluctuations, and it also helps the federal government determine how millions of dollars in federal homelessness grants flow.

In 2025, the city's and county’s homeless populations dropped by 3.4% and 4%, respectively. The 2024 count also showed declines — those drops were smaller and within the count’s margin of error.

Bass, who took office at the very end of 2022, has been touting two consecutive years of declining homelessness in her reelection campaign this year. She’s facing City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who chairs L.A.’s housing and homelessness committee.

Release timing

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, conducted the count in January and initially planned to release the results in “late spring or early summer.” The release was delayed slightly this year, as LAHSA officials opted to wait on a federal review of the data. The agency typically released past homeless count findings in June.

LAHSA’s public release of the findings is currently scheduled for 1 p.m. on Friday, July 24.

Bass, who was present at the event for the past three years, has not responded to requests from LAist asking whether she will attend this time.

When Jason Zapata was arrested for allegedly firing a gun into the air, he was thrown in a dimly lit holding cell with trash strewn across the floor and a broken payphone on the wall. It had nothing more than a rusted toilet, sink and three wooden benches that looked as though they had never been cleaned.

Two older men with shaved heads sat in the back, eyeing the 24-year-old’s wristband that the jail used to display his personal information. One was over 6 feet tall and 300 pounds. The other was covered in tattoos from head to foot. They were gang members, they said, in jail for murder.

It was 2015 and Zapata, a slight Hispanic man at 5 feet 9 inches tall and 180 pounds, had never been incarcerated before. His new cellmates in the Riverside County jail told him they had spent years in and out of the most violent prisons. As they boasted about the people they had stabbed to death, Zapata tried to hide how fast his heart was beating.

“Your life is in their hands,” Zapata told CalMatters in a recent interview. “Anything could happen to you in that type of environment. Not everybody makes it out. You gotta do what you need to do to survive in this place.”

When they pressed him about why he was in jail, he tried to tread lightly as he maintained his innocence. But as the hours wore on, the men accused him of disrespecting them by not coming clean. Eventually, they threatened him with a “calentada” — Spanish prison slang for a beating or stabbing.

Three months later, Zapata learned it was all a ruse: His cellmates were undercover law enforcement agents attempting to obtain information about an unsolved murder from the previous year. They were part of what is known as a “Perkins operation,” a controversial law enforcement tactic in which a police officer or civilian poses as an incarcerated person to elicit incriminating statements from a suspect.

Perkins operations are widespread in California and have helped secure hundreds of murder convictions. District attorneys say they are a powerful investigative tool that can exonerate people or solve crimes. The tactic is so popular that law enforcement officials from Riverside County, a hotbed of Perkins operations, share tips on how to conduct them at conferences around the state.

But the operations are under increasing scrutiny from judges, scholars and defense attorneys, who say they are coercive, risk false confessions, and disproportionately target Black and Latino people.

A CalMatters analysis of cases in Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and Santa Clara counties shows that Perkins operations include false evidence ploys, jail cells outfitted with recording devices, and cash payments of up to $3,000 per day to undercover operatives, also known as Perkins agents. The agents, often described in court filings as older and physically larger than their targets, frequently presented themselves as experienced gang members with a history of violence. In some cases, as many as five were placed in a cell with one person.

“It’s psychological war,” said Michelle Luna Reynoso, a criminal defense attorney in San Diego. “How is this not considered cruel and unusual punishment?”

Riverside County’s Robert Presley Detention Center in downtown Riverside on July 1, 2026.

(

Jules Hotz

/

for CalMatters

)

‘It could happen to anybody’

Zapata grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Hawthorne. He lived with his parents and older sister in a two-bedroom rental. His father worked at Ford and his mother worked at Verizon. He loved her home-cooked meals, skateboarding with friends through Venice Beach, and listening to Metallica and Tupac.

But when he was 15, Zapata said he was a victim of a violent crime. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. After being shot multiple times, his family moved to Temecula. Their new two-story home, with a pool and palm tree in the backyard, made him feel as though he had made it out of the hood. After high school, he attended community college in San Diego and enrolled in classes on law, business and auto maintenance. He later worked at a Mexican bar and grill, and started an eBay store to sell electronics. And then, suddenly, he was in jail.

The two Perkins agents targeted Zapata after a 15-year-old friend of the victim accused him of the 2014 murder. At the time, she was in custody on an unrelated matter and seeking a deal. She later admitted that her statements were not true, according to court records.

Zapata repeatedly denied involvement. But when the agents threatened him, he feared what they might do, so he told them what they wanted to hear. Still, he says, he never directly admitted to the killing.

A judge set his bail at $1 million. It took roughly eight years for his case to finally come to trial. When it did, prosecutors said his statements to the Perkins agents amounted to a confession. The jury agreed. He was sentenced to 25 years to life for murder in January 2024.

“It was heartbreaking to hear the verdict,” Zapata said. “It could happen to anybody.”

Earlier this year, California’s 4th District Court of Appeal reversed Zapata’s conviction after finding that law enforcement violated his rights during the Perkins operation.

The ruling, which granted Zapata a new trial, could have wide-ranging implications for other Perkins cases, at least 10 of which are now stacked before the California Supreme Court. Of those, four defendants are Hispanic, four are Black and two are white. The youngest was 18 years old at the time of the Perkins operation.

Many of the cases center on similar issues. In some, defendants allege that Perkins agents coaxed them to waive their Miranda rights to remain silent or consult an attorney before a formal police interrogation. In others, defendants argue agents coerced them into making incriminating statements after they repeatedly invoked their Miranda rights.

California has seen previous legislative and legal challenges to Perkins operations, but its high court has never intervened.

In 2019, the California Supreme Court rejected a petition to review the case of a Kern County man who was targeted in a Perkins operation one day after he invoked his Miranda rights in a police interrogation.

Although the court declined to hear the case, Justice Goodwin Liu had harsh words for law enforcement.

“The use of deceptive schemes to elicit confessions from suspects who have invoked their Miranda rights appears to be a pervasive police practice in California,” he wrote. “How is it possible, one might ask, that the protections of Miranda are so easily evaded?”

The Miranda loophole

Perkins operations are distinct because of their timing: They typically take place after a person has been arrested and before charges are filed. That timing is critical, because once someone has been formally charged, Sixth Amendment rights kick in and the person cannot be interrogated without a lawyer present.

Protections under the Fifth Amendment, including Miranda rights, guarantee that a suspect will not be subject to custodial interrogation without a warning. Those protections, resulting from the famous 1966 United States Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona, are designed to guard against coercion in a police-dominated environment. Once invoked, all interrogation must stop.

But roughly two decades later, the court held that statements made by a suspect during a Perkins operation are voluntary; therefore, Miranda does not apply.

The 1990 ruling hinged on the case of Lloyd Perkins, who was placed in an Illinois jail cell with an undercover police officer and an incarcerated informant. They roped him into a fake plan to escape from jail. As their planning was underway, they asked him if he had ever “done” anybody. He responded by implicating himself in a murder that took place years earlier. Perkins later argued that his statements should not have been admissible because he was not advised of his Miranda rights beforehand.

In an 8-to-1 decision, the high court disagreed. So long as suspects do not know they are speaking with a government agent, justices reasoned, the pressures that exist in a custodial interrogation are absent.

“When a suspect considers himself in the company of cellmates and not officers, the coercive atmosphere is lacking,” former Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. “Miranda forbids coercion, not mere strategic deception by taking advantage of a suspect’s misplaced trust in one he supposes to be a fellow prisoner.”

Alexandra Natapoff, a professor at Harvard Law School and one of the nation’s leading experts on confidential informants, said the decision created a loophole in Miranda.

“Perkins operations are efforts by law enforcement to take advantage of the loophole to get confessions by using informants, without triggering a finding that the suspect is actually being interrogated — in other words, being pressured in a police-dominated atmosphere to confess,” she said.

Natapoff said the use of informants and Perkins operations, in particular, are coercive, inhumane and lack transparency.

“Maybe the most famous problem with the use of informants — famous because it gets litigated the most — is the unreliability,” she said. “We know that people falsely confess to crimes they didn’t do because they feel like they need to posture or brag or protect themselves from their cellmates.”

But Greg Totten, chief executive officer of the California District Attorneys Association, said prosecutors view statements in the context of the overall case.

“We look for corroboration, when we can find it, to make sure that the statements are intrinsically accurate and sound. We do our due diligence,” he said. “In the justice system, we have a responsibility not just to secure convictions but to protect the innocent from being prosecuted.”

‘They wouldn’t stop questioning me’ 

The two Perkins agents in Zapata’s case shared a cell with him for a total of three hours and 20 minutes, according to court records. The cell was electronically monitored in real-time by James Dickey, a Riverside County Sheriff’s investigator.

After about an hour, the Perkins agents had not obtained any information about the murder, so Dickey pulled Zapata out of the cell. He took him upstairs and had him stand in a police lineup. On his way back to the cell, Dickey told Zapata that somebody had identified him as the shooter. It was a lie.

According to court records, Dickey asked Zapata whether he wanted to speak with him about the murder. At that point, Zapata invoked his right to legal counsel, saying he would not talk without an attorney present.

When Dickey returned Zapata to his cell, he announced he would be charging him with murder. He closed the cell door and walked away. No lawyer was provided.

Dickey’s gambit was the first of at least three so-called stimulation tactics that law enforcement used on Zapata, according to court records. Because people in jail are often reticent to openly discuss their charges, the ploys are intended to “stimulate” conversation by introducing new information. That can include fabricated DNA results, lineups or video surveillance that officers like Dickey present to suspects to get them to unwittingly talk about the case with the person they think is their cellmate.

Iris Blandón-Gitlin, a psychology professor at California State University Fullerton who studies Perkins operations, said the false evidence ploy is a “very dangerous tactic” because it risks coercion, false confessions and erroneous information.

“It manipulates people’s reality,” she said. “And so they believe it. They don’t understand it, but they believe it and so they choose to confess — even falsely.”

When the Perkins agents overheard Dickey say Zapata would be charged with murder, they immediately began peppering him with questions, according to court records.

“They wouldn’t stop questioning me,” Zapata testified at trial.

Zapata continued to deny the allegations, but according to court transcripts reviewed by CalMatters, the agents told him they didn’t believe him and said he was disrespecting them by not divulging details. That was when Zapata said they began to threaten him with a “calentada.”

“There was no doubt in my mind that I was in imminent danger … At that point I continued to lie and say what I said,” Zapata said. “I wouldn’t have said what I said if it wasn’t for the threats.”

When Dickey took the stand, he described his observations from across the jail, where he was watching a live feed of the operation.

“The atmosphere was upbeat,” he said. “Aggressive is not anything that I observed. Threatening was not anything I observed.”

But many parts of the recording were inaudible.

“It’s, in my view, a very poor quality tape,” said Riverside County Superior Court Judge John Davis, who eventually allowed portions of the tape to be admitted.

Hundreds of convictions

Zapata’s case unfolded about a year after Riverside County’s first Perkins operation. Since then, Dickey and others in the Riverside County District Attorney’s office have traveled the state to train law enforcement on the tactic.

In 2024, Dickey and Riverside County Deputy District Attorney David Tahan delivered a presentation at a Deputy District Attorney Association Homicide Symposium in Santa Rosa. Along with their formal titles, they introduced themselves as the “Perkins coordinator” for their respective agencies and said they had conducted hundreds of operations throughout California.

CalMatters obtained their slide presentation through a California Public Records Act request from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office, which attended the symposium. The office initially refused to release the document, agreeing to make it public only after attorneys from the Covington & Burling law firm wrote demand letters on CalMatters’ behalf.

The presentation reveals that Riverside County conducted its first Perkins operation in 2014. Its Perkins operation program, which Dickey and Tahan referred to as “a state model,” runs multiple operations each week — approximately half of which are conducted for unnamed outside agencies. Over half of the operations involve gang-related murders, they said.

Dickey and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department declined CalMatters’ request for an interview. Tahan and the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to multiple interview requests.

The 66-slide presentation included recommendations for recruiting agents, how to time arrests and “recipes for success.” Dickey and Tahan outlined the steps in an operation, starting with meetings and recorded pre-briefs. From there, the operation begins, stimulations follow, then an interview, and a recorded debrief. It concludes with “proper reporting / discovery.”

According to Dickey and Tahan, Riverside County Perkins operations are modeled after programs developed by the sheriff’s department and district attorney’s office in Los Angeles County, where the operations are prolific.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office established uniform procedures for Perkins operations in February 2017, according to public records obtained by CalMatters attorneys. Former Chief Deputy District Attorney John Spillane announced the new procedures in a special directive, requiring that deputies submit a filing checklist, pretrial discovery checklist and case closing checklist for all Perkins operations.

Court records from a case filed before the California Supreme Court this year show that 85 out of 400 murder convictions involving Perkins operations in Los Angeles County occurred after a suspect had invoked their Miranda rights. That accounting was from just one of several units within the office, suggesting the number is likely much higher, according to the records.

“These operations produce conviction after conviction,” said Scott Sanders, a criminal defense attorney who exposed the illegal use of jailhouse informants in Orange County more than a decade ago. “It’s a really rich zone for tons of misconduct. These cases are going to the Supreme Court because it’s an issue that is paramount to understanding how far law enforcement can go in these operations … These are the lines that you would think are too far.”

‘A linebacker sized’ cellmate

All 10 Perkins challenges before the California Supreme Court come from San Diego, Riverside and Los Angeles counties. The earliest dates to 2014.

One involves Michael Goehner, who was sentenced to 48 years to life in prison for murder in March 2024. Goehner, who is white, has maintained his innocence since his arrest in August 2021, when he was 25. In his petition, he alleged that two Perkins agents repeatedly discouraged him from speaking to an attorney and instead advised him to claim self-defense when he spoke with law enforcement.

In another case, David Allen, who is Black, was arrested on suspicion of murder in 2016 in Los Angeles County when he was 28. During an interrogation, officers lied and told him they had clear evidence he was guilty, which Allen repeatedly denied.

After he invoked his right to remain silent four times, court records show detectives unlawfully continued their interrogation. They told him he wouldn’t see his daughter again “because (he) refused to tell the truth,” according to court filings. He eventually admitted he had acted as the lookout during the shooting. But his statements could not be used in court, a prosecutor later told the detectives, “unless Allen could be made to repeat the statement to an undercover police agent.”

Three days later, Allen found himself in a cell with a man who introduced himself as a gang member. Allen was convicted of murder and sentenced to 45 years to life in prison after making incriminating statements to the Perkins agent. In a petition to the California Supreme Court, he argued that his Fifth Amendment and federal due process rights were violated and called for his convictions to be reversed.

“By deliberately creating a coercive jailhouse setting and inserting a linebacker-sized ‘gang’ cellmate to draw appellant into incriminating discussion, law enforcement did precisely what these cases forbid: It used deception and a proxy to bypass an already-triggered constitutional protection,” Allen’s attorney wrote in the petition.

Detainees walk through an outdoor yard at the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange on March 14, 2017.

(

Jeff Gritchen , Orange County Register via Getty Images

/

Orange County Register via Getty Images

)

The California District Attorneys Association and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office maintained Allen’s statements were voluntary, and argued that Perkins operations can benefit both the prosecution and the defense. In court filings, the office said the operations are “vital to the truth-finding process” in its Justice Conviction Review Unit, which reviews claims of innocence. Since the unit opened in 2015, the office claimed roughly one third of its 16 exonerations resulted from Perkins operations.

“In each of these cases, the evidence from Perkins operations completely proved the convicted defendant’s innocence,” attorneys wrote. “These innocent individuals would not have been exonerated but for the Perkins operations.”

But Jasmin Harris, director of policy for the California Innocence Coalition, said the office has misrepresented the ‘success’ of Perkins operations.

“It’s quite a stretch — a step too far — for them to claim that this is a tool when, really, it’s just a tool for them to feel better about reversing a conviction after the petitioner has met the legal standard,” she said. “We don’t think that deception should be used on the front side or the back side of a conviction.”

Racial disparities in who’s targeted

The California Public Defenders Association and American Civil Liberties Union urged the California Supreme Court to look closely at the highly coordinated police practice because they say it produces extreme racial disparities and perpetuates racially biased policing.

“Perkins operations are often framed as ‘gang’ investigations, which have long been directed at historically over-policed communities of color,” attorneys wrote in a brief filed in support of Allen.

They cited recent data from Riverside County Public Defender’s Office, which found significant racial disparities when it analyzed 881 murder cases between January 2015 and June 2023, including 145 Perkins targets. The analysis showed Black defendants were more than four times as likely to be targeted in a Perkins operation than white defendants. Latino defendants were targeted at over twice the rate of white defendants, they found.

Martín Flores, a gang expert who specializes in Perkins operations, has testified in more than 100 cases throughout San Diego, Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties that involved an operation. He said agents present themselves as “active, older homies with influence in the county jail and in the streets.”

“It’s someone who, in perception, can make your life miserable or harmful in the county jail,” he said. “In my opinion, most of these Perkins operations, it’s about impressing that agent…And why does that matter? Because it's survival. If you look weak and vulnerable, you're going to become the prey.”

The San Diego Central Jail in downtown San Diego on Aug. 3, 2023.

(

Kristian Carreon

/

for CalMatters

)

Public defenders in San Diego have also voiced concern over racial bias in Perkins operations. In an analysis of roughly 40 Perkins operations, they found agents consistently used racially discriminatory language, including slurs and cultural stereotyping, to develop a false sense of rapport and generate incriminating statements.

Those findings were raised in the case of Adrian Rodriquez, a young Hispanic man who was in juvenile detention for violating his probation in May 2023. Rodriquez, then 18, was transferred to an adult jail, where he shared a cell with two Perkins agents who identified themselves as gang members. One had devil horn tattoos across his bald head and said he had stabbed his cellmate 70 times while serving time in federal prison for attempted murder, according to court filings.

Law enforcement later told Rodriquez that he had been booked for murder. His case has not yet gone to trial and he has pleaded not guilty.

In October 2025, Rodriquez filed California’s first-ever Racial Justice Act petition regarding a Perkins operation. The law, passed in 2020, allows people to challenge a prosecution, conviction or sentence that they believe was based upon racial bias. The San Diego Superior Court last month found that Rodriquez met his burden to proceed to an evidentiary hearing.

In his petition, Rodriquez argued that the Perkins agent exhibited bias toward him by exploiting his Latino identity, leading him to make incriminating statements. It detailed how an agent used “racialized manipulation” during the operation, including the use of the n-word nearly 70 times.

An expert analysis included in his petition found that Hispanic defendants in San Diego County are twice as likely to be targeted in a Perkins operation compared to white defendants. The odds go up for Hispanic teenagers, according to court filings, which said they are seven times more likely to be the subject of a Perkins operation compared to white teenagers.

San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan told CalMatters in an interview that Perkins operations “are applied across the board, wherever it appears that a heartless murder can benefit…no matter what the race, what the gender, what the orientation, what the cultural background or anything is.”

She said Perkins operations, if done meticulously, are one of the best tools to pursue the truth. The operation is resource-intensive, she said, which means that everything must be done by the book.

“Like every tool that is available to pursue justice, it can be misused,” she said. “You can take almost any tool and if you don’t do it correctly and by the book, you’re going to mess it up. It’s not a reflection on the investigative tool being used, it’s a reflection on the people using it and that they’re not using it correctly.”

Zapata awaiting new trial

Roughly a decade after Zapata found himself in a cell with two Perkins agents, he was granted a new trial. The 4th District Court of Appeal ruled his statements should not have been admitted at trial. Zapata said he was speechless. He paced around his cell as he read through the decision.

“When a suspect invokes and does not waive the right to counsel, and a known law enforcement officer continues to ‘stimulate’ a Perkins operation in a manner that amounts to a custodial interrogation, the suspect’s resulting incriminating statements are inadmissible,” the justices wrote.

One month later, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office requested that the California Supreme Court throw out the appellate opinion, arguing that it contradicts settled case law and creates confusion.

On May 13, the California Supreme Court rejected the request. That means Zapata will soon be transported from prison to a Riverside County jail where he will await a new trial.

Zapata said it is a win for now. He is trying to stay positive, knowing that he is returning to a county where he believes misconduct runs rampant.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get a fair trial when I go back,” he said. “I’m fighting for my life at this point. I know I’m innocent so the truth shall set me free. I’m hoping that when I get there, they recognize it and act accordingly. Hopefully, I’ll be able to be home soon.”

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

Robert Meeks contributed to this story. 

This project was completed with the support of a grant from Columbia University's Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in conjunction with Arnold Ventures.

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

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

East Los Angeles resident Nataly Degante, 35, saw an over $200 increase in her utility bill this month — the result of running five air purifiers in her home 24/7 to keep out pollutants and the stench of rotting food since the Lineage warehouse fire. Her AC unit also runs occasionally, when the heat becomes unbearable, Degante said. Opening the windows isn’t an option.

“I had those air purifiers on 24/7, all the time, even at night because in the night it smells the absolute worst…The amount of my bill is too much,” Degante said. Her children, 10 and 14, often complain about the smell and early on, they experienced headaches, nausea and nosebleeds as a result of the fire, she said. 

City and county agencies as well as Lineage have given away thousands of air purifiers to residents throughout the month at various resource sites or through door-to-door distribution. Officials have touted the resource in their response efforts and have also promised utility bill assistance to offset the costs of running the purifiers for long hours. 

The result? In Boyle Heights, Lineage has donated $50,000 that will automatically go towards covering the bill for 219 LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) customers living closest to the fire. Now, LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis wants Lineage to pledge to do the same for unincorporated East LA, which gets electricity via Southern California Edison (SCE). Officials didn’t immediately provide details whether additional support would be available. Meanwhile, a coalition of community groups has been calling for widespread relief as poor air quality has affected not just homes immediately surrounding the warehouse, but neighboring areas as well.

The promise to cover utility bills for residents affected by the fire was first brought up at a roundtable meeting between Bass, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and local business owners who said they’d experienced lower foot traffic due to the smoke and smell but still had bills to pay. Bass pledged to speak to the general manager of the LADWP to discuss what could be done about utility bills. 

In a July 9 interview with Boyle Heights Beat, Bass advised LA residents to “save your DWP bills,” to compare their costs before and after the fire and hopefully provide some relief. At a contentious town hall meeting between Lineage, city and county officials and hundreds of residents that evening, Jeff Rivera, chief operating officer of Lineage, presented a new wave of support for those living near the warehouse that included “Supporting residents utility bills through LADWP.”

Exactly what that support would look like has been unclear until now.

According to LADWP, 219 customers located closest to the Lineage warehouse will soon have an automatic, fixed, one-time payment applied to their accounts. LADWP said the payments were funded through a “private donation,” but could not share any information about the private donor or how the homes were chosen. 

Bass’ office told The Beat that the private donation of $50,000 came from Lineage and the 219 homes were chosen because they are LADWP customers that live within the boundary of what officials have determined is the area with the most need. The city and county have used the same map to determine what homes are eligible for temporary housing assistance through AirBnB. The map covers homes in both Boyle Height and East LA located between Los Palos Street and Hicks Avenue and Union Pacific Avenue and Beswick Street, but officials have never explained why those boundaries were chosen.  

East Los Angeles resident Nataly Degante, 35, saw an over $200 increase in her utility bill this month — the result of running five air purifiers in her home 24/7 to keep out pollutants and the stench of rotting food since the Lineage warehouse fire. Her AC unit also runs occasionally, when the heat becomes unbearable, Degante said. Opening the windows isn’t an option.

According to the mayor’s office, Bass is “working to raise additional funds to expand the number of residents and businesses that can benefit from this assistance.”

So far, residents in unincorporated East LA are not included in the utility bill assistance funded by Lineage. 

On Friday, LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis called that out, writing in a statement that “no comparable assistance was secured for East Los Angeles” by Lineage. Solis said she connected with SCE to ensure residents were also being supported and promoted a phone number in an Instagram post for residents to call. 

East LA resident Degante called that number this week and was disappointed to find out that the assistance available was not more comprehensive. SCE has provided options for customers to opt for a payment plan or apply for SCE’s Energy Assistance Fund which allows customers experiencing hardship to receive a grant of up to $200 through a partner organization like the Salvation Army. Applying for the grant needs to be done directly through the organization.  

“Quite frankly, from what I saw in the Instagram post, I thought it was gonna be like a pardon. … It was not the case,” Degante said. 

Now she worries that even if help becomes available for East LA residents, she will not be eligible because she lives about a mile and a half from Lineage. 

“Now I see an immense need for East LA to have its own council, to have its own city hall, because I don’t feel like we’re being seen. I feel like if anything, we’re being ignored,” Degante said. 

A coalition of affected residents known as Protect LA Now, is using the term “Eastside+” to describe the broader area they say was also impacted by the fire including Maywood, Huntington Park, Cudahy, Commerce, Montebello, Monterey Park and El Sereno.

On Wednesday, Protect LA Now urged local officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom to act to provide relief for residents who are now “forced to pay outrageous electric bills.” 

“These families are still waiting for government officials to have solutions- not to hand every public health decision to Lineage, the company that caused this,” Protect LA Now said in a statement Wednesday. The group planned a community vigil and teach-in on Wednesday evening at Resurrection Church in Boyle Heights.

At Tuesday’s LA County Board of Supervisors meeting, the government body that provides representation to unincorporated areas like East LA, Solis convened multiple agencies including the South Coast Air Quality Management District, LA County Public Health and SCE to review ongoing recovery efforts and provide clarity on the support available. 

Dave Ford, senior government relations manager for SCE, said during the meeting that the utility company was in conversation with Lineage to provide support for residents of East LA, too.

“We’re looking at working with them on very similar program that they have provided for the city of Los Angeles and doing the same in the unincorporated area of East LA,” Ford said. 

Christian Garcia of SCE thanked Solis for “helping to bring Lineage to the table,” adding, “…it was a little bit frustrating to get them in there.” 

Garcia said Lineage is now establishing a fund for more than 100 SCE customers in unincorporated East LA to receive some relief on their bill, similar to those in Boyle Heights. The exact numbers are still being finalized.

“I think what the minimum is to request nothing less than what the city is receiving,” Solis said. 

Lineage told Boyle Heights Beat that they are working on solidifying the details of their support with SCE.

How to know if you qualify: 

According to LADWP, an automatic payment will be applied to customers that live within the designated boundary (between Los Palos Street, Hicks Avenue, Union Pacific Avenue and Beswick Street).

No further action is required from qualified customers.

What support is available for residents that live outside of the boundary?

LADWP customers can request:

• Payment arrangements: No down payment, no interest, no fees; A long-term payment option that divides the total account balance evenly across a specified number of billing periods.
• Payment extension: A short-term payment option that gives customers additional time, up to one billing period, to pay their full balance.
• Level pay: A billing option that helps you plan by providing predictable monthly bills based on average usage. You can also roll in past-due balances.

To inquire about these programs, call 1-800-DIAL-DWP, visit a customer service center or use the online form on LADWP.com/ContactUs .

LADWP customers can also apply for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) through the Maravilla Foundation. But the Maravilla Foundation website says that due to reduced government funding and high demand, fewer applications are being accepted. To qualify for LIHEAP, the monthly income for a family of four must not exceed $6,407.16. A full list of requirements and application instructions can be found here.

SCE customers can apply for:

• A number of income-based programs to have discounts applied to their bill including the California Alternate Rates for Energy and Family Electric Rate Assistance. 
• Payment plans, including a long-term installment plan, so customers can spread their balance over time with manageable payments, and the Budget Billing Plan, which helps spread energy costs more evenly throughout the year.
• The Energy Assistance Fund, which provides one-time bill assistance of up to $200. SCE works with United Way and over 80 community-based organizations to provide the assistance but customers need to apply directly through the organization. To find the partner organization closest to you, click here.

The team leading L.A. County’s push to close Men’s Central Jail says a full closure is not feasible in the next five years.

This is yet another delay since the county Board of Supervisors voted in July 2020 to close the jail within one year. A two-year plan was announced in 2021, then a five-year plan in 2024.

The Jail Closure Implementation Team, also known as JCIT, told the Board of Supervisors this week that they’ve outlined a framework that will improve conditions for thousands of people in L.A. County’s justice system, but the steps they’ve identified are still not enough to safely close the jail within the five-year timeline.

Some supervisors expressed frustration in the lack of progress, but restated their commitment to close the jail. They passed a subsequent measure to provide $28 million this year for JCIT’s work.

“Men’s Central Jail is a decrepit, outdated facility inconsistent with human values and basic decency,” Supervisor Janice Hahn told LAist in a statement after the vote. “It puts both those incarcerated there and our sheriff’s deputies at risk.”

Hahn and other county supervisors have emphasized the need for a collaborative and comprehensive effort to shut down the jail without compromising public safety.

Inhumane conditions

Why close the jail?

“The reason it's important to close the jail is that the jail is a hellhole,” Eric Miller told LAist. “It is physically disgusting and is an inhumane place to house anybody.”

Miller is a professor at Loyola Law School and was a member of the Sybil Brand Commission until he stepped down in February.

That commission, tasked with oversight of county jails and lockups, visited the Men’s Central Jail earlier this month and found issues with the quality of drinking water, moldy or burned food, people not receiving toilet paper or other hygiene products and delayed medical care.

A May inspection also found rust and gnats in drinking water and concerns that people’s grievances and medical requests were going unanswered.

“The Sybil Brand reports have been consistent that the jail is infested with vermin and mold,” Miller said, “and it's not limited to one place in the jail.”

Miller said the issues aren't limited to Men’s Central Jail either, and closing the facility won’t fix underlying problems in how people are treated in the L.A. County’s justice system.

There have been 23 deaths in L.A. County custody since the beginning of the year, according to the LASD website. Six of those deaths occurred at Men’s Central Jail.

The Sheriff's Department said it takes findings from inspections seriously and works to address them.

“Despite ongoing challenges, including a rising inmate population and an aging Men's Central Jail, our staff have remained committed to providing constitutional, humane care to those in our custody,” the department wrote in a statement. “We are proud of the progress we've made and confident in our ability to continue delivering meaningful change for our community.”

A path to closure

Wilford Pinkney Jr., the executive director of JCIT, told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that by expanding diversionary programs, pretrial services and other strategies, the daily population at the jail could be reduced by more than 800 people by 2031.

Pinkney said JCIT also estimated that just over one-quarter of the 4,020 people currently incarcerated at Men’s Central Jail might be relocated to other facilities, allowing one floor of the facility to close in the next five years.

Many could not be housed anywhere else due to "specialty housing needs, security level, or a requirement to be housed in a single cell,” he said.

The repeated delays have drawn criticism from justice reform advocates, loved ones of people incarcerated there and public officials.

“ I understand frustration because people don't see action,” Pinkney told LAist before Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.

During the meeting, he said JCIT has been working to provide tested solutions and show that the county is making progress.

Janet Asante of the JusticeLA Coalition said it's a good sign to finally have more substantive plans on how jail closure will move forward.

“ We've been fighting for [JCIT] to even exist,” Asante told LAist. “They did not get staff until November or December of 2024, and that's four years after the vote to close Men's Central Jail without a replacement.”

She said JusticeLA hopes they see urgent action from the county and stronger leadership from JCIT.

Skepticism has also come from those who think the process may still be moving too quickly.

David Slayton, the executive officer of the L.A. County Superior Court, wrote a letter to Pinkney on June 29 saying the court had “significant concerns.”

He wrote that the plans relied on “increased Court capacity, additional courtroom availability, expanded judicial officer staffing, new physical space, and enhanced operational infrastructure — none of which the Court can currently accommodate" without additional funding from the state.

Other advocates, like Marcel Rodarte from the California Contract Cities Association, cautioned against risking public safety.

“We ask you to keep every option on the table, including replacement capacity, and to make no final decision until adequate capacity, services, and funding are in place," Rodarte said at Tuesday’s meeting.

Officials respond

Supervisors remain committed to closing the jail.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell told LAist in a statement that it’s “not just about closing a building—it is about transforming a system and is integral to the County's broader public safety strategy.”

She said the new report from JCIT was a “sobering reminder” of the work left to do.

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath pressed JCIT and other county offices Tuesday to give a more concrete action plan and timeline.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger also pushed for urgent action from the board and JCIT toward closing the jail during the meeting, but said she also believes the county needs to build a replacement facility that could more safely and affordably house people currently at Men’s Central Jail.

Sheriff Robert Luna told supervisors that he supports plans to close Men’s Central Jail, but that he sees a need for a new facility.

“ The population that I serve and care for has completely changed,” Luna said. “We have to pay attention to the data and make sure that we move forward collectively together to make sure that we're caring for the people in our custody.”

The board has so far rejected options for a replacement jail since plans for the Consolidated Correctional Treatment Facility were canceled in 2019.