Who approved arresting people for using drugs at MacArthur Park? Bass and feds disagree

In a February 2026 interview, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass drew a clear line on drug enforcement around MacArthur Park: The city's focus would be on traffickers, not people who were in the park to use drugs.

On June 4, 2026, LAPD officers, working with federal agents, started arresting people in the park for being under the influence, drinking or carrying bulky items. Two days later, at a World Cup watch party in the park, I asked Bass whether she had approved the shift. She told me she had not.

A federal prosecutor who oversaw the operation said she did

Los Angeles Police Department officers stand near two handcuffed men in MacArthur Park on June 4, 2026.

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Jordan Rynning

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LAist

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Police officers and federal agents gather at MacArthur Park on June 4, 2026.

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LAist

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Law enforcement officials watch as LAPD officers and federal agents sweep through the park to arrest drug users on June 4, 2026.

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Jordan Rynning

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LAist

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Law enforcement officers and officials observe during a drug enforcement operation on June 4, 2026.

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Jordan Rynning

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Other members of the Southern California Drug Task Force joined the LAPD for a joint drug enforcement operation on June 4, 2026.

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From left, L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli and DEA Special Agent in Charge Anthony Chrysanthis speak at a press conference after a drug enforcement operation on June 4, 2026.

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First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli and L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman were at the park as the arrests were being made. They told reporters on the scene this was a new stage of operations following the arrests of alleged 18th Street gang leaders and drug distributors.

“This is our third phase of this operation,” Essayli said. “Phase three will be a consistent law enforcement presence in the park to enforce state law, which prohibits people from being under the influence of narcotics and possessing drugs with the intent to use them.”

Hochman said people who were in the park to use drugs would still get assistance with substance use treatment, mental health care or housing. But he said that by bringing demand for drugs to the park, buyers were enabling the illicit trade and turning the park into a “cemetery.”

“If there's no one demanding drugs in the park,” Hochman said, “the suppliers have nowhere to go.”

That framing — that law enforcement would be cracking down on drug use — was a departure from what Bass had told me four months earlier.

In February 2026, I asked Bass about the city's strategy at MacArthur Park. She was direct.

“There is a difference between drug use and drug sales and trafficking,” she told me. “My focus is not on the users, but what I want to do with the users is provide more access to drug treatment programs.”

Enforcement that made a difference, she said, needed to focus on people “trafficking girls,” drugs and stolen goods.

“You can arrest somebody who is under the influence,” she said. “That's not going to go anywhere.”

On June 4, the LAPD arrested people who were under the influence.

On the ground in the park that week, some people told me arresting drug users didn’t seem to change much.

“This park's always gonna be like this, man …” one man, who asked to be identified only as Don't-do-dat, told me. ”We had the DEA and all that raid. Man, that's just for a little while. [People using fentanyl are] gonna be out here again the next day.”

A man who goes by Don't-do-dat sits on a bench in MacArthur Park on June 15, 2026.

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Jordan Rynning

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LAist

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Others welcomed the new enforcement.

“A lot of the people here in the community were happy that there was operations here,” Elaine Alaniz, president of the Westlake North Neighborhood Council, said. “It was temporary, but we got to see, actually, families at the bus stops with their kids — before it wasn’t like that.”

A student at a nearby high school said she doesn’t use the park because she doesn’t feel safe in the area.

“Going outside is pretty scary for me and for my family, because we just see a lot of [people using drugs] and everything going around,” she told me. “I would like to see more kids and families able to just walk around here freely.”

Local and federal agencies conducted two more operations near the park by the end of June, arresting people who were dealing or using drugs.

'That is not coming from the city'

Two days after the June 4 sweep, I asked Bass whether she had approved the targeted arrests of people using drugs.

She was at the park for a World Cup watch party. Federal and county prosecutors had said, on the record and in front of me, that this was a coordinated operation with the mayor's support.

“I've personally spoken with Mayor Bass,” Essayli had told reporters in the park on June 4. “She supports this operation, and LAPD would not be here without her support.”

Bass told me something different.

“That is not coming from the city,” she said about targeting drug users. “I'm sure that you're aware of that. That's coming from the federal government.”

I asked the mayor's office to clarify her remarks, which appeared to contradict what Essayli had said and what I had seen in the park. A spokesperson replied by email that the office would not comment on law enforcement operations, but that “Mayor Bass has directed the LAPD to utilize every resource available to stop the flow of narcotics and stolen merchandise in the park and surrounding area.”

The statement called on L.A. County to increase services in the area.

“Because the State and County — not the City — are responsible for providing mental health and drug treatment services, they must increase funding for treatment facilities and recovery services to stop the revolving door between jail and our parks,” the statement said.

I reached out to County Supervisor Hilda Solis for comment. Solis said the county has expanded services for behavioral health care, substance use treatment and housing in the MacArthur Park area.

“Through these ongoing efforts,” Solis said in an emailed statement, “over 3,000 lives were saved since 2023, and more than 750 were linked to treatment and medication.”

An earlier statement from Bass' office, sent when I first asked whether the city's stance had shifted on the LAPD targeting drug users, did not address the question directly. It said the office would not comment on law enforcement investigations, but that “the park is no place for drug use and criminal activity of any kind.”

“After decades of failures from City Hall, Mayor Bass is leading the way to restore MacArthur Park to families,” the spokesperson wrote.

What remains unresolved: LAPD officers made the arrests. A federal prosecutor watching on said Bass approved. Bass told me she did not.

What happened to those who were arrested?

Over the weeks following the June 4 operation, I asked the district attorney and city attorney's offices whether charges had been filed for the arrests and citations made that day or in similar sweeps that followed. Both offices said they had not been presented with any such cases from the LAPD.

The LAPD did not respond to my request for identifying information about those arrested — information the prosecutors' offices need to search their records and determine whether any of those arrested or cited were placed in diversionary treatment programs.

So the question of what the June 4 arrests actually accomplished — whether they routed people into the treatment Bass said she wanted for users, or moved them somewhere else in the neighborhood — cannot yet be answered from the public record.

What is clear, however, is that the focus on arresting people using drugs in the park wasn’t permanent.

By August, an LAPD officer told the MacArthur Park Neighborhood Council during an online meeting that they would not see any more joint operations between the police department, the DEA and other law enforcement agencies in the park.

The LAPD was transitioning to a final phase of operations, connecting people dependent on drugs in and around MacArthur Park with services while continuing to target suspected drug dealers.

I spoke with LAPD Capt. Ben Fernandes during a town hall on Oct. 13 to get his perspective on what had happened during the June 4 operation.

Fernandes leads the Rampart Division and was on the scene that day.

“The mayor's our boss,” Fernandes said. “But we're peace officers, and we follow the law — and we follow what the chief of police tells us.”

He told me the department tries to follow the mayor’s requests, but that they are “duty-bound” to arrest people when they see them breaking the law.

“I wouldn't say that there was any conflict [with the mayor] there at all,” Fernandes told me. “I would say that we worked with our federal partners and went out and took bad actors to jail, and some of them are going to prison.”

Bass had a different perspective when asked during a DTLA Residents Association forum on Oct. 15 whether she would instruct LAPD to cite or arrest people using drugs in public.

“When LAPD does that, they don't arrest anybody — it's a cite and release,” Bass said. “They don't even get in the car, so I think it's fake. I think what is real is holding people accountable for their drug use.”

Bass said she supports drug court, where some people arrested on nonviolent felony drug charges can have their cases dismissed if they agree to go to supervised recovery programs.

“You can go into treatment or you take a stint in jail,” Bass said.

L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, Bass’ opponent in the race for L.A. mayor, answered the same question by saying she would “direct LAPD to enforce the laws, and they are welcome to enforce the laws however they see fit.”