The Brief

When Francisco Castañon saw an unmarked, tinted black car in Pasadena last week, he suspected it might belong to a federal agent conducting immigration operations in the area. So he decided to snap a photo of the license plate.

To his surprise, Castañon said, the driver of the vehicle, wearing a black “police” vest over a plain T-shirt, jumped out and pointed a gun at him. Cellphone video recorded by a bystander, and shared by KTLA, appears to show at least part of the incident as it unfolded.

“ I thought it was going to be my last day on Earth,” he told LAist. “ I really thought that was going to be my last moments.”

Several stories like Castañon’s have been reported across the country as federal authorities conduct immigration sweeps, sparking protests in response. Adding to the confusion, some local and state leaders say, are instances in which it’s not clear whether a person is law enforcement or someone who might be taking the law into their own hands.

A new California bill — called the “No Vigilantes Act,” announced Monday by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena) — aims to address the issue.

If it becomes law, it would require law enforcement working in California to clearly display identification information, including either name or badge number, and ban bounty hunters from engaging in any form of immigration enforcement.

Pérez said that when federal immigration officers don’t identify themselves, it opens up opportunities for others to take advantage of the situation.

“ We are supposed to assume they are federal agents from Homeland Security or ICE, but the truth is, unless these individuals provide proper identification, we don't know,” she said at a news conference outside Pasadena City Hall.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has condemned impersonators, posting on social media in March that “it’s dangerous, illegal and will be prosecuted.”

What we know — and what we don’t — about the incidents

Castañon, who spoke at the news conference, said he saw the unmarked car with tinted windows and bars in the backseat — like those found in police vehicles — around  Orange Grove Plaza Center last Wednesday.

He said he was on the way to his family’s businesses to make sure they got home safely. Because he had seen videos and reports of people being detained in immigration actions in the area, the car stood out as suspicious to him and other community members who had gathered at the plaza.

He said he ran toward the intersection of Los Robles Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard to snap a photo of the license plate with his cellphone.

Castañon said the driver jumped out of the vehicle and ordered him to move away from it. The man had the gun in his hand, Castañon said, but offered no badge, no name and no explanation.

“ At that moment, I was terrified,” Castañon said Monday. “ I keep thinking to myself, what if I hadn't run?  What if I had froze up or simply said the wrong thing at that moment? How far would have that man gone?”

It’s still unclear if the man was a federal agent or an armed vigilante, according to Castañon and Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo, who also spoke at the news conference.

While it is uncertain whether the man who pointed the gun at Castañon was actually law enforcement or whether he was impersonating a federal agent, there have been recent reports of people doing the latter.

One example was in South Carolina in January, where a man was charged with kidnapping after allegedly detaining a group of Latino men. And in North Carolina, also in January, a man was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a woman and threatening to deport her if she didn’t comply.

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, said members of her organization have witnessed and received reports of people believed to be federal agents drawing weapons on bystanders in the Los Angeles area.

She told LAist that the organization hasn't been able to find some of the people who’ve been picked up in apparent immigration actions.

“Family members don't know where they are. All they know is that a neighbor told them that some unmarked car picked them up,” Salas said. “So did they get picked up by ICE or did they get picked up by somebody else?”

About the bill

Pérez said in a statement that legislation like the “No Vigilantes Act” would have been unnecessary and unheard of under other circumstances, but these are “extraordinary” and “unprecedented” times.

She said there is a need for stronger, more consistent standards for law enforcement identification.

The bill would work alongside another state bill that would prevent police at all levels from covering their faces while working.

If passed, the “No Vigilantes Act” would go into effect at the beginning of next year.

After California lawmakers passed a state housing law that allows taller apartment buildings near train lines, Los Angeles leaders are facing a tradeoff: If they want to delay full implementation of the law, they’ll have to choose some parts of the city to upzone.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 79 into law last year. Starting July 1, the law is set to allow apartment buildings up to nine stories tall to be built next to subway stations and smaller buildings within a half-mile of light rail and rapid bus stops.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and a slim majority of the L.A. City Council had expressed opposition to SB 79, in keeping with the long-standing preference of many city leaders to leave untouched the three-quarters of L.A.’s residential land zoned for single-family homes.

Now, some L.A. leaders are scrambling to pull a delay lever that was built into SB 79. The provision allows cities to put off the law’s broadest effects until 2030, as long as they agree to allow more housing development in certain neighborhoods in the interim.

“If we don't do this, what happens is SB 79 goes into effect full-on,” said Bob Blumenfield, chair of the council’s Planning and Land Use Committee, during a meeting on Tuesday. “I really want to avoid that happening.”

Options for delay

The state law lets cities delay implementation in neighborhoods deemed to be “low resource,” in areas at high risk of fires or sea level rise or are designated as historically significant. Even with those carve-outs, some higher-income neighborhoods near train stops will still be subject to upzoning.

The city’s Planning Department produced a report last week laying out three different approaches for the City Council to delay SB 79. All of them involve local incentive programs that would allow developers to build apartment buildings in neighborhoods currently zoned for single-family homes.

The first option would allow buildings up to four stories tall, while the second and third options would permit buildings up to eight stories.

During the committee meeting Tuesday, homeowners spoke against the changes the new law would bring and the city’s upzoning plans.

“Single-family neighborhoods are where families put down roots — they are the beating heart of Los Angeles and SB 79 runs a stake right through that heart,” said Shelley Wagers with the Beverly Grove Neighborhood Association. “We must use every tool to prevent irreversible harm and buy time.”

Advocates for increased housing development said they favored the report’s third option, which would allow mid-sized apartment buildings within a half-mile of existing train stops, as well as planned stations and rapid bus stops.

Scott Epstein, policy director for Abundant Housing L.A., said that approach “offers the best opportunity to meet our housing targets and ensure that neighborhoods rich in transit services and high-quality schools are doing their part.”

What happens next

The Planning and Land Use Committee could not get a three-person majority to agree on the best path forward, so the decision will now go to the full City Council for further debate.

Blumenfield said his recommendation as committee chair was to allow mid-rise apartment buildings in many neighborhoods, but only near existing train stops, not planned stations or rapid bus stops. He also recommended more exemptions for certain historic preservation zones.

Nithya Raman, a committee member who is also running for L.A. Mayor, said she found the report’s recommendations difficult to follow. Passing a delayed implementation plan could stave off changes in some neighborhoods, but only for a while, she said.

“Eventually we will have to do something,” Raman said. “So the question is just what do we do now and what do we do later.”

But council members have little time to figure out which approach they prefer. City planners told the committee that in order to have a delay ordinance in place by July 1, the council would need to decide what direction to take by early March.

This story was originally published by The LA Local on Feb. 25, 2026.

As federal immigration enforcement raids continue across Los Angeles, a broader demographic of people is stepping up to volunteer their time to monitor and document immigration raids in their neighborhoods, according to Ron Gochez, organizer with the rapid‑response network Unión del Barrio.

“We have senior citizen retirees showing up saying, ‘I’m an old white woman — how can I help?’ We have students from community colleges and universities. We have people who look like longtime activists and people who look like they’ve never done this before,” he said. “It’s solidarity being shown by Angelenos of all shapes, sizes, colors and ages.”

While longtime Latino organizers have led the patrols, their numbers are growing thanks to the new volunteers who aren’t necessarily Latino.

Unión del Barrio has outgrown their usual meeting space at the United Teachers union building in Koreatown, which used to draw a few dozen people.

Along with their patrols, the group supports families impacted by immigration raids and issues real-time alerts over social media.

In late January, the day after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, about 400 people showed up for a training session, Unión del Barrio organizer Ron Gochez said.

“The very next day, we had 1,000 people on a Zoom training for educators — and we couldn’t have more because the Zoom limit was 1,000,” Gochez said.

Organizers in Pasadena expected a few dozen volunteers at All Saints Episcopal Church and were surprised when nearly 800 showed up for the training session, according to Pasadena Now.

For the first time, the majority of volunteers at a recent training session were white, Gochez said.

“I think the administration and ICE thought that by killing Alex (Pretti), that people would be scared and intimidated and would stop participating,” he said.

Instead, it has had the opposite effect.

Other immigrant advocacy groups say they’re seeing a similar surge in support. Representatives at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center report a spike in volunteers, donations, and attendance at “Know Your Rights” workshops.

The legal advocacy group says they’re going to continue sustaining deportation defense, managed information hotlines, and expect that engagement to remain strong as federal immigration enforcement intensifies.

Ron Gochez, a member of Unión del Barrio, speaks to volunteers in South Los Angeles in February 2025.

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Andrew Lopez

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Boyle Heights Beat

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Residents living near Koreatown and Pico Union have seen a sharp increase in immigration raids in recent months. Unión del Barrio volunteer, Oscar, who provided only his first name out of concerns over retaliation from the federal government, has seen firsthand the effects of the raids.

“This part of Los Angeles — Pico Union, K-town, MacArthur Park, Westlake — has been hit incredibly hard throughout the last year,” Oscar said, pointing to raids along the El Salvador Community Corridor in Pico Union. “They’ve gone up and down Pico multiple times.”

Westlake, a dense immigrant neighborhood predominantly made up of renters and noncitizen workers, has also been identified as one of the most vulnerable areas in L.A. to ICE raids, according to a county-sponsored study.

Oscar leads patrol training sessions, but before joining Union del Barrio, he patrolled his neighborhood with a friend to report on immigration enforcement. “It just didn’t feel like enough,” he said. “I wanted to be part of a space of dedicated organizers.”

Overall, he’s seen more people working together across racial and gender lines, with a common goal of protecting their communities, helping deliver groceries to impacted famlies, monitor their neighborhoods and feel like they have something to do in the face of the ongoing immigration raids.

Immigration agents detain a man selling flowers in Boyle Heights on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026.

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Courtesy of Verita Topete

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Centro CSO

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“People are coming in angry, determined,” he said. “but ultimately I think people feel empowered during the training.”

Unión del Barrio has expanded beyond its usual territory in South Los Angeles and the group now patrols in Boyle Heights, Long Beach, the San Fernando Valley, Beverly Hills and Brentwood, Gochez said.

“We have eyes and ears everywhere,” Gochez said. “I’m very comfortable saying there are thousands of people patrolling in the greater L.A. area.”

Although the group rarely solicits donations, Gochez said they have seen an uptick in funding, which helps cover costs from patrolling and printing “Know Your Rights” flyers and other materials.

Despite the heightened attention, Unión del Barrio has not altered its training curriculum, making sure that volunteers are following the law, but also aware that their safety is not guaranteed when they head out to monitor the immigration raids.

Organizers strongly discourage undocumented individuals or those on probation or parole from participating in community patrols, instead encouraging them to contribute in other ways.

“We’re not trying to become martyrs,” Gochez said. “We don’t want to be arrested, beaten or killed. But there is risk involved.”

The L.A. City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to make permanent a city pilot program that diverts police away from some mental health crisis calls.

Since launching in 2024, clinicians with the city’s Unarmed Model of Crisis Response have handled more than 17,000 calls for service, ranging from mental health crises to wellbeing checks. According to city reports, about 96% of those calls were resolved without police.

“We can’t keep deploying armed officers to handle mental health crisis calls because the outcome is Angelenos paying with loss of life and millions of their tax dollars for legal settlements,” Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who co-authored the motion to enshrine the program, said at Tuesday’s meeting.

According to Hernandez, in 2023, more than a third of LAPD shootings involved someone experiencing a mental health crisis.

Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson said the data from city reports was "incontrovertible and unassailable," showing the program’s success at diverting police and fire first responders away from mental health crisis situations.

Council members said the move to make the unarmed model permanent was also a matter of fiscal responsibility. According to a news release from the offices of Hernandez and Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, on average it costs the city roughly $85 per hour to dispatch LAPD officers, while a response from a UMCR team costs roughly $35 per hour.

Last fall, progressive policy advocacy group LA Forward, convened a summit of local and state officials with the goal of making UMCR permanent and expanding it.

Godfrey Plata, deputy director of LA Forward, told LAist his group was “incredibly excited” to see the city make the pilot program permanent.

Plata said he sees enshrining the program as a first step in expanding the program citywide, which his group hopes to do by the 2028 Olympics.

How the program works

In 2024, the city partnered with three nonprofit organizations — Exodus Recovery, Alcott Center and Penny Lane Centers — to provide teams of trained clinicians in service areas spread across L.A. The teams are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the Police Department’s Devonshire, Wilshire, Southeast, West LA, Olympic and West Valley divisions.

Crisis response workers are trained in de-escalation techniques, mental health, substance use, conflict resolution and more, according to a report on the program from the Office of City Administrative Officer. The teams don’t have the authority to order psychiatric holds for people in crisis, but they can work with them to find help locally, and spend more time on follow up than law enforcement can.

In its first year, Los Angeles’s Unarmed Model of Crisis Response sent teams of unarmed clinicians to  more than 6,700 calls for service, ranging from mental health crises to wellbeing checks. Only about 4% were redirected to the LAPD. Average response times have been under 30 minutes.

Examples of these interactions include members of the teams taking food to a woman who was crying and hungry, working with a business owner to engage with someone sleeping in a parking lot and sitting with a family for nearly three hours to help resolve a conflict involving a relative.

What’s next

The motion approved Tuesday also directs city officials to form a working group made up of the LAPD, the L.A. Fire Department and other agencies to address inefficiencies in the dispatch system. The goal of the working group will be to centralize unarmed crisis response dispatch and improve response times.