The Brief

At a gas station on Alondra Boulevard, a quiet reminder of the local protest that became a pivotal national moment can be found in the hot food aisle.

On the roller, there are no hot dogs broiling. The heated box is emptied of chicken sandwiches, empanadas, and a single urn has fresh coffee, no decaf.

Ricky, the store manager, said he knew not to prepare anything Monday morning because none of his regulars — gardeners, construction workers and laborers, some without papers — would show.

“We usually get big trucks and crews who all buy food, … nothing today,” he said, standing outside the store.

Three days after violent clashes tore across the boulevard in Paramount — a small, predominantly Latino city that borders Long Beach — the city became ground zero for a national political fight that’s played out in screaming headlines, chaotic social media videos, and dire warnings from Republicans and Democrats alike.

As local officials lobby and state officials sue to try to remove troops President Donald Trump ordered in, residents are dealing with the aftermath with no indication of when they’ll leave.

“I’m not happy that they came to town,” Paramount Mayor Peggy Lemons said. “I don’t think it was necessary.”

In recent days, protesters had risen up against sudden, sweeping immigration raids in L.A. County, but the resistance escalated Saturday when hundreds of demonstrators assembled along Alondra Boulevard. Rumors had spread that agents intended to raid a nearby Home Depot.

Jose “Bear” Gallegos, a former high school Spanish and literature teacher, said he caught wind of the protest through social media from his former students.

“They f—ed around and found out,” Gallegos said of the authorities. “They woke up the young people, and we can’t control the young people. It just started. (And) they picked the wrong place.”

Protests began that morning outside Paramount Business Center, an office park at the 6400 block of Alondra Boulevard, which houses a Department of Homeland Security office that served as a staging point for federal forces. Protesters kicked and threw objects at agents, while officers used flashbang grenades, tear gas, and rubber bullets.

Federal authorities reported 29 arrests on Saturday and at least three fires in the Paramount-Compton area that included a car burned in the middle of an intersection across the L.A. River from the business park.

Confrontations unfolded up and down the boulevard. They continued west into Compton and splintered off into nearby streets, including the ExtraMile gas station at Hunsaker Avenue and Alondra Boulevard.

Protesters hide behind a dumpster near a set fire as LA County Sheriff deputies shoot projectiles to keep demonstrators from advancing after ICE raids at a nearby Home Depot and the Garment District brought out resistance from Los Angeles residents on June 7, 2025 in Compton, California.

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Gina Ferazzi

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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Ricky, who did not provide a last name, said the gas station took a hit in sales, as the police cordoned off most of the building from public access until 4 a.m. Sunday.

They normally sell 4,000 gallons of gasoline a day, but sold about 700 gallons.

“It was sad,” Ricky said of the protests over the weekend. “The whole situation just made me sad. We had to lock our doors no matter who the customer was.”

As tensions escalated and confrontations played out between the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and demonstrators along several intersections, President Trump ordered thousands of National Guard members to Los Angeles to protect federal officers conducting immigration operations.

Trump on Monday ordered an additional 2,000 troops and also tapped 700 Marines from Camp Pendleton, which he said were needed to help quell the unrest that included burned-out cars, fireworks and reports of looting in limited portions of downtown Los Angeles.

The president said in a social media post he intends to “liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots. Order will be restored, the Illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free.”

Trump’s order is expected to last 60 days, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Monday.

The decision overrode objections from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who have both condemned the order as muscle-flexing that will only provoke more violence.

“This is a manufactured crisis to allow him to take over a state militia, damaging the very foundation of our republic,” Newsom said in a statement.

It’s a battle of political giants, from Washington to Sacramento, that dwarfs the political muster of Paramount: a city with a size of 5 square miles, a population of roughly 51,000 and an annual budget of $45 million.

Mayor Lemons said Monday the decision to send troops was a “huge waste of resources” and undermines a situation she said “was already under control.”

The chaos “was all done and over with before the National Guard even came to town,” she said. “So I really don’t know why they’re here.”

National Guard troops stands at the entrance of a business park, which they use as a staging area in Paramount on Monday, June 9, 2025.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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While she’s certain that residents are infuriated by their presence, Lemons said there is nothing the city can do to remove them.

“It is the federal government,” she said. “It’s not like we have the authority to say, ‘please leave.’ I mean, the mayor of L.A. has not been able to do that, nor has the governor. I doubt the lowly city of Paramount has any authority to do that.”

According to Paramount City Manager John Moreno, camouflaged National Guard troops arrived in the city by early Sunday morning.

For now, the building inside the office park will remain a staging area for them and federal agents. Guardsmen stood sentry inside the fenceline, flanked by armored vehicles and checking with those who drove through the gate. Foot patrols walk the perimeter, while the majority of Humvees and other vehicles remain parked at the front.

And this has already begun to affect business, said Jose Torres, who runs a print shop inside the office park. Apart from losing customers Saturday, he said they’re experiencing delays in customers picking up their orders.

“A lot of our clientele are Latinos,” Torres said. “A lot of them are immigrants… that are even afraid or concerned to come through to pick up their orders. So obviously, I’m not thrilled about that, and so we’re trying to kind of figure that out. This is not something we’ve ever been through.”

For years, Torres said, the 30 or so businesses inside the park coexisted with the nearby Department of Homeland Security office without issue. Federal agents have operated out of the building since 2007, according to the city manager.

“They go about their business, we go about our business every day,” Torres said. “No big deal. But now that it’s been made public … I don’t know how it’s gonna affect us.”

Torres acknowledges he’s conflicted in what to make of the protests. He and his wife are first-generation Americans. They’re uneasy about the National Guard’s presence, but also were quick to accept them as a deterrent against vandals and looters who they felt took advantage of the mayhem over the weekend.

“We do feel grateful that, you know, their presence is here, because nothing will come through the front gates,” Torres said.

Federal activity has since picked up across the region in South L.A., including Huntington Park and in Long Beach at Fourth Street and Elm Avenue on Saturday morning, according to local officials.

It’s unclear how long agents were in Long Beach or why. The Long Beach Police Department deferred questions about that operation to ICE, which did not immediately respond to inquiries.

Lemons said she has not heard of any Paramount resident being detained by federal agents. She assured residents that the city will not assist in immigration operations.

When asked, Lemons said the weekend has brought the worst kind of attention to Paramount.

Shifting control of L.A. city homelessness spending away from the agency long entrusted with it to a department in city government could take a year and a half, city officials said Wednesday.

Bringing that spending in house was one of several options discussed by city councilmembers during a meeting of their housing and homelessness committee. Another option they’re considering is having the money be managed by the county, which started setting up a homelessness department about a year ago.

The city directs roughly $300 million per year to the L.A. Homeless Services Authority. L.A. County supervisors voted last April to withdraw funding for the agency, citing ongoing problems with the agency's oversight of homelessness funds. Now 10 months later, city officials are debating what to do with the troubled agency.

Just after Wednesday’s discussion ended, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ office released a statement urging the council not to withdraw funding from LAHSA without a plan in place.

“Withdrawing from LAHSA too quickly, without a plan and without the capacity, will no doubt cause unintended consequences that will leave more Angelenos to die on our streets,” Bass said in her statement. “What we need is a serious, thoughtful transition plan — the last thing we need is a new department and more bureaucracy.”

What’s on the table?

A staff report presented to the homelessness committee last April included several paths forward. Those options are:

• not changing anything major
• keeping the city money at LAHSA but beefing up city oversight
• shifting the funding from LAHSA to direct city control
• shifting the city’s funding from LAHSA to the county homelessness department to administer it

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who sits on the council’s housing and homelessness committee, said he’d be open to having the county handle the city’s homelessness spending if the county doesn’t charge the city for overhead costs.

 ”If they're doing that, then I might be willing to say, 'OK, let's give them some of our money.' … That's going help our programs and give us a more efficient route,” Blumenfield said. “We also need to get down to brass tacks and understand what it means financially.”

Currently, about 3.6% of the city’s spending through LAHSA goes to administration costs, according to LAHSA’s budget. That rate is 8% for the county’s funds at LAHSA, which will be pulled from the agency July 1 and shifted to the new county department.

Councilmember Tim McOsker said he was leaning toward working with the county on a limited number of programs, like interim housing.

City officials said they currently lack staff dedicated to advising them on homelessness policy and setting up the infrastructure to potentially take on direct oversight of the spending.

“There are no dedicated policy staff on homelessness in the city [government],” said John Wickham, a legislative analyst official at the city who presented the staff report of options to the committee Wednesday.

Additional accountability

The statement from Bass’ office encouraged the city council to develop a “thoughtful transition plan” before shifting funds away from LAHSA.

The statement touted a new Homelessness Bureau the city created for the budget that started last July to focus on “oversight, accountability and results” to the city’s homelessness spending.

But city officials noted at Wednesday’s committee meeting that no one has been hired yet at the bureau, nine months after the council approved its funding.

“We have not hired a single person for the bureau yet,” said committee chair Nithya Raman, who championed the bureau a year ago. “We need more capacity to be able to manage this work at the city and to make sure that every dollar is working well. We just do. We're not staffed to be able to handle that right now.”

Limited time for discussion

Wednesday’s discussion didn’t start until just before 4 p.m., following two hours of discourse on other items at the meeting and lasted about 45 minutes.

“It's getting very late,” Raman said around 3:45 p.m., before the committee began talking about the possible funding shift from LAHSA.

It’s been two years since Councilmember Monica Rodriguez introduced the item that was up for discussion Wednesday, with the staff report of options delivered almost a year ago. She told councilmembers Wednesday that they’ve been wasting precious time and need to be decisive.

 ”In the 316 days since this report was issued, we are finally here engaging in this conversation,” Rodriguez said. She recently criticized Raman, the committee’s chair, for not scheduling the discussion sooner.

“ No longer can we afford indecision in making decisive actions around how we change this system. We must act. We must act now,” she said.  ”We still have a broken and dysfunctional system without a singular entity directing our work around homelessness.”

Raman has said she plans to hold one more discussion — expected to be March 18 — before the committee decides next steps. From there, it will be up to the full city council to decide. The committee’s recommendations are influential, as the panel’s five members are one-third of the full council and most of what it would take to form a deciding majority on the council.

No written agreement

Officials also noted Wednesday that under their current approach, there’s no written agreement laying out what LAHSA and the city’s responsibilities are. They said one is in the works.

“What I've seen in my short period is that … if we didn't ink it, nobody could think it and then they get away with not doing the work,” said Councilmember Heather Hutt. “I think we need to be more intentional about identifying roles.”

LAHSA is in ‘crisis,’ CEO says

LAHSA was created by the city and county in 1993 to oversee homeless services. It’s governed by a CEO who reports to a commission of 10 members. Half of the members are appointed by the mayor and the other half by each of the five county supervisors. Bass also serves on the commission, having appointed herself in fall 2023.

While it’s long-faced criticism, it’s been under particularly close scrutiny for more than a year.

An audit and court-ordered review found it failed to properly track its spending and whether services were being provided.

LAHSA also has been facing criticism more recently for months-long delays in paying tens of millions of dollars to reimburse service providers — a problem officials vowed to fix nearly two years ago. Several providers recently told LAist they've had had to dip into reserves or take on debt.

While addressing the commission that oversees the organization last Friday, CEO Gita O’Neill said LAHSA was “in crisis. And I say this not as a criticism to any of our really hardworking staff. They've built what they were asked to build.”

O'Neill added of LAHSA staff that “morale is very low.”

More than a year-and-a-half after promising to provide up to 40 free carts to eligible street vendors, Long Beach hasn’t even made it halfway to that goal and now plans to cut funding for the program.

As of late February, Long Beach had supplied 11 free carts, with six more applicants waiting for final approvals. Health officials say this is because out of the 123 applicants, the vast majority haven’t completed all the steps necessary.

Long Beach originally allocated $429,500 for the free-cart program, but the City Council recently approved reducing that by $200,201, citing “low participation” and the need to balance a city budget that’s facing deficits.

Applications are still open for vendors seeking a free cart, but city officials are reviewing “the application process and overall program,” Health Department spokesperson Jennifer Ann Gonzalez wrote in an email.

Vendors, for their part, say the process was plagued by delays and complications.

Anita McCoy, who sells pastrami and hot dogs through her business Lucky Bee, said it took roughly eight months to receive a cart that was worth about $17,500. She was grateful but said it took countless emails and phone calls to the Health Department to finally get the finished product.

“I had to be diligent in my pursuit,” McCoy said.

De’Mon Tyndell, who runs The Quesadilla Calling, received his cart roughly a year after applying.

At one point, after months of email exchanges and “doing applications on applications,” Tyndell told city staff, “I don’t even want to do this anymore.”

Although he has the cart, Tyndell said he doesn’t use it for his various pop-ups throughout the week because the roughly 800-pound mobile kitchen is not “user friendly” to transport.

De’Mon Tyndell says the free cart he received from the city hasn’t been practical to use.

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Thomas R. Cordova.

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Long Beach Post

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Moving it requires a trailer with a winch because the cart’s built-in wheels are too small for it to be towed around, Tyndell said.

As a result, the cart has been sitting in storage for the past six months while he uses a flattop grill and tables he can easily load in his van.

The free cart program was aimed at small-time entrepreneurs who needed help complying with new rules the city drafted on street vending. To qualify, applicants needed to live in Long Beach, have no more than two full-time employees and operate only one cart. If approved, they could receive one of four types: fruit carts, grilled food carts, tamale carts and ice cream carts.

But many people trying to run a low-margin business don’t have time for a complicated application process.

For McCoy, selling pastramis and hot dogs from a corner in North Long Beach is just one of her side businesses. That means she doesn’t have to be out every day to bring in enough cash to sustain her operation. That flexibility gave her the time to pursue the free cart with a sense of urgency.

“I was begging them [to give me a cart] because I knew the program was going to be cut,” McCoy said.

Meanwhile, since early last year, the city has begun penalizing street vendors who don’t comply with its rules.

Health Department officials say it’s a necessary step to prevent food-borne illness caused by vendors who haven’t gone through a health inspection.

From early last year through Feb. 23, city staff seized and discarded food from 72 vendors and issued 103 administrative citations against vendors without an active business license. In 71 cases, they’ve also impounded street vendors’ equipment.

Penalties for the citations range from $100 to $500, depending on how many times a vendor has been cited.

Enforcement is carried out based on complaints. The Health Department says its staff first tries to educate vendors on how to comply, then they issue a notice of violation and finally an administrative citation. If vendors don’t heed that citation, a team responds to discard food and impound equipment.

Starting in 2022, California banned cities from outlawing street vendors altogether, but municipalities are still allowed to regulate when, where and how they can sell for health and safety reasons.

Since Long Beach adopted its rules, the city has received 358 applications from vendors seeking a business license to operate legally. As of Feb. 23, the city has granted just 55 (15.4%).

Rather than risk being cited, Tyndell limits his selling to pop-ups at farmers markets, outside bars and various events around the city where he can more easily get permits. Recently, he got a spot selling inside Good Times Billiards — a pool hall in Lakewood — and hopes to add a second location inside another pool hall on Broadway in Alamitos Beach.

That business is awaiting city approval, but Tyndell said he aims to open by the end of the month. There, he says, he’ll finally use his free cart to serve up gourmet quesadillas.

A Vietnam War memorial that became a symbol of government corruption was torn down Wednesday in Fountain Valley.

Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do had awarded $1 million in taxpayer dollars for the memorial in 2023 — to a nonprofit where his daughter, Rhiannon Do, was an officer.

The project was never completed.

When LAist visited the memorial last year, it was unfinished and cracked. And an architect who visited the site with LAist estimated that the monument cost a fraction of the taxpayer money awarded to build it.

Do is currently serving a five-year prison sentence in Arizona after admitting to directing money to several nonprofit groups and businesses that then funneled some of that money back to himself and family members for personal gain. LAist has been investigating the alleged corruption since 2023.

Do was also ordered to pay $878,230.80 in restitution for his role in the bribery scheme that saw millions in taxpayer dollars diverted from feeding needy seniors, leading authorities to label him a “Robin Hood in reverse.”

Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who now represents Do’s former district, which includes the memorial site, said it would have been too expensive to repair or relocate it.

“Let’s restart and do it right,” she said at the time.

Go deeper ...

Here's a look at some of LAist's coverage of one of the biggest corruption scandals in Orange County history:

LAist investigates: Andrew Do corruption scandal
Ex-Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do is ordered to pay $878,230.80 in restitution
'Robin Hood in reverse.' O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do resigns and will plead guilty to bribery conspiracy charge
Former OC Supervisor Andrew Do turns himself in, begins 5-year federal prison term
6 questions we still have after disgraced former OC Supervisor Andrew Do’s sentencing
A quiet retreat for the judge married to disgraced OC politician Andrew Do

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Low-polling Democratic candidates for governor of California struck a defiant tone Tuesday in the face of mounting pressure from party leaders to drop out before a key deadline this week.

With nine major Democrats still vying for the state’s top job, party insiders have fretted for weeks about a splintered primary vote that could result in the two leading Republicans — commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — finishing first and second in the June 2 primary and ensuring a GOP victor in November.

In an open letter to campaigns published Tuesday, California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks called that scenario implausible but “not impossible” and urged Democratic candidates to make an honest assessment of their chances before Friday — the deadline to file and officially appear on the ballot in June.

“If you do not have a viable path to make it to the general election, do not file to place your name on the ballot for the primary election,” Hicks wrote.

But candidates who have been mired in single digits for months, including state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former state Controller Betty Yee, showed no immediate signs of heading toward the exits.

At the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office in Oakland, Yee filed the paperwork to officially place her name on the ballot.

“When I was signing the declaration of candidacy, my hands were shaking because I just thought about my mother, who is 102, and how within a generation she’s able to see her daughter do this,” Yee told KQED. “We’re undergoing a process of constant assessment, and every time we do that, we just see that this is still a wide-open race.”

Thurmond, who is Black and Latino, accused the state party of “essentially telling every candidate of color in the race for governor to drop out.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be the party who embraces democracy — a party of, by and for the people?” Thurmond said in a video posted to social media. “Well, the establishment might not be, but our campaign is, and that’s why we’re in this race to win it.”

Hicks did not call on any specific candidates to leave the race but asked those who continue their campaigns beyond this week to “be prepared to suspend your campaign and endorse another candidate on or before April 15 if your campaign cannot show meaningful progress toward winning the primary election in the coming weeks.”

The chair’s plea comes weeks after Democratic delegates failed to agree on an endorsement at the state party convention in San Francisco.

Since then, polling in the race has been largely static, with investor Tom Steyer (who has spent tens of millions of dollars on television ads) being the only Democrat to see significant traction in recent surveys.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Rep. Katie Porter and Steyer were the top polling Democrats in polls released last month by Emerson College and the Public Policy Institute of California.

Below that trio is a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls that includes Thurmond and Yee, along with former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, San José Mayor Matt Mahan and former Assemblymember Ian Calderon.

Meanwhile, Hilton and Bianco have faced little competition for the Republican primary vote.

Jon Slavet, a GOP tech entrepreneur who was polling at around 1%, suspended his campaign Tuesday.

“The last few months have been a gift,” said Slavet, in a video posted on social media. “It’s also shown me that building a winning coalition, brick by brick, will take time.”

With Slavet out of the field, a primary election simulator created by Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., put the chances of a Republican vs. Republican general election at roughly 25%.

In his letter, Hicks said a Bianco-Hilton general election would not only upend Democratic leadership of state government but also depress Democratic turnout in the California congressional districts the party is hoping to flip in November.

“The result would present a real risk to winning the congressional seats required and imperil Democrats’ chances to retake the House, cut Donald Trump’s term in half, and spare our Nation from the pain many have endured since January 2025,” Hicks wrote. “We simply can’t let that happen.”