The Brief

The videos are everywhere.

They show federal immigration agents on the streets of downtown Los Angeles, Paramount and communities across L.A. County, masked and in tactical gear, facing off with demonstrators.

As crowds protested the sudden presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies on the streets of Los Angeles, law enforcement officers responded in some cases with tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets.

Some protesters reported injuries and accused federal law enforcement of excessive force.

But seeking accountability for a federal agency is challenging.

“These incidents involving federal agents just essentially go into a black hole,” said Michael Gennaco, a former federal civil rights prosecutor who now consults with law enforcement on reforms.

He said people can lodge complaints with ICE, but they’ll never learn the results.

It’s also hard to identify individual agents. They wear masks and uniforms without their names. Sometimes, the uniforms only read: "Police."

At a news conference last week, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass questioned whether some of the masked men were even federal agents.

“Who are these people?" Bass asked. “And frankly, the vests that they have on look like they ordered them from Amazon. Are they bounty hunters? Are they vigilantes? If they're federal officials, why is it that they do not identify themselves?”

LAist reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment on complaints and its response to the protests. The department has not responded.

Peter Eliasberg with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California said he doubted the federal government would take calls for accountability for agents accused of excessive force seriously, given recent comments from President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

" Even if there are oversight mechanisms built in, I just have a hard time believing that Secretary Noem or President Trump has any interest in using those oversight mechanisms," Eliasberg told LAist. "They seem to equate protests with something illegal that needs to be tamped down, but in fact, it is a fundamental constitutional right."

Demonstrators in Paramount describe excessive force

At a recent meeting in the city of Paramount, residents packed a small council chamber to express concerns about the response to a June 7 protest.

Alyson Barragan said she was at least 100 feet away from agents and protesting peacefully when they started shooting tear gas and projectiles at the crowd. At the City Council meeting, she lifted her shirt to reveal a large purple bruise on her lower back.

Several people in the audience gasped.

"I was shot running away from the violence inflicted by the agents," she said.

Alyson Barragan says federal agents shot her in the back with a rubber bullet while she was peacefully protesting their presence in Paramount.

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Alyson Barragan

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Abraham Flores told the council federal agents shot him in the head with a non-lethal projectile, landing him in the hospital with a brain bleed and concussion.

"Everyone was being peaceful," he said. "And it wasn't until those trigger-happy ICE agents started shooting at people that the chaos happened."

Vicki Martinez said she was driving to Home Depot for a flower pot when she was caught up in the protest that Saturday morning. She choked on tear gas as it streamed into her car.

"I feel like I have PTSD," she said.

Sara Aguilar, a medical assistant, said she saw two demonstrators with head wounds at the protest that day.

 "It's just excessive force — it's brutality,” Aguilar told LAist about federal agents at the scene. “I think that they should be accountable for that. [You are] shooting your rubber bullets at unarmed civilians. And that's not OK."

Federal policy issued in 2023 instructs officers to identify themselves and issue a verbal warning "when feasible" before using force.

In a video from the Paramount protest, demonstrators appear to be some distance away from a cluster of federal agents in tactical gear when the agents start throwing flash bang grenades, sending demonstrators running. No verbal warning can be heard in the video.

The members of the Paramount City Council have said that the city has no authority over federal agencies' actions.

No civilian oversight for Homeland Security

Local agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department and county Sheriff’s Department, responded to the protests, too, and have faced accusations of excessive force. The difference is they have some level of oversight.

The Los Angeles Police Department has a five-member civilian commission that holds weekly meetings and reviews cases of serious use of force by officers.

The county Sheriff’s Department has an 11-member civilian advisory board where the public can air complaints.

The Department of Homeland Security has no such body. The federal agency oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, Citizenship and Immigration Services and more.

According to its website, ICE has a formal complaint process through its Office of Professional Responsibility. Complaints against agents can be filed online or via phone. Homeland Security also has a civil rights office where people can lodge complaints.

The department did not respond to questions from LAist about accusations of excessive force. It said previously that ICE officers have experienced a 500% increase in assaults against them, but the agency did not provide data that supports that claim.

A spokesperson said "anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties will face consequences," including arrest.

Gennaco, the law enforcement expert, said Congress has the authority to investigate federal law enforcement agencies, and has looked into ICE detention facilities. But he said such investigations are rare.

Individual agents are hard to identify — and nearly impossible to sue

It can be hard to identify a federal agent who fired a rubber bullet or pepper ball.

"Those federal agents had to be the Department of Homeland Security or ICE," said Gabriel Garcia, who said he was at the protest in Paramount. "They  were full-on wearing camo suits. They had gas masks on, they had military ballistic helmets on."

A 2021 law passed in the wake of the George Floyd protests requires federal military and civilian law enforcement personnel responding to a “civil disturbance” to wear visible personal identification and the name of the government entity employing them.

California lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban most law enforcement officers from covering their faces while working.

But even if they could be identified, it’s nearly impossible to sue individual federal agents, according to UCLA Law Professor Joanna Schwartz, an expert on police misconduct litigation.

A 1971 Supreme Court case allowed individuals to sue federal officials for violating their constitutional rights, specifically when those rights are violated under the color of law. But over the years, the court has slowly chipped away at that right.

“The Supreme Court’s decisions have narrowed this right to sue so dramatically that it only covers only a few very narrow circumstances,” she said.

Lawsuits against Homeland Security

Suing the U.S. government is still an option. And that's what some organizations and people are doing.

The L.A. Press Club and others filed a lawsuit last week against the Department of Homeland Security, accusing federal agents of using "retaliatory violence" against protesters, legal observers and journalists at protests across the region.

Eliasberg, with the ACLU, is representing the Press Club. He said a legal doctrine known as "qualified immunity" makes it much harder to sue law enforcement. It protects government officials from liability unless they've violated "clearly established" constitutional rights.

The Press Club lawsuit seeks an injunction that would require Homeland Security officers to only use force in response to specific threats and not target journalists.

"Doing crowd management, policing First Amendment activity and protest – that's not what they're trained to do," Eliasberg said of the federal agents. "You're not supposed to use excessive force and generally indiscriminate force."

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly, "not rioting."

"Anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties will face consequences, which could include arrest," the statement reads.

Barragan, who was hit in the back by a projectile at the Paramount protest, said she plans to file a lawsuit against ICE and Homeland Security.

Her lawyer, Robin Perry, said litigation is one of the only routes available to Angelenos outraged by what they've seen on their city's streets.

" There's no meaningful oversight of ICE with this administration," Perry said.

A comment from the Trump administration last week indicates how it feels about efforts like Barragan's.

"President Trump and Secretary Noem are committed to restoring law and order in Los Angeles and around the country," Homeland Security said in an email. "No lawsuit, this or any other, is going to change that."

President Trump once insisted he had "nothing to do with Project 2025," the right-wing policy plan that became a key flashpoint during the presidential campaign.

The Democrats tried to turn the 900-page Heritage Foundation-led blueprint to remake the government into a political boogeyman, and succeeded to some degree, but it wasn't enough to win the election.

A year later, many of the policies have been implemented, from cracking down on immigration to dismantling the Department of Education.

"A lot of the policies from Day 1 to the last day and in between that the administration has adopted are right out of Project 2025," said Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, who has used Project 2025 to prepare legal papers against the administration.

Concerns about the project started to bubble up over the spring of 2024, but really caught fire a few months later when actress Taraji P. Henson singled out Project 2025 while hosting the BET awards.

"Pay attention. It's not a secret. Look it up!" she said, speaking directly into the camera during the show. "They are attacking our most vulnerable citizens. The Project 2025 plan is not a game."

'Ridiculous'

Then-candidate Trump tried to dismiss the hysteria, calling the ideas "ridiculous" — and claiming he did not know who was behind it — even though key people involved in developing the plans served in his first administration.
And when it was clear the firestorm would not go away, Trump went on the attack against those allies who wrote the playbook.

"They're a pain in the a--," said Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, who tore into the organizers of Project 2025 at an event hosted by CNN and Politico during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

"Look, I think that in the perfect world, from their perspective, they would love to drive the issue set, but they don't get to do that," he added.

Yet days after winning, Trump tapped Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025, to lead the Office of Management and Budget — considered the nerve center of the White House. Other contributors followed.
Trump soon unleashed a flurry of orders reshaping the government, many of which were outlined in Project 2025.

"As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female," he said during his inaugural address.

Trump ended diversity, equity and inclusion programs. He launched massive immigration enforcement and took the first steps to overhaul the federal workforce.

Bonta, the attorney general of California, said Project 2025 defined Trump's first year back in office. The country's 23 Democratic attorneys general studied Project 2025, consulted with each other and, he said, prepared a response for every potential action should it be taken.

"The existence of Project 2025 was the Trump administration telling us exactly what they were going to do and sending it to us in writing," Bonta said.

Bonta has filed or joined lawsuits that have successfully blocked Trump's policies requiring states like California to join his immigration crackdown, freeze of domestic federal funding and layoffs at agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education.

The White House dismissed concerns about Project 2025, calling them irrelevant theories from Beltway insiders.

"President Trump is implementing the agenda he campaigned on and that the American people voted for," said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman.

Jackson said the president focused on implementing the agenda he campaigned on — lowering gas prices, accelerating economic growth and securing the border.

Fueling controversy

Trump may have actually fueled the controversy by rejecting Project 2025 during the campaign, said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian and former White House aide to George W. Bush.

"I would say that Project 2025 was largely standard conservative fare, but with a bit more of a MAGA flavor than previously."

Troy sees little difference between what the Heritage Foundation did with Project 2025 and what think tanks on the left and right have been doing for years compiling policy proposals for incoming presidents.

He pointed to the personnel and policy ideas of the Hoover Institution that helped shape the George W. Bush administration and the Center for American Progress' influence on the Obama administration.

"If the Trump campaign had leaned into it and said, 'sure, this is an agenda that has been put out as a think tank. This happens all the time. We will look at them in due time when the election is over,' " said Troy. "By criticizing and disavowing Project 2025, it suddenly became more radioactive."

Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, says he never took the attacks personally, which he chalked up to political calculus. 

He likened watching the president sign executive orders and directives that first came across his desk to being an animator who watches his or her sketchbook come to life on the big screen.

"I believe the proof is in the pudding," said Dans, who also served in the first Trump administration. "Every day that President Trump rolls out another Project 2025 item, it's really an endorsement of our work, myself and the work of thousands of patriots who came together."

Dans is now highlighting that work in a run for the Senate, against Trump-ally, Republican Lindsey Graham.

Trump did eventually embrace Project 2025 during the shutdown fight last fall.

He boasted of meeting with "Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame," while threatening to dismantle federal agencies.

"I can't believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity," he said.

Copyright 2026 NPR

President Trump says his controversial push for U.S. control of Greenland comes after he failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize last year, adding he no longer feels obliged to think only of peace.

In a message to Norway's prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre on Sunday night, Trump criticized the European country for not giving him the prize.

"Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America," Trump said in the message.

"The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland," Trump added.

The message was reported by PBS NewsHour, and was later confirmed by Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in a statement.

Gahr Støre said he received the message on Sunday in response to a text he and Finland's President Alexander Stubb had sent to Trump, in which they had conveyed opposition to Trump's proposed tariff increases on eight European countries over the recent Greenland dispute.

In their message to Trump, according to The New York Times, which received a copy of the exchange from the Norwegian prime minister's office, Gahr Støre and Stubb wrote: "We believe we all should work to take this down and de-escalate — so much is happening around us where we need to stand together."

The pair suggested a joint call.

"Norway's position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter," Gahr Støre said. "We also support that NATO in a responsible way is taking steps to strengthen security and stability in the Arctic."

Gahr Støre also pointed out that while President Trump claimed that Norway "decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize," the government of Norway is not responsible for the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded by a five member Norwegian Nobel Committee since 1901.

The Danish navy's inspection ship HDMS Vaedderen sails off Nuuk, Greenland, on Sunday.

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Mads Claus Rasmussen

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Ritzau Scanpix Foto / Associated Press

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The Peace Prize, which was last awarded to Venezuela's opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, is also awarded for the previous year. That means the most recent prize was awarded for 2024, before President Trump commenced his second term of office. Machado gave Trump her prize last week as a symbolic thank you for his recent actions in Venezuela.

In a phone interview with NBC News on Monday, Trump again claimed that the Norwegian government has control over the Nobel Peace Prize. "Norway totally controls it despite what they say," he said. Trump also said he would follow through on his threats to impose further tariffs. When asked whether he would use force to seize Greenland, the president replied: "No comment."

The European Union is set to hold an emergency summit on Thursday, in which attendees will discuss how to respond to the threats. In a statement on social media, the EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc had "no interest to pick a fight" but would "hold our ground."

Trump's message to Gahr Støre comes as tensions rise between Europe and the United States over the status of Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark that is strategically important and rich in resources.

On Monday, the World Economic Forum said officials from Denmark would not be attending the meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this week. "We can confirm that the Danish government will not be represented in Davos this week," a spokesperson, Alem Tedeneke, told NPR.

On Sunday, in a collective rebuke to President Trump, the leaders of Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement condemning recent U.S. tariff threats. The eight countries, which are all members of NATO, said that Trump's proposed tariffs "undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral."

On Saturday night, President Trump had written on his Truth Social social media platform that he would impose tariffs on imports from the countries, after they had deployed limited military personnel to Greenland to participate in a Danish-led Arctic exercise known as 'Arctic Endurance.'

Trump said America would levy a 10% tariff on goods from the eight countries starting on Feb. 1, which would rise to 25% on June 1, and remain in place "until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland" by the United States.

The open dispute comes after weeks of increasingly assertive U.S. rhetoric regarding Greenland, in which Trump has repeatedly said that Greenland is strategically vital to U.S. national security, citing its location and untapped mineral deposits.

In his text message, Trump questioned Denmark's right to claim Greenland. "Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a 'right of ownership' anyway? There are no written documents, it's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also," Trump said.

Trump made similar comments last week, saying "the fact that they had a boat land there 500 years ago doesn't mean that they own the land," drawing mirth on social media, with comedians like Jon Stewart noting on The Daily Show "how do you think we got our land?"

Copyright 2026 NPR

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend is typically busy for the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles. On Monday, the orchestra finished its third performance of the weekend at the California African American Museum, which included a musical rendition of the civil rights leader’s seminal “I Have a Dream Speech.”

It was flautist Tionna LeSassier’s first time playing with the orchestra on the federal holiday. Tionna said she began playing flute when she was 12.

“I feel really relieved that I was able to accomplish such a big performance for a really big holiday,” Tionna, who has been playing flute for more than two years, said. “I cannot believe I’m here playing with these amazing musicians.”

The orchestra’s performance, which included pieces like “We Shall Overcome” and the “Afro-American Symphony,” capped off the museum’s annual “King Day” celebration.

The event is held on the federal holiday that honors the legacy of the Baptist preacher whose nonviolent protests and eloquent speeches helped shift American attitudes about race in the 1960s and beyond and lead to landmark Civil Rights legislation.

Earlier in the day, museumgoers listened to and reflected on a recording by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. from 1967. Nearly 60 years later, event participants said, the words still feel fresh.

“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are incapable of being conquered,” King said in “The Three Evils of Society,” his keynote address at the National Conference on New Politics in Chicago.

Cameron Shaw, executive director of the Exposition Park museum, told LAist on Monday that the speech has “incredible relevance to the political and social moment and what we’re going through as a people today.”

In a brief discussion after the speech, one attendee spoke about the need to interrogate racism as a systematic ill, not just as one-off acts, and another commented on the importance of standing up to injustice.

Shaw says the museum’s celebration on Martin Luther King Jr. Day has evolved over the last several years, but one of the main throughlines she sees is the continued message of “speaking truth to power.”

“When we celebrate Dr. King today, we celebrate all of the folks past and present who have been brave enough to speak truth to power,” Shaw said. “That is something we truly need.”

Monday’s event also featured a faux stained glass workshop inspired by an exhibition the museum has on display about architect Amaza Lee Meredith.

The museum’s King Day event was one of several celebrating the Civil Rights leader this weekend in L.A.

In South L.A., an annual parade drew thousands of people, with a march concluding in Leimert Park. "It was a wonderful and powerful tribute to Dr. King’s memory to march down MLK Boulevard alongside so many friends and community members in the historic Leimert Park neighborhood," L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement.

A report of a stabbing marred the end of the event. Bass' statement said city officials were investigating and ensuring people got home safe. She added that "Los Angeles has zero tolerance for this type of violence."

Italian fashion designer Valentino died Monday at his Roman residence. He was 93. His foundation announced his death on Instagram.

Dubbed an "international arbiter of taste" by Vogue, notable women wore his designs at funerals and weddings, as well as on the red carpet. He dressed the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Onassis, as well as modern stars, including Anna Wintour to Gwyneth Paltrow and Zendaya.

The image of style and lavish living, Valentino's signature features included crisp suits and a "crème brûlée" complexion — due to his fervor for tanning. He was heavily inspired by the stars he saw on the silver screen and had a lifelong fixation with glamour.

"I love a beautiful lady. I love a beautiful dog. I love a beautiful piece of furniture. I love beauty. It's not my fault," he said in The Last Emperor, a 2008 documentary about him.

In the world of haute couture, Valentino embraced sophistication, elegance and traditional femininity through his dresses and trademarked a vibrant red hue. His work embodied romance, luxury and an aristocratic lifestyle.

He was born Valentino Garavani and named after the silent movie star Rudolph Valentino. A self-described spoiled child, the designer acquired a taste for the expensive from a young age; his shoes were custom-made, and the stripe, color and buttons of his blazers were designed to his specifications.

His father, a well-to-do electrical supplier, and his mother, who appreciated the value of a well-made garment, catered to their young son's refined palate and later supported his fashion endeavors, sending him to school and financing his early work.

Growing up in the small town of Voghera, Italy, he learned sewing from his Aunt Rosa in Lombardy. After high school, he moved to Paris to study fashion and take on apprenticeships.

Valentino owed much of his success to his former lover and business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti. The two met in a café on the famed Via Condotti in Rome in 1960, where Valentino had opened his first couture studio.

They founded Valentino Company the same year, and its first ready-to-wear shop opened in Milan in 1969. Together, the pair built a fashion empire over five decades.

They separated romantically when Valentino was 30 but remained business partners and close friends. Valentino knew little about business and accounting before meeting Giammetti; together, they formed two parts of a whole — Giammetti the business mind, and Valentino the creative force.

"Valentino has a perfect vision of how a woman should dress," Giammetti told Charlie Rose in 2009. "He looks for beauty. Women should be more beautiful. His work is to make women more beautiful."

They sold the Valentino company in 1998 for nearly $300 million. It made $1.36 billion in revenue in 2021, according to Reuters.

Even after his retirement in 2008, he couldn't completely leave fashion behind and continued to design dresses for opera productions.

Once the fashion world became more accessible to the public, millions of aspiring fashionistas bought jeans, handbags, shoes, umbrellas and even Lincoln Continentals with his gleaming "V" monogram. By the peak of his career, Valentino's popularity would rival that of the pope's in Rome.

Copyright 2026 NPR