The Brief

California law enforcement agencies are required to track and publicly document how they use military equipment, including less-lethal bean bag shotgun rounds, drones and armored vehicles, under a state law passed in 2022.

But Santa Ana’s Police Department has been out of compliance with this law for the past two years, Commander Mat Sorenson told a crowd of about 10 people at a community meeting Wednesday.

“We messed up,” Sorenson said. “ We dropped the ball, now we're trying to fix it.”

The law, Assembly Bill 481, requires law enforcement to make annual public reports describing how and why military equipment was deployed, including summaries of complaints, internal investigations and potential violations related to the equipment.

Police Chief Robert Rodriguez said the department prepared reports for the years of 2023 and 2024. But because of what Rodriguez called an “administrative oversight,” those reports were not shared publicly or presented to city leaders as required by the law to continue using the weapons.

The department retroactively produced the reports and discussed a report covering the past year at the sparsely attended community meeting Wednesday afternoon. LAist spoke with everyone who attended the meeting as a community member. Each one said they were disappointed by the hastily planned meeting and lack of detail in the reports.

David Pulido — who's on the police accountability committee at Community Service Organization Orange County, a group advocating for Chicano rights — told LAist after the meeting, “ I wasn't happy with the presentation. I felt it was kind of like running cover for the department. It was brief, not well publicized, poorly attended.”

What the reports say

According to a report covering May 2024 to April 2025 that was presented Wednesday, the Santa Ana Police Department has access to military equipment like armored vehicles, a “long range acoustic device” and one “tactical robot.” The report says the maintenance of the equipment cost the department around $30,000.

The report lacks summaries of why and how the equipment was deployed. It explains that Santa Ana police deployed military equipment in response to “field based incidents” 30 times — including four instances with the SWAT team — and to “community events” 11 times. Police detained 21 suspects while using military equipment, the report states.

No information was provided on whether the use of these weapons resulted in serious injuries. The report does say that no one was killed by Santa Ana police using military equipment during the review period.

According to the report, the police department did not receive community complaints and the use of these weapons were “deemed appropriate” per an internal review by police.

Problems with the law

The contents of military equipment reports vary by agency. If those in attendance Wednesday are disappointed with the thoroughness of Santa Ana’s reports, Sorenson said they could blame state lawmakers.

 ”The legislature's very good at telling us what we have to do, but not how to do it,” Sorenson told the audience.

He said he looked at other agencies' reports: some that were a few pages long, others that were 65 pages long, and picked a happy medium.

“I  don't know that anybody's gonna go through 65 pages of stuff,” Sorenson said.

Pulido, of the Community Service Organization Orange County, agreed that weaknesses in the report stem from weaknesses in the underlying law.

“ It's not enough to have a report,” he said, adding that a report can be “biased” as it is up to law enforcement agencies on how they want to frame it. The report provided by Santa Ana police was “very brief” and “lacking information,” Pulido said.

Assembly Bill 481 does not lay out any enforcement mechanisms, another weakness according to Pulido.

“If it has no enforcement mechanisms, it's not gonna get enforced,” he said.

Community weighs in

The presentation did not satisfy Bulmaro "Boomer" Vicente, a resident of Santa Ana and policy and political director at Chispa who was at Wednesday’s meeting.

“ I was concerned and disappointed in the report itself because there were some things that were missing, some costs that were missing as it related to transportation personnel costs, training and usage upgrade, things that should have been included,” Vicente said. “His response to not having a more detailed report is he doesn't think people will read them, which is very problematic.”

Vicente added that the report lacked information “ important for transparency, for accountability, and also to ensure that department is being fully compliant with state law.”

Vicente was also disappointed that the meeting appeared to be hastily put together for a time when few people could attend.

The meeting was announced on the police department’s social media accounts on July 10 and held at the department’s headquarters at 4 p.m. before the end of a typical work day. Vicente said that time and location was not accessible for all constituents in the city.

He said he wishes the meeting was held at a time where  working class families can attend and at a “more community central space where people who may not feel comfortable entering the police department can have the opportunity and feel comfortable in expressing their questions, their concerns, and their grievances.”

City leader weighs in 

Councilmember Jessie Lopez was the only city leader present at Wednesday’s community meeting.

“ I appreciate them being honest,” she said. “Their acknowledgement that a mistake happened and this is why they haven't had community meetings and I think it's a good starting point.”

Lopez, like the community members, did not find the report adequate, calling it a “quick presentation.”

“ We're a city of over 300,000 residents, and so there wasn't even 20 people in that room. It was being hosted at 4 p.m. during a workday. There was no Zoom link available,” she said about the limited community engagement.

The new reports will come in front of the City Council Tuesday. Lopez said the meeting Wednesday will help her prepare for the council meeting.

“ It helps me draft and come up questions that I'll be asking from the dais,” she said.

How to watchdog your police department

One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention.

AB481 requires police departments, including those at transit agencies, school districts and university campuses, sheriff’s departments, district attorney’s offices and probation departments, to provide reports about the use of military equipment..

So how do you know if they're in compliance? It’s simple, search for the law enforcement agency name and AB 481 on any search engine and a public page should pop up.

You can learn more about the use of equipment at community meetings law enforcement agencies are required to hold to provide transparency and discuss the policies that affect your community.

You can also attend City Council meetings where this is discussed.

• Read tips on how to get involved.
• The next scheduled Santa Ana City Council meeting is Tuesday, Aug. 19. You can check out the Santa Ana City Council full calendar here and learn how to submit a public comment. 

If your law enforcement agency is not in compliance and you would like to share a tip, reach out to yfarzan@laist.com.

USC’s annual food study found that although there have been some improvements, food insecurity in L.A. County is still “unacceptably high” as more higher-income residents struggle to afford enough groceries.

Researchers at USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research found that, consistent with last year, 1 in 4 L.A. County households in 2025 experienced food insecurity. About 35% of low-income households reported being food insecure, a slight decrease from 2024.

“These findings show both encouraging progress and emerging pressures,” Kayla de la Haye, director of USC’s Food Systems Institute and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “Even as food insecurity decreases among low-income households, the burden is shifting. Many Angelenos outside the safety net are struggling to keep up with rising costs.”

Here’s what the report found 

Low-income residents, women and Latinos are among the most affected.

• 75% are low-income
• 60% are women
• 57% are Latino
• 54% are younger adults

Food insecurity still largely affects low-income residents, but more higher-income Angelenos are now food insecure. The report found that 25% of those with food insecurity make more than 300% the federal poverty level.

“These are families who often don’t qualify for safety net programs like CalFresh,” de la Haye said. “They’re earning above eligibility thresholds, but still struggling to meet the cost of living in L.A.”

How can leaders use this information?

Researchers said county investments — including $20 million in Food Equity fund grants and the creation of the L.A. County Office of Food Systems — helped more people access healthier food.

At least 1.5 million people in L.A. County are enrolled in CalFresh, but 44% of recipients were food insecure. With the latest government shutdown, rising costs and benefit reductions under the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” researchers expect those rates to increase.

Experts say local, state and federal governments should be proactive in addressing hunger by, for example, expanding CalFresh enrollment, setting policies that help residents with affordability and strengthening food banks.

You can read the full USC study here.

It might be December, but today and tomorrow will feel like early summer.

Sunny skies and some windy conditions are in store for today. The Santa Ana wind-prone corridors could see gusts up to 40 mph, but otherwise wind speeds will mostly be in the 15 to 30 mph range.

Temperatures in L.A. and Orange County beaches will range from the mid 70s to low 80s.

San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys will hit the mid-80s, while O.C. inland areas will see highs ranging from 80 to 86 degrees.

Over in the Inland Empire, temperatures will range from 77 to 84 degrees.

Meanwhile, the Coachella Valley will see highs from 76 to 81 degrees. And the Antelope Valley will be cooler, with highs only reaching the low 70s.

When the Eaton Fire reached the backyard of the MonteCedro retirement community in the early hours of Jan. 8, many residents woke up to the smell of smoke and the sound of people knocking on doors.

Residents waited for directions on what to do. Should they shelter in place? Should they head for the exits?

Some told LAist later that they figured staff at the Altadena facility would take the lead. But something went wrong. The retirement community is among the region’s most upscale — the average entrance fee is around $1 million, according to public finance documents.

“We assumed that there’s some kind of plan, but I never saw it, and didn’t think to investigate it when I moved in,” said Linda Bergthold, an 84-year-old who lives at the care facility.

She was among the residents moved to safety during the fire.

According to state authorities, two women were left behind during the dawn evacuations of nearly 200 residents.

Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies found both women at the property hours later. One was walking her dog outside the building's entrance as nearby houses burned. The other, Jean Bruce Poole, then 100 years old, was wandering the dark hallways of the third floor, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

“I think there could be some protocols put in place that they would know who's where and who's not accounted for,” Poole’s son, John Ward, told LAist.

The California Department of Social Services, which licenses residential care facilities, including assisted living facilities, cited MonteCedro in September for failing to follow its own emergency evacuation procedures and leaving residents behind during evacuations.

Neither MonteCedro, nor the nonprofit Episcopal Communities & Services that runs it, responded to multiple interview requests for this story.

In a Jan. 29 statement, Episcopal Communities & Services said that fire personnel and MonteCedro staff “made two complete tours through the building, triggering fire alarms and inspecting every residence.”

“However, two independent living residents were not encountered and did not make it to the buses," the statement read.

At least one other residential care facility, the Terraces at Park Marino in Pasadena, also was cited for not evacuating all residents.

MonteCedro withstood the Eaton Fire. The Terraces did not. The facility was destroyed shortly after firefighters rescued a woman from the third floor who was initially left behind during the evacuations.

Both facilities have appealed the citations, according to state records. MonteCedro’s appeal has not been made public. Administrators for both facilities avoided fines by submitting required plans to fix the problems.

MonteCedro administrators said at a meeting with residents in February that they were working alongside first responders and weren’t the only responsible party, according to a recording of the gathering reviewed by LAist. Administrators noted that the two women who were left behind ended up being moved to safety.

Sheriff’s deputies and Pasadena public transit bus drivers worked with MonteCedro staff to relocate residents to the evacuation shelter at the city’s convention center. One night earlier, the Pasadena Fire Department helped evacuate the Terraces.

Both evacuations reveal what can happen at long-term care facilities during a disaster when emergency planning and coordination are found to be inadequate. They also raise questions about where a facility's responsibility ends and first responders’ begins.

State investigators determined that MonteCedro’s executive director, David Weidert, was designated to remain on site during emergencies, but he went home before the fire closed in on the facility. He also failed to call in additional staff despite emergency protocols requiring it, according to the state’s investigative report.

Weidert has since left MonteCedro. Shortly after residents returned in March, an interim executive director was named, according to the facility’s final public fire update on March 11. LAist made several attempts to reach Weidert by phone and email but was unsuccessful.

State licensing authorities also found that four of the five people working the early hours of Jan. 8 had never been trained in emergency procedures.

Some residents say they have seen safety changes within the past few months.

A day after the Eaton Fire devastated the area, MonteCedro's Facebook page posted an exterior shot of a main building, noting the interiors still needed to be inspected.

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MonteCedro via Facebook

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Hour by hour at MonteCedro

The official evacuation order for the area that includes MonteCedro was issued at 5:42 a.m. on Jan. 8, according to archived alerts from the L.A. County Office of Emergency Management.

By then, the fire had been burning for more than 12 hours.

Bergthold, who has lived at the facility for seven years, said her daughter called her from Los Feliz the night of Jan. 7 to warn her about intensifying winds and encourage her to prepare for a possible evacuation.

Bergthold packed a go-bag and slept in her clothes inside her apartment.

She said that when she woke up the next morning, the smoke outside was so thick she couldn't see the trees outside her window.

"But I was not told to pack any sort of suitcase by the facility," she said. "I was being proactive. I really wanted to be ready, and I'm glad I was."

Weidert, MonteCedro’s then executive director, left the facility Jan. 7 around 10 p.m., according to statements he made at a post-fire town hall meeting in February with residents and their family members.

By that time winds in the area were at 70 mph, and both the Palisades and Eaton fires had been burning for hours.

According to the state investigation, five employees stayed on the clock past 10 p.m.: a building and safety manager named Bruno Molina, a security guard, two caregivers, and one licensed vocational nurse who was a temporary worker.

Molina did not respond to LAist’s interview requests.

Only the managers and administrators at MonteCedro had gone through emergency training. All but one of them had gone home for the day.

At 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, the executive director called the facility and told Molina that MonteCedro should shelter in place while awaiting official evacuation orders from county authorities, according to the state’s report.

At the town hall, James Rothrock — CEO of Episcopal Communities & Services, the nonprofit that runs the facility — explained the buildings were built to withstand wind and fire, and that evacuating hundreds of residents too soon could have exposed them needlessly to trauma and other health risks.

“The safest place we want to be was inside the building,” he said. At 3 a.m., MonteCedro staff called the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for help, according to the state investigation.

Around 4 a.m., the Sheriff’s Department and L.A. County Fire Department got involved with the MonteCedro evacuation, according to an Eaton Fire response after-action report commissioned by the county.

At 4:15 a.m., MonteCedro authorities made the decision, along with the L.A. County Fire Department, to evacuate 195 residents who had not previously left on their own, according to a Jan. 29 statement from Episcopal Communities & Services.

Around 5:30 a.m., the evacuation began, according to the state report. By that time, eyewitnesses told LAist they saw fire near the back of the MonteCedro property — and neighboring buildings burning.

Most of the residents, some barefoot and in nightgowns, were rushed outside and onto buses by first responders and facility staff.

Two people were missing.

“That should not have happened,” Rothrock said, in the February town hall recording reviewed by LAist.

He stressed that staff members were working alongside sheriff’s deputies, paramedics and firefighters during the chaos.

Rothrock did not respond to interview requests.

Evacuation plans

During the Eaton and Palisades fires, more than 3,000 residents at more than 100 facilities across L.A. County had to be relocated, according to state authorities.

All residential care facilities are required by law to have written evacuation plans, updated annually and filed with the California Department of Social Services.

LAist reviewed copies of plans for more than 70 assisted living facilities evacuated in January, obtained through a public records request. More than 90% of those plans were outdated. And more than one-third of the facilities’ plans were last updated a decade ago or more, despite state law that requires they be filed each year, updated as needed and approved and checked during annual licensing visits.

Disability policy consultant June Isaacson Kailes reviewed LAist’s findings, as well as dozens of plans independently, and said she was “floored by the inadequacy.”

“Some of them were 10 years old,” she said. “Some of them were not fully filled out.”

MonteCedro’s emergency plan, which was signed and approved by the executive director in 2023, set a framework for what should happen during an evacuation, but state investigators said it lacked details about designated staff roles.

It did not list specific transportation plans or relocation sites as required by state law, according to LAist’s review of the document.

And MonteCedro did not follow some of what it had put in writing, state investigators said in the report. For example, the facility’s plan requires it to maintain an emergency contact list for off-duty staff who are supposed to be called in for help during an evacuation. MonteCedro had no such list, investigators said.

Rachel Tate, who oversees the L.A. ombudsman program for long-term care, said many facilities craft their plans for an emergency that’s just affecting their own location.

“I don't think that facilities in Los Angeles County were braced the way they should be for regional incidents where so many people were impacted at the same time,” she said.

Tate said she encourages families to ask residential care facilities or skilled nursing facilities about their emergency plans.

Isaacson Kailes said local officials should do the same.

“Local governments need to recognize that their plans are weak and inadequate, and therefore they need to be planning with these places," Isaacson Kailes said. “Otherwise, people will die.”

John Ward and his mother, Jean Bruce Poole, celebrating her 100th birthday.

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Courtesy John Ward

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‘Don’t lose me’

By 7 a.m., most of the MonteCedro residents had arrived at the Pasadena Convention Center, which was operating as an evacuation shelter during the fires.

Jean Bruce Poole had not.

She woke up that morning at the care facility and went about her normal routine, her son told LAist. He said she told him she ate breakfast and took a shower before leaving her room. Then she realized the hallways were dark.

The elevators were down. Emergency lights were out. Sheriff’s deputies found her in a hallway hours later, after first spotting another resident walking a dog near the entrance shortly after 9:30 a.m.

Back at the convention center, MonteCedro staffers were doing a head count around that time, according to the account dated Jan. 29 and posted on their website.

Deputies searched the building looking for anyone left behind, kicking down about 40 doors. They found Poole on the third floor, looking for an exit just before 10:30 a.m., according to timestamps on a deputy’s body-worn camera footage. (The footage obtained by LAist above contains text added by the Sheriff's Department.)

“Don’t lose me,” Poole says in the video.

After Rothrock, CEO of the nonprofit that runs MonteCedro, learned two residents were missing, he went to MonteCedro “immediately,” where he was told that two people had been found and transferred, according to the January statement.

Poole was taken to the convention center and then temporarily relocated to Mt. San Antonio Gardens, a care center in Pomona. Eventually she returned to MonteCedro, where she continues to live, her son said.

Ward said his mother didn’t know how close the Eaton Fire had come until she rounded the corner in a patrol car and saw a nearby church in flames.

Pasadena Transit buses arrived at the MonteCedro retirement community in Altadena before dawn on Jan. 8

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Courtesy of a MonteCedro resident

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Looking back, he told LAist, he has some regrets. He said his mother adores MonteCedro — the gourmet meals and access to field trips and concerts. But when it came to safety in an emergency, staff weren’t adequately prepared, he said.

He remembered that his wife told him the previous evening to drive to the care facility to pick up his mother. At the time, the fire was still 3 miles away, and he thought it would never reach her.

“That was a mistake I made,” Ward said. “And it could have been a very serious ending.”

MonteCedro residents and family members told LAist they’re grateful to facility staff who did stick around to help get most people out. That included Molina, the building manager, who they say evacuated residents as his own family home burned down.

“It's extraordinary courage and dedication to us for them to do that,” said Bergthold, the 84-year old MonteCedro resident.

MonteCedro staff told residents they hired a company called Fire & Life Safety Inc. to review its emergency plans and response effort, according to the recording reviewed by LAist. Staff at the meeting said they have no plans to release those findings publicly.

Residents and family members compiled their own list of changes they are demanding from the facility, according to interviews with LAist. The list includes upgrading alarms, new evacuation protocols, more training for staff and better notification systems for residents and families.

So far, residents said MonteCedro has made some of the changes.

Weidert, the previous executive director, retired in February.

The MonteCedro nursing home survived the Altadena fire but residents were evacuated in the middle of the night.

(

Aaron Schrank

/

LAist

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The facility hired a new executive director, Adam Peña, in August. Bergthold served on a resident committee that hired the new director.

She said that since he took over, there have been new earthquake drills at the facility, residents were provided emergency go-bags with flashlights and battery packs, and a new resident emergency planning committee was created.

Each floor of MonteCedro’s various buildings now have designated emergency leaders, responsible for coordinating evacuations, Bergthold said.

"I'm very pleased with the actions they've taken," she said.

But she and others say there is still work to be done. They’re hoping for a warning system with flashing lights to help people who are visually impaired.

And they want a stronger transportation plan for evacuating residents from the MonteCedro’s memory care villas so residents don’t have to rely on first responders.

Mostly, they want clearer communication from the people in charge, they said.

Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, Los Angeles educators have said the increase in immigration enforcement actions contributed to more somber graduation ceremonies, lower attendance and fewer students enrolled in school this year.

Now, a new report from UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access finds similar scenarios are playing out on campuses across the country.

“There can sometimes be a sense that, well, we're facing a set of conditions that are unique to Los Angeles,” said UCLA education professor and report co-author John Rogers. “But every state in the nation, almost every community in the nation has high schools where young people are experiencing fear and concern for themselves and for their family members.”

UCLA researchers based the report on a nationally representative online survey of 606 high school principals and follow-up interviews with about four dozen administrators who said students from immigration families experienced:

• Heightened concern: 70% said students from immigrant families were concerned about the well-being of themselves and their families because of policies and political rhetoric related to immigrants. 
• More absences: 64% said students from immigrant families missed school. 
• Loss of family members: 58% said immigrant parents and guardians left during the school year, sometimes without their children. 
• Bullying and harassment: 36% said students from immigrant families have been bullied or harassed at their school, in part because of a “political climate that has normalized attacks on immigrant communities.

LAist has reached out to the Trump administration for comment, but has not yet heard back.

Students’ right to an education

The Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that undocumented immigrants have a constitutional right to attend public schools — there are an estimated 39,000 such students enrolled in Los Angeles County.

The number of students with at least one immigrant family member is much greater. For example, almost half of California children have at least one immigrant parent, according to a Public Policy Institute of California analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

Maria Nichols leads the union that represents Los Angeles Unified School District principals and said that there’s widespread uncertainty among students, families and educators. She is also the daughter of an immigrant from South America who was undocumented for part of her childhood.

“Are we experiencing a crisis now with immigration? Absolutely,” Nichols said. “It's extremely traumatic. It's extremely triggering for people that, you know, lived the immigrant existence. And many of us in education in Los Angeles have lived that.”

In January, the Trump administration reversed a policy that made schools and other "sensitive" locations off limits to immigration enforcement actions. In early June, widespread immigration raids started across Southern California. Most arrested in L.A. and nationwide have no criminal record.

“I think a purpose of the federal immigration enforcement policies is to create a level of stress and uncertainty and fear,” Rogers said. “And precisely those dynamics make it hard to sustain student enrollment and student attendance at high levels.”

Rogers said the current climate can disrupt learning for students who do make it to school.

“The extent to which young people are concerned about their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families while they're at the school means there's less attention, less focus, less learning going on,” Rogers said.