By Agya K. Aning, Alain Stephens and Jared Bennett | The LA Local and LAist
Updated July 1, 2026 3:45 PM
Published June 10, 2026 4:19 PM
At least 278 of the city’s unhoused residents have been shot and killed since 2015, an investigation by LAist and The LA Local has found.
(
Annelise Capossela
/
For The LA Local
)
Topline:
An investigation by LAist and The LA Local found that at least 278 of the city’s unhoused residents have been shot and killed since 2015, according to an analysis of data from the Los Angeles Police Department. Once rare, gunfire is now the primary means by which killers take the lives of unhoused people in the city.
An undercount: However, our analysis of records from the L.A. County Medical Examiner shows that’s an undercount. We found an additional two dozen fatal shootings from 2024 and 2025 that do not appear to be included in LAPD data. Medical examiner records are not exhaustive either — the office estimates that about 20% of deaths among the county’s unhoused population aren’t reported to their department.
The motives: Court records and people who spoke with LAist and The LA Local attributed these shootings to gangs and the dangers of the underground drug economy. Other sources and legal proceedings point to a rise of “predators,” “outsiders” or “vigilantes” — people who kill because they view unhoused people as easy targets and less than human.
“As the numbers of people who are homeless rise, the number of vigilante activities have risen with it,” said Andy Bales, who ran the Union Rescue Mission shelter on Skid Row for nearly 20 years.
This story is a collaboration between LAist and The LA Local. Agya K. Aning and Alain Stephens are freelance reporters.
On a clear winter night in 2019, Gerardo Gaona drove a white Ford Expedition to a homeless encampment in Pico-Union, stepped out, entered a tent and fired six rounds from his 9mm handgun.
Hector Valey, 24, was hit twice. Court records say he managed to make it out of the tent, dying nearby soon after midnight Feb. 23. Jorge Perez was struck in his right shoulder — his life likely spared only because the Smith & Wesson aimed at him ran out of bullets. Gaona got back into the SUV and sped off.
Two weeks earlier, on Feb. 9, police had responded to a shooting at the same encampment that left one person wounded. The same Expedition was spotted at the scene, and bullet casings were eventually linked back to Gaona’s pistol.
Gaona, now 30, was convicted of first-degree murder and premeditated attempted murder in 2022. He was sentenced to a minimum of 82 years in prison. The court described him as “a borderline serial killer who hunted homeless people in his neighborhood.”
He's not the first person in Los Angeles to target the city's most vulnerable. Unhoused people living here have been strangled, stabbed, set on fire and bludgeoned with baseball bats — often in plain view.
An investigation by LAist and The LA Local found that at least 278 of the city’s unhoused residents have been shot and killed since 2015, according to an analysis of data from the Los Angeles Police Department. Once rare, gunfire is now the primary means by which killers take the lives of unhoused people in the city.
About the data
We began this investigation by looking at publicly available crime data from the LAPD. This data showed us the date, location, and the gender and age of shooting victims. Department data also show the status of crime investigations, which allowed us to calculate how often arrests were made. Given the unusually high arrest rates in 2024 and 2025, we wanted to know if the department was leaving out fatal shootings that hadn’t been solved.
We compared LAPD data with death records from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner and removed the duplicates. There were two dozen fatal shootings from 2024 and 2025 that were not reflected in LAPD data. (Neither agency has totally comprehensive data, and some differences are to be expected.)
It’s unclear if these gaps in the data resulted from a change in the LAPD’s data collection methods. Previously, the department used the Uniform Crime Reporting Standards (UCR). In 2024, it began transitioning to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), the system preferred by the FBI. The LAPD did not return a request for comment.
However, our analysis of records from the L.A. County Medical Examiner shows that’s an undercount. We found an additional two dozen fatal shootings from 2024 and 2025 that do not appear to be included in LAPD data. Medical examiner records are not exhaustive either — the office estimates that about 20% of deaths among the county’s unhoused population aren’t reported to their department.
In 2014, the earliest year analyzed in this investigation, there were no killings of this kind. In 2022, there were 60. This surge reflected a national peak in gun violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, which experts have attributed to fewer social supports, rising gun sales, and an increase in joblessness, mental illness, and substance abuse. Following a decline, LAPD data show that fatal shootings of unhoused people stayed nearly the same between 2024 and 2025, even as overall homicides in the city last year fell by 19%.
The oldest shooting victim found in the medical examiner’s records was a 69-year-old man who, in 2024, was shot six times in an alley near the intersection of Interstates 105 and 110. The youngest was shot seven times, mostly in the back, during a drive-by in Florence-Graham that same year. He was 15 years old. Neither victim appears in LAPD data.
The LAPD didn’t return a request for comment about the gaps in its shooting data.
“This data underscores why Mayor Bass is so zealous about bringing people inside from the street and encampments,” reads a statement from Mayor Karen Bass’ Office. “When people are left on the street — which was the de facto City policy before Mayor Bass was elected — they are exponentially more likely to encounter violence.”
Drug overdoses, coronary heart disease, and traffic accidents remain overwhelmingly the most common causes of death among L.A.’s unhoused population. But fatal shootings have become a persistent danger facing the “unsheltered” portion of this population — the nearly 27,000 men, women and children who sleep on sidewalks, in tents or cars, under bridges, and other places not meant for permanent human habitation. It’s the biggest population of its kind found anywhere in America.
As the numbers of people who are homeless rise, the number of vigilante activities have risen with it.
— Andy Bales, former CEO of the Union Rescue Mission shelter
Unhoused people are both the perpetrators and victims of homicide. But LAPD homicide data shows they are far more likely to be the victims of violence: From 2015 through 2025, unsheltered people accounted for 16% of all murder victims in the city, despite making up less than 1% of Angelenos.
“Homeless people face, arguably, the highest victimization levels of virtually anyone in society,” said Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
Among homicides in 2025 with unhoused shooting victims, the LAPD made arrests in all 16 cases, according to our analysis of department data. This is a dramatic change from 2023 — before the department changed its data collection methods — when the LAPD cleared just 48% of such cases by arrest for unhoused victims, and 74% for housed victims.
The LAPD did not return a request for comment about this significant change in arrest rate.
Court records and people who spoke with LAist and The LA Local attributed these shootings to gangs and the dangers of the underground drug economy. Other sources and legal proceedings point to a rise of “predators,” “outsiders,” or “vigilantes” — people who kill because they view unhoused people as easy targets and less than human.
There are “people who actually go out and target the homeless as some kind of badge of honor,” Levin said.
“As the numbers of people who are homeless rise, the number of vigilante activities have risen with it,” said Andy Bales, who ran the Union Rescue Mission shelter on Skid Row for nearly 20 years.
Throughout most of the country, a person’s housing status isn’t collected upon their death, which means that national data on the shootings of unhoused people is currently unavailable. However, advocates say this kind of violence is on the rise around the U.S. And with a growing share of Americans losing shelter, more people are at risk.
Predators and self-styled vigilantes
For decades, individual news stories have revealed the violence facing unhoused Angelenos. A UPI story from 1986 begins:
LOS ANGELES – Thousands of homeless street people are being urged to spend their nights in Skid Row missions or 'huddle together for safety' against a killer who has shot four men as they slept in lots and alleys.
The shooter, dubbed The Skid Row Slayer, would kill a total of 10 unhoused men before dying by suicide nine days after the story was published.
Years later, two elderly women took out life insurance policies worth millions of dollars on two unhoused men — before killing them in staged hit-and-runs in 1999 and 2005.
“They went out of their way to target men who had nothing,” said Bobby Grace, a deputy district attorney who prosecuted their case.
The perpetrators of the so-called Black Widow Murders were sentenced to life without parole.
Gaona went on his shooting spree in 2019, according to court documents, “without any apparent provocation or reason other than ridding his community of its most vulnerable members.”
More recently, the LAPD arrested two people in May 2022 for allegedly shooting and killing a 69-year-old unhoused double amputee while he slept in his wheelchair outside of a McDonald’s in Gramercy Park. A jury found one of them not guilty at trial in 2023. The second person, Rubi Anguiano-Salazar, shot a 67-year-old unhoused woman, who survived, at a bus stop in the same neighborhood four days later. In 2025, Salazar was sentenced to 42 years to life in prison for one count of first-degree murder with a gun and one count of willful, deliberate, and premeditated attempted murder.
Over a span of 72 hours in November 2023, Jerrid Joseph Powell allegedly prowled the nighttime streets of Los Angeles, sneaking up on unhoused men and shooting them. One man was asleep on a couch. Another was pushing a shopping cart. The third was resting on the sidewalk. They all died. During that period, Powell allegedly killed another man in L.A. County who was not unhoused. Beverly Hills police arrested Powell a few days later in connection with that shooting after his car was identified from surveillance footage.
Powell has pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder. Criminal proceedings have been suspended while his case works its way through hearings to establish if he is mentally competent to stand trial, according to the district attorney’s office.
For lack of a better term, I’ll just call them ‘outsiders’ that are victimizing the homeless and seeing them as less human.
— Jeff Wenninger, security consultant and former LAPD lieutenant
Last August, authorities say Vincent Wolf approached an RV parked outside his apartment building in Sylmar and shot and killed Travis Harker, 29. Wolf has pleaded not guilty to murder and is awaiting trial. Police said Wolf, 23, had vented frustration on social media earlier that month about homelessness and “corrupt politicians” failing to address the issue.
Benyamin Sadeh, an LAPD detective who investigated Harker’s killing, said he worked on a different fatal shooting in 2023 that seemed motivated by a similar sort of resentment.
“The victim wasn’t homeless, but he appeared to be,” Sadeh told LAist and The LA Local.
Sadeh said he’s not surprised LAPD data shows shootings of unhoused victims have remained consistent as homicides in the general population decrease.
“It’s a big problem for us,” Sadeh said. “A lot of people focus on the impact [of gun violence] to our communities, but it's also affecting people that are experiencing homelessness.”
Gisselle Espinoza is an LAPD commander and the department’s homeless coordinator. She disagrees.
“I don't have anything to suggest that there's a trend or a pattern with people pulling weapons on [unhoused people],” she said.
Numerous people living outdoors who spoke with LAist and The LA Local described having guns pulled on them as a regular occurrence.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman’s office doesn’t track the housing status of victims or people accused of crimes, an office spokesperson said in an email. “Our more than 800 prosecutors remain deeply committed to seeking justice and supporting every victim impacted by crime,” the statement added.
Most suspected shooters are housed
Jeff Wenninger spent 33 years in law enforcement, much of it with the LAPD, and he sees things differently from Espinoza. His résumé includes a stint in the department’s Rampart Division, which encompasses MacArthur Park, a hub of homelessness in L.A. He estimates that half of the attacks on unhoused people he saw there were of the predatory sort — but that applies only to instances where the assailant was caught, allowing their identity to be known.
“For lack of a better term, I’ll just call them ‘outsiders’ that are victimizing the homeless and seeing them as less human,” said Wenninger, who now provides expert witness testimonies and security consulting.
His estimate tracks with LAPD data, which includes the housing status of suspected criminals. An analysis of department records by LAist and The LA Local shows that in the killings of unhoused people, 83% of suspected shooters from 2015 through 2025 were housed.
“That's pretty concerning. I think law enforcement would want to say otherwise, that it's homeless on homeless,” Wenninger said.
Between 2015 and 2025, the number of unsheltered people in Los Angeles increased from roughly 18,000 to nearly 27,000, a rise of about 52%. The city is the epicenter of America’s homelessness crisis: It encompasses roughly 10% of the nation’s entire unsheltered homeless population, even though only about 1% of people in the country live here.
Local, county, state and federal levels have poured billions of dollars into addressing homelessness in the L.A. area, but progress has been minimal. Homeless advocates acknowledge that the persistence of this crisis has led to compassion fatigue, resignation, resentment, and dehumanization among some Angelenos. This loss of patience has at times expressed itself as protests, angry local council meetings and anti-homeless Facebook groups.
Jeremy Rosenprinz is a member of the volunteer-led homeless outreach group Ktown For All, and he’s familiar with such negative sentiments. “The problem is that when you live your life in public, there is nowhere for you to go. And so we're seeing people at their absolute worst,” he said.
Jeremy Rosenprinz, a member of Ktown For All, stands outside of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Koreatown on Jan. 10. The all-volunteer group meets most Saturdays to deliver supplies to unhoused people in the neighborhood
(
Agya K. Aning
/
LAist and The LA Local
)
Academic research shows that some people believe their unhoused neighbors deserve to suffer, and a 2024 study in Los Angeles County provides a glimpse into their struggles: 32% of homeless respondents said they experienced discrimination daily in the past month, while 16% said they had experienced violence. To be clear, these kinds of indignities can come from other unhoused people. They also come from housed individuals who’ve slashed tents and thrown their possessions into dumpsters.
“Being unhoused — it's like exile, basically,” Rosenprinz said. “When people are marginalized and demonized in the media and by our government, then it sets off a certain type of person who thinks that, 'Oh, like, maybe I'm even doing a community service to do violence against these people,'” he said.
“I think there's entire portions of the population who do not see the unhoused or people living in poverty as human beings,” said Soma Snakeoil, the co-founder and executive director of The Sidewalk Project, a street-based harm reduction organization.
Snakeoil co-founded the group in 2017. It’s led by and lends aid to unhoused, drug-using, sexual assault survivor, and sex worker populations. The Sidewalk Project operates a drop-in center on the southern edge of Skid Row, where there’s always someone standing watch behind a heavy rolling gate. With its cozy couches and multi-colored murals, the interior resembles an easygoing hostel. It serves as a haven for cisgender and trans women, offering them meals, hygiene kits, self-defense classes and a place to simply rest.
The Sidewalk Project helped Reilly, who was previously unhoused and preferred not to give her first name, get housing in 2021. They brought her on as an employee the year before that, and as the group’s community ambassador her roles include harm-reduction outreach, wound care, and violence interruption.
Reilly said she left an abusive household in the 1980s and made her way as a sex worker, living out of various hotels. She’s been attacked numerous times, she said, including a drive-by pellet gun shooting to her ankle that required 106 stitches. From the 15 intermittent years Reilly spent unhoused, she said she’s known several dozen unhoused people who’ve been shot and killed.
“If they have this need or desire to kill people, then this is the place to come,” Reilly said. “Because we're expendable.”
Reilly, who was formerly unhoused, stands before a mural at The Sidewalk Project, a drop-in shelter for unhoused cisgender and trans women in Skid Row on Jan. 9. The organization brought her on as its community ambassador and helped her get housing.
(
Agya K. Aning
/
LAist and The LA Local
)
Gang threats in encampments
The Union Rescue Mission is a shelter that operates a faith-based recovery program in Skid Row. Men and women receive aid there in various forms, including detox, therapy, parenting classes, vocational training, and help finding housing.
Andy Bales watched the population of Skid Row rise dramatically during his 20-year tenure, which ended in 2023. Over the years, he said he witnessed countless acts of violence, including being within earshot of a fatal shooting. He said he also saw gangs set people’s tents on fire for crossing them or failing to pay debts.
“Skid Row is the worst man-made disaster in the US,” Bales said.
A great deal of being unhoused revolves around simply staying safe, so those living outside often band together to look after one another. However, homeless encampments can be ripe for violence and exploitation, including being used as cover for drug-dealing operations.
Detective Sadeh said “a lot” of the violence he’s seen was related to the drug trade, including gangs who wanted unhoused drug users to buy from them exclusively.
Eunisses Hernandez, a City Council member representing parts of Los Angeles with large unhoused populations, said she’s aware of violence in and around encampments.
“I have certain encampments where there's regular [gang] shootings,” Hernandez said.
Identifying the exact degree of gang involvement in these crimes is difficult. In 2020, the LAPD withdrew from CalGang, a statewide database used to track gang affiliations, after an internal audit found that officers were falsifying records. Other law enforcement agencies in the state are still prohibited from using records generated by the LAPD, which made up about a quarter of the data.
Court records show that assumed rival gang affiliations can be a significant factor in violence against unhoused people.
On a late night in early 2018, two members of the Avenues gang were out looking for rivals and eventually made their way to a homeless encampment in Montecito Heights. They entered a tent where they found Daniel Duarte and Douglas Garido. The intruders asked the two men where they were from, meaning, What gang do you belong to? Duarte said he was from Pasadena, and Garido said he had no affiliations. Suddenly, one of the men shot Duarte, 31, in the back of the head. He died at the scene, while Garido, 34, was shot twice and survived. According to court records, neither of them belonged to any gang.
A year later, Bradley Hanaway was sleeping under bleachers in North Hollywood when three members of MS-13 approached him, asking to see his tattoos. Mistaking one for the symbol of a rival clique, court records state, one member shot Hanaway almost instantly, killing him. He was 34 years old.
Guns on the street
California’s gun laws, long considered the country’s strongest, require proof of residency to legally own a firearm — a difficult task for anyone living on the streets of L.A. Further, federal law prohibits gun possession for anyone convicted of a felony or involuntarily committed to an institution for a mental disorder or severe substance use. During the city’s 2025 point-in-time count — an annual tally of unsheltered people — 26% reported having a serious mental disorder, while 30% said they had a substance abuse disorder.
Still, there are plenty of ways to obtain a firearm illegally, such as stealing, bringing them in from states with less restrictive gun laws, and straw purchasing, which involves buying a gun on someone else’s behalf.
“Everybody has a gun, mostly people who are not supposed to have guns,” Detective Sadeh said. “They’re out there, they are easily obtained, and they change hands very quickly.”
From 2015 through 2025, the LAPD seized more than 80,000 illegal firearms, according to its annual crime report. Last year, it recovered 8,650, over a thousand more than in 2024. The department has reportedly recovered guns from encampments, among other locations.
Sadeh said that ghost guns — untraceable firearms manufactured at home, assembled from kits or some combination of both — are also prevalent in the city. Last year, the LAPD recovered 876 of them, down from a peak of 1,921 in 2021.
LAist and The LA Local spoke to an unhoused woman living in Koreatown, who said that gun ownership among people on the streets was common in her neighborhood.
“On this street alone, on the average, there's four or five guns, right here from that block to that block,” said the 57-year-old woman, who said she was an Army veteran and former police officer. She said there were gunshots almost every night, mostly coming from gang activity.
“Between Alvarado [Street] and Vermont [Avenue], what, there’s four active gangs right here? Well, five if you include LAPD,” she said.
The veteran, who wasn’t comfortable giving her name, already knows her way around firearms.
“Even though we're not supposed to [have guns],” she said, “I'm considering one, ya know?”
Zackery "Turdle" Melton was shot and killed in Venice in April 2025.
(
Courtesy Melton's family
/
The LA Local
)
Solving the murders
On April 2, 2025, Zackery Melton, 28, was shot and killed in Venice while defending a friend from her abuser in Westminster Dog Park. Melton, known to most as “Turdle,” was unhoused and beloved by the wider Venice community.
Melton’s heroism apparently made quite the impression: His father, Mark Melton, said detectives told him they were going to solve his son’s case because he was “one of us.”
Detectives spent more than five weeks tracking down Melton’s killer. LAPD arrested Tyrone Jones, 46, on May 9, 2025. Just over a year later, at the end of a 16-day jury trial, Jones was convicted of first-degree murder and seven other charges. His probation and sentencing hearing is June 18.
Given that about half of the fatal shootings in our data went unsolved, the response to Melton’s death appears to be an exceptional one.
Coming soon: Melton’s story in Part 2
Unhoused Angelenos say getting justice in general, much less for serious crimes, is difficult. Their personal anecdotes about interacting with the LAPD often include being ignored, not believed, disrespected or treated like a criminal.
Current LAPD detectives and Wenninger, the former lieutenant, said that unhoused people’s reluctance to come forward can make it difficult to solve their murders. They also pointed to staying in touch with unhoused people throughout the legal process, which can take months or years, as another complication. These factors may partially explain why the department’s clearance rate of fatal shootings of unhoused people can be substantially lower than that of housed victims — but only partially.
Wenninger said that officers would sometimes treat unhoused people as a nuisance, wishing not to interact with them because of their lack of cleanliness. Some also didn’t see the point in helping unhoused people.
“The department answer is that ‘every life matters,’” he said. “But in reality there's a finite amount of resources, and determinations have to be made on where those resources are going to be spent.”
Learn more about data collection
Dr. Odey C. Okpu, the Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner, said his office was the first to notice a pattern of three unhoused shooting victims killed in quick succession in November 2023.
“We alerted law enforcement and said, ‘I know you guys don't share these cases because they all happen in various jurisdictions,’” Okpu said. “But this pattern is peculiar, that it’s unhoused folks in their tents, just sleeping, apparently.”
Beverly Hills Police arrested Jerrid Joseph Powell the following month. He has pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder, and his case is ongoing.
In this case, the attention paid to the victims’ housing status helped identify the alleged shooter. However, not all law enforcement agencies, medical examiners, and coroners record the housing status of the dead. This leaves a patchwork of death records collection across the country. Advocates say anti-homeless violence is on the rise nationally, but the lack of data obscures its true extent.
The LAPD is perhaps the only major municipal police force that tracks the housing status of all suspected criminals and victims. The department also makes this data available publicly, but our investigation has raised questions about its reliability.
In 2024, the LAPD began using the National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS, the FBI’s preferred method of crime data collection. Our analysis of department data shows a 100% arrest rate of those who shot and killed unhoused people in 2024 and 2025. In 2023, the department made arrests in fewer than half of such cases.
The LAPD did not return a request for comment about this significant change in arrest rate.
Donald Whitehead, the leader of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said his organization has raised the issue of data collection with the federal government on multiple occasions.
“We have limited resources, and so we do our absolute best, but we could certainly benefit from the Justice Department taking a harder look at these issues,” he said.
When investigating homicides with unhoused victims, Wenninger said officers would sometimes say “no human involved.” The infamous phrase came to light during the Rodney King saga of the early ‘90s, when transcripts of chatter between LAPD officers revealed that they used the shorthand “N.H.I.” to refer to crimes with both Black victims and perpetrators. It’s been used for crimes involving sex workers as well.
Espinoza, the LAPD homeless coordinator, said she had never heard of that phrase. “And if somebody ever did say that, then they would be held accountable.”
She said the department takes all crime victims seriously.
“We provide the best service, whether the person lives in an affluent area, or whether it's someone that lives in Skid Row,” Espinoza said.
Wenninger also remembers LAPD officers questioning why they should care about delivering justice for unhoused victims if their families don’t care.
Karen Webb, Melton’s mother, has heard such comments many times. “And every time, it stabbed me in the heart,” she said. “Like, he was 28. What was I supposed to do?”
After his death, she reached out to the press and took to social media, commenting under numerous and sparse local news stories about her boy.
“I had to change that narrative,” Webb said, “because though he was homeless, he was so much more than just that.”
A man casts his ballot during early voting in Waukesha, Wis., on March 18.
(
Miguel Gutierrez Jr.
/
AFP via Getty Images
)
Topline:
More than 4 in 10 names flagged as possible noncitizen voters in California by the Trump administration cannot be found on the state’s voter rolls, according to a legal filing Saturday by an immigrant-rights group.
Why it matters: It’s the first outside analysis of a list that the Department of Justice has used to threaten prosecution of election officials. The analysis also found that thousands of U.S. citizens appear to be flagged as ineligible to vote on the government’s list.
Why now: The contention was made in a filing by two data analysts at the University of California, Los Angeles. The breadth of the problems with the list was outlined in Saturday’s filing. It describes an analysis by two members of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, who filed a lawsuit challenging it with the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 4 in 10 names flagged as possible noncitizen voters in California by the Trump administration cannot be found on the state’s voter rolls, according to a legal filing Saturday by an immigrant-rights group.
It’s the first outside analysis of a list that the Department of Justice has used to threaten prosecution of election officials. The analysis also found that thousands of U.S. citizens appear to be flagged as ineligible to vote on the government’s list.
The contention was made in a filing by two data analysts at the University of California, Los Angeles. They analyzed the 20,930 names that the department demanded that California election officials treat as possible illegal voters by separating their ballots during the vote count on Election Day.
Multiple judges have rejected the demand as unconstitutional and a threat to democracy, and local and state officials have said the list appears riddled with errors.
Court filing outlines problems with government list
The breadth of the problems with the list was outlined in Saturday’s filing. It describes an analysis by two members of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, who filed a lawsuit challenging it with the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA.
The research found that 8,880 of the names, representing 42% of the entire list, do not correspond to anyone in California’s current voter file. It also found at least 22 are U.S. citizens, and many more may correspond to those of confirmed citizens.
“The expert analysis further makes clear that the mandated voter list endangers a significant number of eligible California voters,” said the filing, which was cosigned by Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate for California governor and an adviser to the UCLA Voting Rights Project. null
The Trump administration had objected to sharing the list, calling it a “fishing expedition” and noting that it included sensitive information. On Saturday, the federal prosecutor who spearheaded the Trump case in California called the analysis “bogus.”
“This is a bogus report by the activist illegal immigrant rights group CHIRLA,” Bill Essayli, who runs the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, posted on X.
Also on Saturday, President Donald Trump bemoaned the legal rulings against his effort to force California to separate votes from the individuals his administration labels suspected noncitizens, even though one came from a judge he himself nominated.
In a social media post, Trump claimed his Justice Department found “20,000, but potentially Hundreds of Thousands, and maybe even Millions,” of fraudulent votes, “and the Court has just ruled against it. Why would they reject fixing Election Fraud?”
The Trump administration has also urged Washington state to remove what it says were 400 possible noncitizens on its rolls, though state election officials there say that list is also unreliable and includes one voter who cast ballots in the 1990s.
The Justice Department has warned California election officials they could face criminal liability if they let noncitizens vote and issued subpoenas to election officials there.
Election officials say they have no time to investigate
Election officials have complained that the Trump administration has confronted them with lists of possible illegal voters at the last minute before Election Day, with no time to conduct the painstaking investigation required by law before removing someone from the rolls.
Multiple lawsuits have been filed to stop the administration from continuing to threaten local election officials.
On Friday, a federal judge in California ordered the Justice Department to stop sending demands to state officials, a decision the Trump administration appealed Saturday. Several counties in the state had run quick checks of the Trump list and found numerous errors.
Saturday’s broader analysis was possible because a federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to share the list with the plaintiffs in the case.
CHIRLA and the UCLA project sued the Homeland Security Department in early October to prevent it from using federal immigration data to challenge state voter rolls. The lawsuit cited examples in other states where the federal government’s data has been proven to mistakenly include thousands of citizens.
Case argues that government’s methods pose risk to voting
The case argued that the data-matching methods risk disenfranchising or deterring citizens from voting. On top of that, plaintiffs argued, the lists could disproportionately target naturalized citizens who are legally entitled to vote.
Applying the government’s methodology, the UCLA researchers found that nearly 7,500 naturalized citizens in the state were “highly likely” to be incorrectly flagged as ineligible.
The researchers noted that the administration apparently removed the voter identification number from the names, making it harder for election officials to determine whether the flagged individuals were already on their rolls or were duplicates in the Justice Department list. They described the voter ID number as the most crucial data point.
The Justice Department argues that there is just as much to lose if the ballots aren’t separated.
“Every ballot cast by an ineligible voter cancels out the vote of an American citizen,” Kiersten V. Pels, a spokesperson for the department, wrote in an email. “The Department makes no apology for protecting those votes.”
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published November 1, 2026 5:00 AM
Jordan Delgado picked Lady Gaga's 'You and I' as her debut song with the L.A. Karaoke league.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
Topline:
The LA Karaoke league turns singing into a team sport, where costumes, props and creativity matter more than hitting the right notes. For performers craving a creative outlet when auditions are harder to come by, the league offers a community to cheer them on.
The backstory: The L.A. league is part of United Karaoke, a national network of chapters that share a competition format, voting app and pledge to always keep the vibe friendly.
What's next: Teams compete for a spot in the finals. The public is welcome to watch and vote for their favorite performances.
For many of us, karaoke is a chance to sing our favorite shower song in public.
But at a North Hollywood bar every Wednesday night, it’s a team sport. And competitors in the L.A. Karaoke league are more serious about putting on an over-the-top production than hitting all the right notes.
At a social in late September, league manager Michelle Goff kicked off a new season of weekly themed showdowns, from dance-floor favorites to internet memes to songs inspired by birds.
Brittany Gates, the CEO of United Karaoke, who was visiting from D.C., did her rendition of 'Let's Hear It For The Boy' by Deniece Williams.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
"You are going to see numbers that people came up with in their crazy dreams maybe three years ago, and it's going to be amazing,” Goff told performers at the social. “And then they’re never going to be done again.”
Michelle Goff unveils the different themed weeks, from dance-floor favorites to internet memes to songs inspired by birds.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
Performances range from solos to group numbers, and the crowd votes for its favorites. Props and costumes are highly encouraged.
Here, dark wizards from Harry Potter duet to Taylor Swift. A singer tosses flowers to the crowd while belting Seal's “Kiss From a Rose.” Once, Goff danced around as an erupting Mount Vesuvius as her teammates sang Bastille's "Pompeii."
Like intramural sports but with microphones, teams compete over six weeks, followed by two weeks of playoffs, then the finals.
It all happens at the Good Nite bar, on a darkened stretch of Burbank Boulevard. Inside, there’s an inviting purple glow and warm conversation that can be hard to come by in a city as big as L.A.
“You know, the city, exciting as it is, still has so many strangers,” said Carlos Mulia.
A newcomer to the league, the chef-turned-actor already feels like he belongs.
Want to join the L.A. Karaoke league?
Where: The Good Nite, 10721 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood.
When: Wednesday nights during the season.
How: Check the chapter’s website or @WeSingLA on Instagram for season announcements. Fall season registration is closed. The next season will start in late January or early February.
Cost: Registration costs $65 to $80, depending on when you sign up and whether you use a discount code.
Can I go watch: Yes! League nights are open to the public, with no cover charge, and anyone can vote for their favorite performances.
“Sometimes you can go to a karaoke bar and everyone’s talking and no one’s paying attention to you — that can be a downer,” he said. “But here, everyone’s contributing, everyone’s cheering for each other.”
For Mulia, the league also offers a creative outlet during Hollywood’s production slowdown, when he says opportunities to perform are scarce.
Actor Carlos Mulia said competitive karaoke gives him a creative outlet and a place to find community in a big city.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
“There’s not that many auditions," he said. "They’re far and few between, and it can really affect your psyche. So this allows you to just let it all out.”
The L.A. league started in Santa Monica in 2014 before moving among venues around the region and finding its current home at the Good Nite in 2021.
It’s part of United Karaoke, a loose national network with chapters in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Chicago. The local leagues share a competition format, voting app and a pledge to keep the vibe welcoming.
In the league, friendships spark right away. Mulia hit it off with another actor, Jordan Delgado, who teaches children art at a studio.
They quickly figured out they’re both half-Filipino and grew up with karaoke, a fixture of Filipino social life.
“It is in our blood to do karaoke,” Delgado said. “So yeah, I’m honoring my ancestors in a way by being here tonight.”
Anybody is welcome on karaoke competition nights and invited to vote for their favorite performances.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
Delgado loves to perform but says the karaoke league promises more than that.
“It’s something to look forward to in the downtime of the part-time jobs,” Delgado said. “A reason to regularly meet up with people, where we could just be silly, without any judgment.”
For her league debut, Delgado is going with a tried and true crowd-pleaser.
“My go-to song that my friends and family have heard me sing a billion times is ‘You and I’ by Lady Gaga," Delgado said. "It really gets the crowd going.”
When it’s her turn, Delgado bounds onto the tiny stage up front with a big confident smile that matches a powerful voice.
“We got a whole lot of money, but still pay rent,” Delgado sings, striding across the tiny stage to whoops and cheers.
Several weeks after her league debut, Delgado would go on to win best performer during Graveyard Week, when the league revives songs so overdone they’re normally off-limits.
Her winning number? “Shallow,” with Delgado singing both the Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper parts.
And she brought the theatrical flair. Dressed as Gaga on one side of her body and Cooper on the other, she was her own duet partner.
Keep up with LAist.
If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
By Jeremiah Dobruck | Long Beach Post, Dañiel Andres Martinez
Published October 31, 2026 1:34 PM
A sign a Rosies Dog Beach in Long Beach warn visitors of the contaminated water. Photographed at Rosie's Dog Beach on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022 in Long Beach, CA.
(
Myung J. Chun
/
Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
)
Topline:
All coastal waters in Long Beach — including beaches, lagoons and bays — remain closed Sunday, after health officials say 29,000 gallons of sewage spilled out of a mainline pipe in Belmont Shore on Friday evening.
What happened: The spill happened around 6:30 p.m. near Livingston Drive and Second Street, according to a statement from the city’s Health Department.
The latest update: City crews tried to catch as much sewage as possible before it reached drainage systems that led to the ocean, but about 14,000 gallons ultimately reached the sea, forcing Long Beach to close its coastal waters.
All coastal waters in Long Beach — including beaches, lagoons and bays — remain closed Sunday after health officials say 29,000 gallons of sewage spilled out of a mainline pipe in Belmont Shore on Friday evening.
Joy Contreras, a public information officer with Long Beach Utilities, told LAist that emergency repairs to the sewer main were completed Saturday night.
"The Utilities Department will investigate the cause of the force main break, as a break of this magnitude is extremely rare," Contreras said Sunday.
Water quality testing, Contreras said, will resume on Monday. The Long Beach Health Department, she said, will determine when swimming areas will reopen once samples meet State water quality standards.
What happened
The spill happened around 6:30 p.m. on Friday near Livingston Drive and Second Street, according to a statement from the city’s health department.
“The spill was associated with a force main break, a pressurized pipe to convey wastewater,” according to the statement. There was no word on what caused the break.
Long Beach Utilities stopped the spill by rerouting sewage to bypass the line.
City crews tried to catch as much of the sewage as possible before it reached drainage systems that led to the ocean, but about 14,000 gallons ultimately reached the sea, forcing Long Beach to close its coastal waters.
History of sewage spills
Long Beach is no stranger to beach closures because of sewage spills, but it most commonly happens when sewage flows down the Los Angeles or San Gabriel rivers from upstream cities. Over one recent five-year span, local beaches were closed for 63 days because of upstream spills.
State law requires the closures any time sewage makes its way to the coast until testing shows the water meets quality standards. These rigorous rules don’t hold true for all types of spills.
