The Brief

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on June 23, 2025.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s use of mounted officers during recent protests has drawn sharp criticism from residents, civil rights groups and journalists, with videos showing aggressive crowd control tactics.

Footage shared on social media shows LAPD officers on horseback charging at protesters to clear crowds. In another widely circulated video, they surround a protester who is on the ground while horses appear to kick and run him over.

“It is reminiscent of the Rodney King video except most of the officers in this current video are on horseback,” wrote civil rights attorney Carol Sobel in a letter sent to Mayor Karen Bass and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell last week on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild and the Los Angeles Community Action Network.

The LAPD’s Metro Mounted Platoon has played a prominent role in the department’s response to protests against federal immigration enforcement in the downtown area that began on June 6. The platoon’s primary focus is “crime prevention, crowd management, and handling demonstrations,” according to its website. But its recent deployments have caused accusations of excessive force.

Public commenters question LAPD’s response to downtown protests

At last Tuesday’s Board of Police Commissioners meeting, several public commenters criticized the LAPD’s response to protests, particularly the mounted unit.

“I’ve seen officers use horses to charge peaceful crowds, forcing them through clouds of tear gas and into people holding signs and medic kits,” said a public commenter named Alexei, who identified themselves as a street medic. “That’s not public safety, that’s a state-sanctioned attack.”

Police Commission President Erroll Southers began last Tuesday’s meeting acknowledging that some LAPD interactions with the public “are of concern.” He went on to say that the process for potentially discipling officers is both complex and time-consuming, but that “complaints will be investigated with discipline applied when and where appropriate.”

Both he and McDonnell expressed their support for residents’ right to peaceful protest but emphasized that those who take part in violence against officers or destruction of property will be held accountable.

“As daily peaceful protests wind down, there’s been a small group that has deliberately worked to counteract the message of organizers and protesters and enables detractors to falsely label protesters as violent criminals,” Southers said at the meeting.

The department recently ended a citywide tactical alert triggered by the protests, with McDonnell confirming “officers will go back to their regular duties.”

LAPD liability payouts have cost the city over $100 million in recent years

The LAPD’s response to protests comes weeks after the City Council worked to close a $1 billion dollar budget deficit created in part by $320 million of liability payouts against city departments. Over $100 million in payouts came as a result of suits filed against the LAPD.

This week, the Los Angeles Press Club and investigative reporting network Status Coup filed a lawsuit against the LAPD for allegedly violating journalists’ rights under the U.S. Constitution and state law at recent protests. While it’s unknown how much liability payouts could cost the city, Sobel told the Los Angeles Public Press she expects payouts by state, county and federal law enforcement agencies could reach $100 million.

Since protests began, the city has incurred an estimated $32 million in costs through June 17, according to L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia. More than $29.5 million of that cost is related to LAPD, and $1.4 million of that cost is related to property damage and cleanup.

Commissioners approve new horse even as scrutiny mounts

Amid the criticism, the LAPD’s mounted unit is adding a new horse. At the same Board of Police Commissioners meeting, the board approved the donation of Domino, a 12-year-old horse with a “quiet, calm personality.” Domino will replace one of three horses set to retire from service, bringing the number of horses in the herd to 25, according to Mounted Platoon Officer Anthony Daniel.

Domino is the first horse added to the unit in 2025, donated by the Los Angeles Mounted Police Foundation, which contributed five horses to the unit in 2024.

Andy Pages drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single in the seventh inning to give Los Angeles the lead, and the Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1 on Wednesday night to clinch their NL Division Series.

The Dodgers won back-to-back games in Atlanta to take the best-of-five matchup 3-1 and advance to the National League Championship Series as they seek to become the first NL team to win three straight World Series.

Pages lined a 3-2 pitch from Robert Suarez up the middle to drive in Teoscar Hernández, who singled off starter Tyler Mahle, and pinch-runner Tommy Edman for a 3-1 lead. Didier Fuentes walked pinch-hitter Josue De Paula and Kyle Tucker to load the bases. Edman ran for De Paula.

Max Muncy’s solo shot off Raisel Iglesias in the ninth padded the lead and gave the slugger 19 postseason homers with the Dodgers, extending his franchise record.

Dodgers right-hander Tyler Glasnow, making his first start since Sept. 24, allowed only one hit but walked five batters in 4 2/3 innings. After he issued two walks in the fifth, left-hander Alex Vesia ended the inning on Matt Olson’s groundout to second base.

The missed opportunity left the Braves with 18 walks in the series, and none scored.

Glasnow and four relievers combined to give up just three hits. Tanner Scott pitched a perfect eighth before Edwin Díaz got three quick outs for the save.

Mahle, a native of Newport Beach, California, who grew up a Dodgers fan, allowed two runs — one earned — in 6 1/3 innings.

Michael Harris II hit Glasnow’s first pitch for a single before stealing second and eventually scoring from third on a wild pitch that bounced off catcher Will Smith’s chest protector.

The Dodgers pulled even in the second with the help of two Atlanta errors. Shohei Ohtani walked, stole second and advanced to third on catcher Sean Murphy’s errant throw into center field. Muncy’s pop fly into shallow left field was dropped by shortstop Mauricio Dubón for another error, allowing Ohtani to score.

Hernández crashed into the wall while attempting to catch Ozzie Albies’ double off Vesia leading off the sixth. Hernández pointed to his head and neck when talking to an athletic trainer but remained in the game.

Edgardo Henriquez stranded Albies at second. Henriquez allowed one hit in 1 2/3 scoreless innings for the win.

Injury report

Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas was held out after leaving Tuesday night’s 3-1 win during an at-bat in the eighth inning with lower back soreness. Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said Rojas would not be available off the bench.

Ronald Acuña Jr. started in right field for Atlanta one day after being moved to designated hitter in a late lineup change due to right knee soreness.

Up next

The Dodgers will face Milwaukee or San Diego in Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday.

The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them.

Trump has faced bipartisan backlash for the ads, which glorify him and echo his campaign pitch as voters cast early ballots with the midterm elections less than a month away.

The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.

Responding Monday to the criticism, Trump defended the ads as “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” but said he’d pay for them using his MAGA Inc. super PAC going forward.

But on Tuesday, the fifth ad in the campaign began airing with the notice “paid for by the U.S. Government,” promoting Trump’s military actions in Venezuela earlier this year. The same day, Trump made it clear he hasn’t committed to reimbursing any money that has already been spent, telling reporters “we’ll decide.”

DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement that Trump is misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November.”

“Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes,” he added.

Legal experts have suggested the ads run afoul of a federal statute against congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda,” and potentially other federal laws. The Homeland Security money tapped for the ads comes from a $175 million package Congress gave to the department as part of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.

The White House has defended the ads as public service announcements akin to what past administrations have done to promote various policies. Legal experts have said the recent ads differ from many past public service announcements because they aren’t aimed at helping members of the public benefit from specific government programs.

The defendants in the lawsuit — Trump, the White House, DHS and the Office of Management and Budget — didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Fall has only just begun, but it's already time to start thinking about the quintessential winter bug: the flu.

The annual flu season usually starts in October or November. But this year, it looks like the flu started to pick up in early September.

"There are enough signs pointing in the same direction to make me think, 'OK, yes. This is the start of flu season,'" says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The percentage of people testing positive for the flu in the West has been rising steadily since around the beginning of September, she says. And the number of people showing up in emergency departments because of the flu has also been rising for weeks, she adds.

"It's very uncommon to see flu activity rising this early. It's activity that we might normally see more like November or December," she says.

The timing of the flu season isn't the only thing that's odd. It's also unusual that flu activity seems to have started in Western states, such as California, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska.

"It typically starts in the South and then expands from there," Rivers says. "So two uncommon developments there."

Rivers stresses that the amount of flu activity is still very low in most parts of the country. But that's starting to change as the flu picks up nationwide.

It's unclear why flu activity would have started so early, and in such an unusual part of the country. But one clue might be a new variant that evolved a mutation, which appears to make it better at evading existing immunity, especially among teenagers.

"That's our best argument for what's going on right now in terms of this early flu season," says Dr. Alex Greninger, a virologist who heads infectious disease diagnostics at the University of Washington. Doctors there are seeing as much flu right now as they usually would around Christmas, and the mutated variant appears to be common, he says.

So Greninger, Rivers and others are urging people to think about getting their flu shot earlier than usual.

"It's crucial that people get an influenza vaccine," says Scott Hensley, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "And this might be a year that people might want to get a vaccine early."

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't been promoting flu shots as it usually does. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the CDC, is a long-time vaccine skeptic.

"It is disappointing that CDC is quiet given that flu kills of hundreds of kids a year and can result in tens of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths," says Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned last year as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protest what he called political interference at the agency.

The CDC declined to make an official available to NPR for this story. In a statement, a CDC spokesperson said, "CDC is developing a communications strategy to provide clear, accessible information about influenza vaccination and other critical steps people can take to protect themselves during respiratory virus season. This includes information about the benefits and risks of vaccination to support informed decision-making."
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