Street vendors around Los Angeles' MacArthur Park on July 26, 2025.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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CalMatters
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Topline:
Los Angeles is facing the quiet fallout of the Trump administration’s sweeping deportation push, a campaign designed to pressure undocumented immigrants into leaving voluntarily. The result is a city marked by shuttered businesses, empty public spaces, and communities retreating behind closed doors.
Vanishing public life: From deserted benches at MacArthur Park to bus ridership plunging by 1.5 million rides in a month, the daily rhythms of Latino-majority neighborhoods have been disrupted, as fear of raids reshapes how and where residents move.
Universities adjust: While elite universities continue largely unaffected, schools serving lower-income communities, like Cal State LA, have shifted online to protect students from immigration enforcement.
There's a certain beauty in the notes not played. An entire symphony, if you're listening.
The cars not backfiring. The sirens not wailing. The fireworks not erupting in sonic booms that bounce off hills and peal across valleys.
This is the consequence of the largest planned deportation in American history. The Trump administration’s goal is to make life as unnavigable, unstable and uncomfortable as possible for people in the country illegally. The administration’s hope is they leave on their own, or with their kids in tow.
“Self-deportation is a dignified way to leave the U.S.,” the Department of Homeland Security said in May as part of a pitch encouraging people to leave the country on their own.
What remains are places that used to be: a shuttered restaurant, empty benches on weekends at MacArthur Park and even an abandoned taco stand, meat still on the grill hours later. The silence is the point.
Beneath that silence, behind locked doors, is a population in hiding. They were dishwashers and garment factory stitchers. They sold fruit on the street. This is the echo of the city they left behind.
Some businesses in the MacArthur Park neighborhood of Los Angeles began reopening after shutting down in response to recent ICE raids in the city.
LA’s long, nervous summer entered its third month in August, but the immigration worksite raids in June and the smaller number of street-level stops in the following weeks have not brought the city to a standstill.
But it is a city diminished.
The absences are seen and felt in areas where Latinos are the majority or plurality, and where people are less likely to be insulated by their own wealth.
That means car traffic is nearly unchanged from a year ago, going by the frequency of crashes, but bus ridership was down 1.5 million rides in June, compared to the same month in 2024.
UCLA and USC, are continuing to operate on schedule, but Cal State Los Angeles, which caters to a far higher proportion of low-income students, has given its students and faculty the option to take classes online. The school’s provost blamed “heavily armed immigration agents” that left students and faculty in fear.
Another empty space: The spot on immigration court documents where the names of Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys should be. Judges have permitted them to operate anonymously, according to a report from The Intercept. Asylum seekers and their attorneys must use their full names.
There’s also the missing space on Sergio Espejo’s left hand. The top half of his index finger was destroyed by what he describes as a grenade, fired by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department during an anti-ICE protest.
In some of the quiet spaces, a small but coordinated resistance sprung up. Most of what they do is photograph immigration agents as they detain people. Sometimes, volunteers with immigration advocacy groups try to stop the detentions, and sometimes they are detained themselves.
The administration’s goal was for deportation squads to arrest 3,000 people each day — a number that administration attorneys would not admit to in court. In California, according to the state Justice Department, about 3,000 people are in ICE custody as of July.
One of them is Mario Romero, the father of Yurien Contreras, a 20-year-old whose whole neighborhood is waiting for what comes next.
A family retreats
It’ll really pile up on you, if you let it.
Contreras’ father was detained in the opening stanza of immigration enforcement action, a June 6 raid on a garment warehouse in the Fashion District.
He was the only one in the family with a full-time job. Contreras has confined herself to the house she shares with six people since the day he was taken — she rarely ventures beyond the gate bounding their South Central duplex.
Yurien Contreras, a young mother of two, has taken on a larger role supporting her family as the eldest daughter after her father was detained by ICE agents. Her family has been sheltering in place in their two-bedroom apartment out of fear.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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CalMatters
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Yurien Contreras plays with her children behind their apartment.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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CalMatters
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Yurien Contreras’ mother washes baby bottles at their home in Los Angeles, on July 25, 2025. Contreras’s father was detained by ICE agents during a factory raid, leaving the family distraught.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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When her two infant daughters are napping, when her brothers are out of the house, Contreras confronts the quiet in her home and in her neighborhood. Strangers are given a wary eye now – something Contreras said wasn’t true before the raids. Contreras said most of the people on her block fear a knock on the door from immigration agents.
Contreras was born in this country, but her mother was not. One of her brothers, age 4, has developmental delays and appears to be regressing into old behaviors without his father home, pointing and shouting at objects on a kitchen counter but not making clear what he wants.
When Contreras looked for work after her father’s detention, she saw openings for warehouse workers but was afraid to leave the house — afraid for her own safety and afraid of what might happen if her mother had to venture off the property while she was gone.
“There's like, no like happy things,” she said. “And when there's happy things like a birthday that just passed, we get even more sad because my dad's not here.”
Family friends have kept them afloat by buying them diapers and groceries. In mid-July, Contreras made her first trip to the grocery store since the June 6 raid.
It had to be done with precision. Her undocumented family members waited at home. She brought her cousin with her – if something happens to her, she wants her family to know when and where she was detained. Her legal status gives her no real comfort — she’s read the stories about ICE detaining U.S. citizens.
The grocery store was out of tomatillos, something she’s never seen before.
“You could tell something was going on,” Contreras said. “Back then (before the first immigration raid), everybody was going out, families were together, kids were laughing. Now the markets are empty.”
She hustled inside the store, armed with a short list. She knew the shelves well enough to get where she needed to quickly. She left as soon as she could. She didn’t really take a deep breath until she was back home, behind the gate.
Contreras wanted to go to school for a certificate as a certified nurse assistant or ultrasound technician this fall, plans that are now on hold. The family also wanted to send one of her other brothers, 16, to a four-year college when he graduates high school, but now wonders whether that’s realistic.
Yurien Contreras holds her newborn inside their home in Los Angeles on July 25, 2025. Her family has been sheltering since her father was detained by ICE agents at his workplace.
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And her anxiety attacks are back.
“I had already gone from, like, a year and a half without having … anxiety attacks, no panic attacks,” she said, “but when they took away my dad, it triggered it. So my anxiety attacks have been coming back.”
They kick in every week or two, and at the most inconvenient times, like when she’s already crying or when she’s arguing with her brothers. It feels like her heart is trying to jump out of her throat. Her breathing races. Sometimes she forgets her compensation strategy, which is taking deep breaths, and her friends have to remind her. Her father was good at calming her down.
“So I don't really show it to, you know, to my mom either, because I want to be strong for her, for the kids,” she said. “So, it's like, I can't talk to anybody. I feel like I can't talk even though I know I can talk to people about it, it feels like I can't.”
She pauses.
“I'd rather sometimes not talk about it. So when I keep it to myself, it's, you know, it’s even worse.”
It’ll really pile up on you, if you let it.
Searching for ICE in LA
Depending on your point of view, MacArthur Park is either a symbol of Los Angeles’ ascent to a truly global city or a symbol of its fall. Labeled as part of the city’s “Mayan Corridor” that welcomed immigrants from Mexico and Central America, its nickname is “the Ellis Island of the West.”
It’s also a place of intense poverty and the violence and crime that accompanies it, conditions that led the owner of longtime city institution Langer’s Deli to threaten to abandon the area.
Men play soccer at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, on July 26, 2025. The area is beginning to slowly go back to normal after ICE agents raided the area.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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One morning this summer, immigration agents arrived at the park in green Humvees and on horseback, a massive show of force to a mostly empty park – word of the immigration agents’ impending arrival got around in the preceding days. Very few people stuck around to watch the show.
Now, the 35-acre park is smaller somehow. There are fewer people manning its grills or playing music — though the church services held in front of little clusters of folding chairs still draw a crowd.
Watching from the fringes was a man named Francisco Romero, dressed in an olive green T-shirt, blue jeans, gray running shoes and, on his neck, a red bandana. He wore a large straw hat, visible “so people know where to run to” in case of a raid or street stop.
On a weekend morning in July, Romero’s phone rang. He listened for a few seconds.
“Put spotters on the 710 and the 110,” he said.
Romero oversees a complicated operation for the volunteer group Union del Barrio, people who have organized and trained since the first Trump administration to resist immigration enforcement by tracking agents’ vehicles and interrupting their arrests, which the volunteers call kidnappings.
The freeways of Los Angeles are the only practical way for convoys of immigration vehicles to get from their home bases on Terminal Island or the city of Los Alamitos to their next raid, so volunteers with Union del Barrio wait and watch on freeway overpasses, two teams per overpass, observing both directions of traffic.
At MacArthur Park, Romero was looking for signs that immigration enforcement agents were already on the scene, lying in wait. The first check was all the cars parked along the park’s border looking for what he calls “grab cars,” “drop cars” or “kidnapper ghost rides.”
“These kidnapper ghost rides, we know which ones they are, and we’re always ID’ing new ones,” Romero said. “You run their plates and there’s no records found, their VIN numbers don’t match. That’s how you know.”
“Drop cars” are the unmarked vehicles parked in an area where immigration enforcement will later show up in large numbers, meant to serve as an advance force blending in with the rest of the cars on the block until they spring their trap and an agent or agents come spilling out, pulling people into the car for transport to a federal holding area.
“Mire esta placa,” he said, telling an observer to check out the license plate of a red sedan parked behind a black Sprinter van. The van had paper plates. The red sedan had an Idaho license plate. The combination of paper plates and an out-of-state vehicle was what he was looking for.
Romero pulled out his phone and took a picture of both vehicles. From inside the sedan, a man called out, asking why Romero was taking pictures.
“We’re just trying to be careful, with ICE out here,” Romero said.
“I’m not ICE,” said the man inside.
Romero made his apologies and waved.
Once out of the man’s earshot, he said “that was totally an ICE agent.”
The goal, Romero said, was to be vigilant, not paranoid. He acknowledged the balance is delicate.
Romero said immigration enforcement agents have tried to detain him at least twice after he and other Union del Barrio volunteers raced to the scene of an ICE raid in a store parking lot. Escape is constantly on his mind.
His day job is evaluating nonprofits for grant-worthiness. But under the nom de guerre of Chavo, he delivers orders over the phone, sending people who have chosen names like Froggy, War Machine or Porridge to scope out Home Depots or track a potential drop car.
“This is a war strategy, so we’re using the language of war,” Romero said. “We’ve been preparing for this.”
Romero moved on to a nearby Home Depot.
In the store’s parking lot, a woman named Yesenia was selling Gatorades and mini-donuts. She declined to give her last name but said she is undocumented.
A paletero hangs around MacArthur Park in Los Angeles on July 26, 2025. The neighborhood is slowly returning to normal after ICE agents raided the area.
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“We’re here because we have to make money,” she said in Spanish when asked about the risk of appearing in public.
She pointed to a young man seated next to her. “Our kids.”
A group of day laborers stood nearby, one of them shyly agreeing to speak to a reporter. They were scared, the man said, but they had no choice but to show up to the same places they went before the raids in Los Angeles began. That’s where the work is.
“There is no option,” he said in Spanish, declining to give his real name. “It makes you have fear but there is no option.”
Three weeks later, immigration enforcement agents would detain two men who were standing outside the same MacArthur Park Home Depot. Two days after that, agents in masks detained at least two women from behind the same tables in the same spot at the same Home Depot where Yesenia stood.
CalMatters could not confirm the identities of the people who were taken.
Where life feels unchanged
The entrance to Élephante is nestled on a leafy, unassuming block in downtown Santa Monica, 10 minutes from the Gwyneth Paltrow-owned Goop store and a half-mile from where Stephen Miller, architect of Trump’s deportation plan, went to high school.
Apartments and hotels in Santa Monica's beach view neighborhood on Ocean Avenue.
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Zaydee Sanchez
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Down a darkened hallway, up three floors in an elevator, insulated by the street, Élephante opens into a modest dining room fronted by a large wooden desk from which three restaurant employees ask guests to kindly step out of the way of the elevator.
It is just before noon on a Sunday in August. About 40 people fill out three-fourths of the room. The walls, eggshell white, do a good job keeping them hushed to a low murmur.
This, according to the Los Angeles Times, is a minor evolution in Los Angeles dining. Or at least it was in 2019. Celebrities, sure, but also thoughtful curation of a menu that could have relied instead on the restaurant’s prime beachside location.
The decor, the owner told the newspaper, was inspired by a trip to the Pantelleria, an island off the Italian coast most famous as the place where Romans banished their unwanted royalty. Longtime Times critic Bill Addison called it “a place to observe plenty of examples of humanity at peak physical perfection” and “the full Los Angeles stereotype.”
Which Los Angeles goes unmentioned, but this Los Angeles is far from the raids. The closest one was 11 miles away, in Hawthorne, two months ago.
A bachelorette party of seven commands a corner of the room. A gift is handed to the bride-to-be. She opens it. It’s a red bra. She holds it up to laughter and coos of approval. In the next gift box is a nurse’s outfit. A group at a nearby table is on their third order of espresso martinis.
A restaurant employee dressed in black with a thin, looping plastic wire attached to his right ear stands among the diners, silent.
Outside, beyond the dining room, is a patio and beyond that the beach and then miles and miles of ocean.
Aaron Schrank
has been on the ground, reporting on homelessness and other issues in L.A. for more than a decade.
Published April 2, 2026 4:23 PM
Supervisor Holly Mitchell, L.A. County Department of Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer, actor Danny Trejo and others gathered at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Wilmington.
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Aaron Schrank
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Topline:
A new private foundation called The Fund for Advancing Public Health LA launched Thursday, aiming to raise $2 million to shore up county health services this year. It comes after the Department of Public Health closed seven clinics following $50 million in funding cuts since early 2025.
Who's behind it: The foundation's board includes Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, the CEOs of Blue Shield of California Foundation and LA Care Health Plan, actors Sean Penn and Danny Trejo and more. Board member Saree Kayne of the R&S Kayne Foundation pledged $150,000 at the launch. Ferrer acknowledged it's "a hard day" when a public agency has to turn to private donors to fund basic services.
Deeper cuts ahead: The federal "Big Beautiful Bill" slashes Medi-Cal funding, and the department anticipates losing up to $300 million over the next three years. Federal dollars account for nearly half the public health budget.
Some government funding streams for L.A. County’s public health system are drying up, and officials are turning to private philanthropy to fill the gap.
A new privately funded foundation launched Thursday to strengthen public health services after $50 million in federal, state and local funding cuts to the county’s Department of Public Health since early last year.
“It is really a hard day for our community when we have to ask for private donations to fund a public good, but unfortunately, we've lost too much money to not take this important step,” said Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.
In February, the county’s Public Health Department closed seven clinics, with six remaining open. About half of the patients seen in those clinics are uninsured, according to county officials. The department also cut hundreds of staff positions.
She said the fund will help the county maintain its basic public health infrastructure, including disease prevention, health promotion, environmental health, and emergency response efforts.
Other board members include several health insurance executives, as well as actors Sean Penn and Danny Trejo. Board member Saree Kayne of the R&S Kayne Foundation pledged $150,000 to the fund Thursday. Kayne said she hopes the donation encourages others to give.
The foundation aims to raise $2 million this year.
More cuts expected
L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell said it’s crucial to have an alternative funding stream to protect services for the county's most vulnerable residents.
“We are saving public health,” Mitchell said. “This fund represents a new approach, one that brings together government philanthropy in the private sector to invest in community-based solutions, protect vulnerable populations, and strengthen our public health infrastructure.”
Officials say more public health cuts are coming, through the federal budget law known as the "Big Beautiful Bill," which slashes funding for Medi-Cal.
The county Department of Public Health anticipates losing up to $300 million in revenue over the next three years because of the federal budget bill and other potential funding freezes. Federal funding accounts for almost 50% of the public health budget, according to county officials.
Mitchell also led an effort to put a half-percent county sales tax increase to fund public health on the June ballot.
If approved by voters, that proposal, known as Measure ER, is expected to raise about $1 billion a year for county safety net health services, including about $100 million for the public health department.
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published April 2, 2026 4:20 PM
Water infrastructure such as pipes that feed water to drinking fountains and toilets at the Rose Bowl Stadium are getting an infusion of $1 million for fixes.
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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist
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Topline:
Rep. Laura Friedman today announced that she secured $1 million for improvements to the water infrastructure at the aging Rose Bowl Stadium as it prepares for a global starring role in the LA28 Olympics.
Why it matters: The pipes may be working fine — for now — but the fear of backed-up toilets as the world watches is an ongoing worry at the venue.
Why now: Public officials have been pushing for spending to improve Olympic venues and surrounding areas as L.A. and other municipalities roll out the red carpet for the world to attend the Olympics. But they’ve hit road bumps and detours.
The backstory: The Rose Bowl is 103 years old and public officials have committed to spending $200 million to upgrade the Pasadena venue over the next two decades.
The Rose Bowl in Pasadena may be a centenarian, but it’s holding up pretty well as it continues to host events on its way to a starring role in the LA28 Olympics.
But before it can host the soccer final, it needs fixes, especially to the infrastructure serving the bathrooms and drinking fountains. Fears of a toilet backup while in the world’s spotlight led Rep. Laura Friedman to seek federal funds for upgrades. On Thursday she announced she secured just over $1 million.
“Two years from now, athletes around the world are going to compete for gold right where we are standing. This is not the time to find out whether or not these pipes are up to the task,” Friedman said.
The planned work, she added, will lead to improved water flow capacity and water drainage, eliminating the risk of backups and emergency maintenance.
The funds came from the House of Representatives Interior and Environment subcommittee. The fixes, an official said, will be completed by the LA28 Olympics.
The funds, however, are a drop in the bucket when it comes to what’s needed to make needed improvements to the Pasadena venue.
Officials, including (left to right) Rose Bowl Legacy Foundation President Dedan Brozino, Deputy Fire Chief of the City of Pasadena Tim Sell, Congresswoman Laura Friedman, and Rose Bowl Stadium CEO Jens Weiden announced infrastructure funding for the 103-year old Rose Bowl.
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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist
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“Over the next 20 years there's about $200 million that we need to put in and that's everything from updating light fixtures to updating gas, water, wastewater lines, etc.,” said Dedan Brozino, president of the Rose Bowl Legacy Foundation, the nonprofit that supports the Rose Bowl stadium's preservation and enhancement.
Getting venues ready will be expensive
The money is a much-needed win at a time when elected officials in city, county, state and federal offices have been struggling to find the funds to get L.A.-area venues ready for the global Olympic stage in two years.
The entrance to a men's bathroom at the Rose Bowl.
Additionally, to save money, LA28 organizers moved Olympic diving to the Rose Bowl complex last year because it has two Olympic-sized pools, while the Exposition Park complex doesn't and would need expensive upgrades.
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Kevin Tidmarsh
is a producer for LAist, covering news and culture. He’s been an audio/web journalist for about a decade.
Published April 2, 2026 3:39 PM
This Cape vulture chick hatched March 14 at the L.A. Zoo.
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Courtesy Misha Body/LA Zoo
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Topline:
The zoo said it’s the first major breeding success in its Cape vulture habitat, which opened up last year. The chick now joins the zoo’s committee — that’s the name for a group of vultures.
About the chick: The chick hatched on March 14. The zoo opened its Cape vulture enclosure in February 2025 after years of planning to encourage the birds to roost and nest, welcoming a new breeding pair that year. When it grows to be an adult, it’ll have a wingspan of eight and a half feet.
About the enclosure: The L.A. Zoo said it spent years developing the vulture habitat, which was designed to mimic the vultures’ natural environment in South Africa. Dominick Dorsa II, the zoo’s director of animal care, said in a statement the successful hatching is “a testament to the design and construction” of the habitat.
How to see the chick: You can’t for the time being. Zoo officials are keeping it away from visitors until the chick matures, though you can still see adult Cape vultures at the zoo’s enclosure.
Though visitors will have to wait until the chick matures to see it in the enclosure, you can still take in the impressive eight and a half foot wingspan of the adult Cape vultures.
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Courtesy Jamie Pham/L.A. Zoo
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What zoo officials are saying: “Welcoming a Cape vulture chick is a thrilling moment for our team and a beacon of hope for African vultures,” the L.A. Zoo’s curator of birds Rose Legato said in a statement. “Vultures are one of nature's most misunderstood marvels, and I cannot wait for our guests to eventually watch this chick grow and learn just how vital they are to our ecosystems.”
About the species: Cape vultures are listed as a vulnerable species due to human activities and encroachment. According to the L.A. Zoo, African vultures are more closely related to eagles and hawks than vultures native to the Americas, like the California condors that just hatched last year at the L.A. Zoo.
Topline:
The Los Angeles Zoo said it’s the first major breeding success in its Cape vulture habitat, which opened up last year. The chick now joins the zoo’s committee — that’s the name for a group of vultures.
About the chick: The chick hatched March 14. The zoo opened its Cape vulture enclosure in February 2025 after years of planning to encourage the birds to roost and nest, welcoming a new breeding pair that year. When it grows to be an adult, it’ll have a wingspan of 8 1/2 feet.
About the enclosure: The L.A. Zoo said it spent years developing the vulture habitat, which was designed to mimic the vultures’ natural environment in South Africa and nearby countries. Dominick Dorsa II, the zoo’s director of animal care, said in a statement the successful hatching is “a testament to the design and construction” of the habitat.
How to see the chick: You can’t for the time being. Zoo officials are keeping it away from visitors until the chick matures, though you can still see adult Cape vultures at the zoo’s enclosure.
Though visitors will have to wait until the chick matures to see it in the enclosure, you can still take in the impressive eight and a half foot wingspan of the adult Cape vultures.
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Courtesy Jamie Pham/L.A. Zoo
)
What zoo officials are saying: “Welcoming a Cape vulture chick is a thrilling moment for our team and a beacon of hope for African vultures,” the L.A. Zoo’s curator of birds Rose Legato said in a statement. “Vultures are one of nature's most misunderstood marvels, and I cannot wait for our guests to eventually watch this chick grow and learn just how vital they are to our ecosystems.”
About the species: Cape vultures are listed as a vulnerable species due to human activities and encroachment. According to the L.A. Zoo, African vultures are more closely related to eagles and hawks than vultures native to the Americas, like the zoo's California condors that hatched last year.
What should have been a celebration for formerly incarcerated youth completing a reentry program at the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory (BHAC) last week instead ended with seven students and two staff members detained by the Los Angeles Police Department, according to witnesses.
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Screenshot courtesy of BHAC
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Topline:
Last week, seven students and two staff members from the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory (BHAC) were detained by the Los Angeles Police Department, according to witnesses. Now, BHAC staff and city officials are demanding answers from the LAPD, with some accusing officers of racial profiling.
What happened: According to the LAPD, officers observed a large group gathered on the corner of Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and Mott Street around 4:16 p.m. on March 26. The group, classified by police as an “aggressive gang group,” consisted of seven 18-year-old students from the BHAC’s Bridge Academy Movement (BAM) program and two BHAC staff members.
Allegations of racial profiling: In total, seven 18-year-old students and two staff members were detained. BHAC staff said one student and one staff member were taken to Hollenbeck Community Police Station and released less than two hours later after advocacy from community members and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado. According to Rene Weber, a teaching artist at the BHAC, the students had gone to coffee across the street at Milpa Kitchen as they often did. After Weber told the officers that all of the students were 18, they said they would investigate whether the group had any gang affiliation.
What is BAM? The BAM program pays formerly incarcerated youth to complete 200-250 hours in media and visual arts training to prepare them for creative careers. That day, students were set to showcase their work at the BAM program graduation for families and community members.
What should have been a celebration for formerly incarcerated youth completing a reentry program at the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory (BHAC) last week instead ended with seven students and two staff members detained by the Los Angeles Police Department, according to witnesses.
Now, nearly a week later, BHAC staff and city officials are demanding answers from the LAPD, with some accusing officers of racial profiling.
According to the LAPD, officers observed a large group gathered on the corner of Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and Mott Street around 4:16 p.m. on March 26. Authorities then requested backup for what they described as “a large group surrounding officers,” LAPD Public Information Officer Tony Im said.
The group, classified by police as an “aggressive gang group,” consisted of seven 18-year-old students from the BHAC’s Bridge Academy Movement (BAM) program and two BHAC staff members.
The BAM program pays formerly incarcerated youth to complete 200-250 hours in media and visual arts training to prepare them for creative careers. That day, students were set to showcase their work at the BAM program graduation for families and community members.
Rene Weber, a teaching artist at the BHAC, had been with the students setting up for the ceremony minutes before the incident occurred.
According to Weber, the students had gone to coffee across the street at Milpa Kitchen as they often did, when staff were alerted that they were being detained.
Weber said he arrived to find students and a staff member pressed against the wall in handcuffs.
Video from the scene, taken by a staff member at the BHAC, shows multiple officers surrounding the group. At one point, an officer orders a person to “get on the wall” and displays a stun gun.
“No, none of that, these are kids right here,” the staff member replies.
Another staff member, Teotl Veliz, recorded a large police response.
“I counted 12 cop cars, that’s at least 25 cops, and they had a helicopter,” Veliz said. “It was just so comedic, tragically comedic, that it was on their graduation day too.”
Officers established a perimeter with yellow tape along the side of Ashley’s Beauty Salon as local business owners and witnesses gathered around the students.
“I was just incredibly disappointed in LAPD… because it became so apparent to everybody, all at the same time, that it was racial profiling and nothing else,” Veliz said.
Weber said officers gave shifting explanations for the stop at the scene, including blocking the sidewalk and possible underage vaping. After Weber told the officers that all of the students were 18, they said they would investigate whether the group had any gang affiliation.
Police have not responded to questions about what led officers to believe that the group was gang-affiliated.
Weber recalled pleading with the officers to let the group go and explaining to them that they worked across the street. Community members and local business owners also stepped in to vouch for the students.
“Our job is to help them gain a new perspective on life,” Weber said. “They’re coming out of juvenile detention and they’re turning their lives around. We can do our part in keeping them off the streets and keeping them doing better but what does it mean if they’re going to be profiled and treated exactly the same way?”
In total, seven 18-year-old students and two staff members were detained. BHAC staff said one student and one staff member were taken to Hollenbeck Community Police Station and released less than two hours later after advocacy from community members and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado.
The incident ultimately resulted in an infraction for smoking a cannabis e-vape on a public sidewalk, according to a photo of the infraction shared with the Beat. LAPD did not provide details about the people taken to Hollenbeck Station or the infraction.
The graduation ceremony was cancelled that night and is expected to be rescheduled in April.
“Graduation should be a moment of pride and possibility — not fear,” Jurado said in a statement. “I’m seeking answers about what occurred, and this underscores the need for stronger relationships between law enforcement and community organizations so moments like these are protected, not disrupted.”
Carmelita Ramirez‑Sanchez, the conservatory’s executive director, said she was grateful to the community and Jurado for advocating for the students’ release. Jurado met her at Hollenbeck Station within 20 minutes of being alerted to the incident, she said.
“They had store owners, señoras, barbers, that ran out and were trying to explain to the police who our kids were,” Ramirez‑Sanchez said.
Still, she said the incident tarnished what should have been a joyous celebration.
“I imagine that what this does is derail this entire idea that you can be an active participant in your own restorative growth,” she said.
