Multiple trees sawed down in downtown LA, officials say

Several trees lining the sidewalks in downtown Los Angeles were sawed down over the weekend in an incident the mayor’s office described as “truly beyond comprehension.”

A spokesperson for LAPD said they have footage of a person cutting the trees with a power saw and are investigating what happened.

What we know

An LAist reporter visited the area Monday morning and counted six spots where trees had been damaged. Some of the fallen trees appeared to have already been cleared by city crews and two remained on the ground when LAist visited locations first reported by the Instagram account DTLA Insider.

We saw signs of tree damage at the following intersections:

• Olympic Boulevard and Figueroa Street
• South Grand Avenue and 5th Street
• South Grand Avenue and West 3rd Street
• Olympic Boulevard and Hope Street

A tree lays on the sidewalk at the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Hope Street in Los Angeles, April 21, 2025.

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Kavish Harjai / LAist

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It’s unclear whether trees at other locations were also affected.

An LAPD spokesperson told LAist the department has reviewed footage showing a suspect at 1:30 a.m. Saturday “cutting the trees and riding off on a bicycle.” The suspect was wearing dark clothing, according to the spokesperson.

LAPD did not agree to share the footage with LAist or confirm the location from which the footage originates.

The city’s response so far

Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, described the incident as “truly beyond comprehension.”

“City public works crews are assessing the damage and we will be making plans to quickly replace these damaged trees,” Seidl said in the statement on Sunday.

Most of the reported damage occurred in the City Council district represented by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado. Her office told LAist that it’s aware of the “illegal tree cutting” and thanked the community for reporting the incident.

“This [is] exactly what co-governance in action looks like,” the statement said.

StreetsLA, the public works department that manages trees in the public right-of-way, did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

What DTLA residents are saying

Leslie Ridings, a cofounder of the Downtown Los Angeles Residents Association, said he noticed the locations of the reported damage are on quieter streets adjacent to more populated areas of downtown.

The intersection of Figueroa Street and Olympic Boulevard on April 21, 2025.

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Kavish Harjai / LAist

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“This person chose to cut down trees in areas where those trees would be noticed,” Ridings said. “That’s the only thing that I’ve been able to put together.”

Ridings said losing the trees was especially upsetting because he and other community members have worked with the downtown L.A. neighborhood council to plant more of them in the area — an involved process that requires obtaining permits and coordinating with several city agencies.

“It is very demoralizing to have somebody come in and wantonly destroy what little we have of something,” Ridings said.

Teresa Y. Hillery has been a resident of Southpark, a commercial district in downtown L.A., for 20 years and lives near one of the fallen trees on Figueroa Street across from L.A. Live..

“To have this random act of violence is heartbreaking and infuriating,” Hillery said.

Hillery said she’s trying to wrap her head around what would compel someone to cut down the trees.

“The trees represent strength, resilience, character,” Hillery said. “These are all [qualities that] downtown stands for.”

After trees cut, social media posts took off

Hillery said she first saw the photos from DTLA Insider, an Instagram account that collected photos from residents of the damaged trees. The subreddit dedicated to Los Angeles was similarly engaged with the incident. One post on the website has garnered nearly 1,000 comments as of Monday afternoon.

“The community is saying … that this will not be tolerated,” Hillery said about the response to the incident. “It was, to me, an affirmation to our commitment to downtown.”