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Long before he had a $15-million bounty on his head as the leader of Mexico’s ruthless Jalisco New Generation cartel, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes was a scruffy-haired kid trying to eke out a living on the streets of San Francisco.
He crossed the border illegally sometime before he turned 20, making the migrant’s journey north from the avocado and lime orchards that surround his family’s small town in the state of Michoacán. He was picked up first on meth charges on May 14, 1986, according to news reports and a San Francisco police booking photo, which shows him in a blue hoodie scowling into the camera. He was arrested twice more, finally for selling $9,500 worth of heroin to two undercover officers at a bar in 1992.
He went to prison, got deported and, despite his record, became a local police officer back home.
So began the criminal career of one of the most infamous figures in the world of international drug trafficking. It ended in spectacular and violent fashion Sunday, with Mexican authorities announcing that the kingpin nicknamed “El Mencho” had been killed in a shootout with government forces in Jalisco, the state his group, known as the CJNG, has long dominated.
The killing unleashed shock waves of violence across the swaths of Mexico where the CJNG holds sway. Flights into some Jalisco airports were grounded and cartel gunmen blockaded highways by setting fire to vehicles in 20 states, according to Mexican authorities. The country’s top security official said 25 members of the National Guard were killed Sunday in reprisal attacks. President Claudia Sheinbaum called on the public to remain calm and maintained that most territory in the country was in a state of “complete normality.”
The discord between the president’s remarks and the images circulating on social media of torched cars billowing dark plumes of smoke — along with swirling rumors over the degree of U.S. involvement in the operation — has added a murky coda to Oseguera’s violent and tumultuous life. He rose from small-time California drug peddler to the head of an organized crime group with tentacles that stretch around the globe, an ascension that tracks with the broader evolution of Mexico’s cartels.
Oseguera, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, is shown with his son Ruben Oseguera Gonzalez, known as El Menchito, in an evidence photo used by federal prosecutors.
(U.S. District Court)
Once almost solely dedicated to moving illicit substances to meet the demand of American consumers, the groups have diversified their business to include human smuggling, extortion, fuel theft and even, according to recent U.S. Treasury Department filings against the CJNG, a timeshare fraud scheme that targeted tourists in Puerto Vallarta.
The narco-blockades that have upended life in parts of Mexico since Sunday also reflect the CJNG’s fearsome power as a paramilitary organization. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration estimated in 2023 that the cartel employs nearly 20,000 “members, associates, facilitators and brokers” in various countries. Cells in Mexico are armed to the teeth with military-grade weaponry, including drones that drop explosives, improvised land mines and .50-caliber rifles that fire carrot-sized armor-piercing bullets. The Trump administration designated the CJNG as a terrorist group last year, escalating the pressure that U.S. officials have long exerted on Mexican authorities to dismantle the group and take out its founder.
Although experts said his death was a major blow to the CJNG, they also cautioned that Oseguera’s creation has metastasized beyond the point where decapitating the primary head will cause the hydra-like infrastructure to collapse.
Paul Craine, the former head of the DEA in Mexico, said Oseguera pioneered a sort of franchise system, where local criminal groups are co-opted and allowed to fly the CJNG banner — as long as they pay tribute.
With various factions controlled by key lieutenants, some of them close relatives, Oseguera’s moniker has been invoked to instill terror and keep subordinates in line, Craine said. The group — accused of assassinating politicians, journalists, environmental activists, police officers and anyone else who dares stand in their way — has frequently issued menacing communiques, usually delivered by masked gunmen who say they are speaking on behalf of El Mencho.
“Mencho’s name and Mencho’s aura carried a lot of legend, it sowed fear,” Craine said. “He was the end-all, be-all figurehead.”
Oseguera’s connections to California extend beyond his early days in the Bay Area. The DEA’s office in Los Angeles has led the agency’s case against him and his close relatives, and the family’s ties to the region have spilled out in court filings.
In 2024, federal authorities arrested a suspected high-ranking cartel member who was accused of faking his death and hiding out in Riverside, where he enjoyed a life of luxury. Authorities said Cristian Fernando Gutierrez-Ochoa began working for the CJNG around 2014, and later married El Mencho’s youngest daughter, identified in court records as a U.S. citizen who owns a coffee shop in Riverside. Gutierrez-Ochoa pleaded guilty last year to money laundering conspiracy charges and was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison.
It’s unclear exactly when Oseguera left his job as a local police officer and continued his life of crime, but at some point in the 1990s, Mexican authorities have said he began working as an enforcer for Los Cuinis and what was then known as the Milenio cartel. He gained a reputation for his love of cockfights, also calling himself “El Señor de Los Gallos” — the lord of the roosters.
Pedestrians walk past a bus burned on the highway in Cointzio, Michoacán, on Sunday after Mexico’s president announced the death of Oseguera.
(Armando Solis / Associated Press)
A former cartel associate, Margarito “Jay” Flores, who grew up in Chicago and, along with his twin brother, Pedro, became a high-level trafficker moving large drug shipments from Mexico, recalled his first encounter with El Mencho in 2007 in Puerto Vallarta. Flores, who eventually left the cartel life and has since cooperated extensively with U.S. authorities, told The Times that he and his brother, along with their wives, were detained by Mexican federal police officers after a night out partying.
Flores said he dropped the names of several top capos trying to secure his release, but it wasn’t until he mentioned knowing El Mencho that his captors showed any reaction.
“When I said that name, all their eyes lit up,” Flores said.
Flores said that after a series of phone calls, El Mencho and a large contingent of cartel gunmen arrived and ordered the Mexican authorities to release their captives. Oseguera was small — standing barely 5 feet 6 with “the build of a jockey,” Flores said, but “confident and fearless.”
In a brief standoff with Mexican law enforcement, Flores said, Oseguera had told the chief Mexican official: “We’re all going to do this the right way, or we’re all going to die.”
The twins were released, and Oseguera sent them on their way with a convoy of sicarios — hitmen — for safekeeping. At that time he was only a local chieftain, but Flores said was not surprised that Oseguera later went on to form his own cartel.
“He ruled with violence and fear,” Flores said. “He didn’t just want to be the boss, he wanted the world to know he was the boss.”
Times staff writers Kate Linthicum and Patrick McDonnell contributed to this report.
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Keegan Hamilton
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The Justice Department failed to black out identifying information about many of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims and redacted the details of individuals who may have aided the convicted sex offender, prompting an outcry from survivors who accuse DOJ of botching the release of more than 3 million documents last week.A CNN review of the Epstein documents identified several examples of people whose identities were blacked out possibly helping to connect him with women, including redacted co-conspirators in a much-anticipated draft indictment of Epstein from the 2000s.A redacted individual wrote in one 2015 email to Epstein: “And this one is (i think) totally your girl.”In another 2014 email in the files, a person wrote to Epstein: “Thank you for a fun night… Your littlest girl was a little naughty.” But the name of the individual who wrote that message is redacted.The Department of Justice on Friday released what it said was the last of the Epstein files that it was required to disclose by law, but the documents have prompted widespread outcry about a continued lack of transparency and justice for Epstein’s many survivors.Epstein survivors are up in arms about the mishandled redactions, including blacked out statements that victims made to the FBI.A DOJ official said in a statement that any fully redacted names are of victims. “In many instances, as it has been well documented publicly, those who were originally victims became participants and co-conspirators,” the official said. “We did not redact any names of men, only female victims.”FBI and law enforcement names were also redacted, the DOJ official said.Meanwhile, the Justice Department has been scrambling to fix the improper disclosure of victim information.The Justice Department narrowly avoided a hearing in federal court on Wednesday by reaching an agreement late Tuesday with lawyers for some of the Epstein survivors, who had accused DOJ of releasing information about nearly 100 Epstein victims in the files.Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged Monday that “mistakes were made” but argued that DOJ has moved expeditiously to correct any information unintentionally released.For Epstein survivors, the DOJ’s response is unacceptable.“To have pieces of my life be out there on display in that way, was really troublesome,” said Dani Bensky, who told CNN in a roundtable with Epstein survivors that her name, address and phone number were all initially in the files.“And I know that I’m public now, yes, it hurts me — but it really hurts our survivor sisters who are still ‘Jane Does’ even more,” she added.The furor over what is and isn’t included in the Epstein documents highlights how the department’s release of more than 3 million documents on Friday is hardly the end of the fight over the Epstein files — even as both Blanche and President Donald Trump have said they think it’s time to move on.Congress forced the disclosure of the Epstein documents after passing the Epstein Files Transparency Act last November over Trump’s initial objections. But the bipartisan group of lawmakers who pushed for the law’s passage say there are still millions of files that have not been released, which the DOJ argued fell within exceptions to the law not requiring their disclosure.Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who led the effort to release the files, have asked to view the unredacted files — and are still threatening Attorney General Pam Bondi with impeachment or contempt for failing to comply with the law if more are not disclosed.“The DOJ has protected the Epstein class with blanket redactions in some areas while failing to protect the identities of survivors in other areas,” Khanna said in a statement to CNN. “Congress cannot properly assess DOJ’s handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases without access to the complete record.”‘There’s no reason to redact it’The documents released on Friday include the names of numerous high-profile men who interacted with Epstein — who died by suicide in 2019 awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges — a list that included Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and the former Prince Andrew, among many others. All have denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein and have never been charged by law enforcement with any crimes.But Epstein survivors say the files appear to shield those who specifically enabled the convicted sex offender’s abuse, as well as other men who may have been named in the survivors’ statements that were completely redacted.One Epstein survivor pointed to another FBI form contained in the files where full pages were blacked out.“It basically outlines everything that this person experienced and shared with the FBI. It was seven pages long and four of them looked like this,” Jess Michaels told CNN in an interview. “What happened to her and who did it is also redacted. So you cannot say in the same sentence: ‘There were no men, there was no list’ and redact this much of a statement. Because if there’s no men, then there’s no reason to redact it. There’s no other reason.”One of the most anticipated documents in the files was the controversial draft indictment from the Southern District of Florida from the 2000s, which would have charged Epstein, along with three others, who were described as having been “employed” by Epstein.The individuals are all described as having conspired to “persuade, induce, and entice individuals who had not attained the age of 18 years to engage in prostitution.” But their names are redacted.The files also include numerous email exchanges with Epstein that appear to describe the procurement of women.A redacted individual from a Paris modeling agency wrote in a 2013 email to Epstein: “New Brazilian just arrived, sexy and cute, 19yo .”The email appears in the files twice: In one version, the modeling agency’s name is redacted, but in another, the agency is not redacted from the sender’s email signature.In a 2018 email to Epstein, another redacted individual wrote: “I found at least 3 very good young poor.”“Meet this one,” the person continued. “Not the beauty queen but we both likes her a lot.”In a letter to Congress on Friday, the Justice Department detailed how it made redactions, saying it complied with the law by redacting victim information, child sex abuse materials and anything that would jeopardize an active investigation.DOJ also withheld 200,000 pages “covered by various privileges, including deliberative process privilege, the work-product doctrine, and attorney-client privilege,” according to the letter.At his press conference last Friday announcing the release of the files, Blanche said they did not contain information about evidence that would lead to the prosecution of any men who abused women.“I said this earlier, there’s this built-in assumption that somehow there’s this hidden tranche of information of men that we know about that we’re covering up or that we’re choosing not to prosecute. That is not the case,” Blanche said. “I don’t know whether there are men out there that abuse these women.”Scrambling to scrub filesIn the hours after Friday’s DOJ release, CNN reported that multiple survivors, including anonymous “Jane Doe” victims, were seeing their names and information throughout the documents that were published.Attorneys for some of the survivors sent a letter saying the DOJ’s failure to properly redact victims’ information had triggered an “unfolding emergency,” asking two federal judges in New York for an “immediate judicial intervention.”Sunday’s letter included testimony from various anonymous “Jane Doe” victims who described receiving death threats and harassment from the media since the publication of the files.“When DOJ believed it was ready to publish, it needed only to type each victim’s name into its own search function. Any resulting hit should have been redacted before publication. Had DOJ done that, the harm would have been avoided,” the lawyers wrote.DOJ said in a response filed to the judges that it had removed all documents that victims or their lawyers identified, and a Justice Department spokesperson had said it had 500 reviewers looking at the files “for this very reason.”“Mistakes were made by – you have really hard-working lawyers that worked for the past 60 days. Think about this though: you’re talking about pieces of paper that stack from the ground to two Eiffel Towers,” Blanche said Monday on Fox News. “The minute that a victim or their lawyer reached out to us since Friday, we immediately dealt with it and pulled it down.”Epstein’s survivors say the release of names, even if corrected, is yet another example of how the Justice Department failed them.“Publishing images of victims while shielding predators is just a failure of complete justice,” Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard told CNN. “There’s this deep sense of betrayal when the systems meant to protect you becomes the one causing all of this harm.”
The Justice Department failed to black out identifying information about many of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims and redacted the details of individuals who may have aided the convicted sex offender, prompting an outcry from survivors who accuse DOJ of botching the release of more than 3 million documents last week.
A CNN review of the Epstein documents identified several examples of people whose identities were blacked out possibly helping to connect him with women, including redacted co-conspirators in a much-anticipated draft indictment of Epstein from the 2000s.
A redacted individual wrote in one 2015 email to Epstein: “And this one is (i think) totally your girl.”
In another 2014 email in the files, a person wrote to Epstein: “Thank you for a fun night… Your littlest girl was a little naughty.” But the name of the individual who wrote that message is redacted.
The Department of Justice on Friday released what it said was the last of the Epstein files that it was required to disclose by law, but the documents have prompted widespread outcry about a continued lack of transparency and justice for Epstein’s many survivors.
Epstein survivors are up in arms about the mishandled redactions, including blacked out statements that victims made to the FBI.
A DOJ official said in a statement that any fully redacted names are of victims. “In many instances, as it has been well documented publicly, those who were originally victims became participants and co-conspirators,” the official said. “We did not redact any names of men, only female victims.”
FBI and law enforcement names were also redacted, the DOJ official said.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department has been scrambling to fix the improper disclosure of victim information.
The Justice Department narrowly avoided a hearing in federal court on Wednesday by reaching an agreement late Tuesday with lawyers for some of the Epstein survivors, who had accused DOJ of releasing information about nearly 100 Epstein victims in the files.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged Monday that “mistakes were made” but argued that DOJ has moved expeditiously to correct any information unintentionally released.
For Epstein survivors, the DOJ’s response is unacceptable.
“To have pieces of my life be out there on display in that way, was really troublesome,” said Dani Bensky, who told CNN in a roundtable with Epstein survivors that her name, address and phone number were all initially in the files.
“And I know that I’m public now, yes, it hurts me — but it really hurts our survivor sisters who are still ‘Jane Does’ even more,” she added.
The furor over what is and isn’t included in the Epstein documents highlights how the department’s release of more than 3 million documents on Friday is hardly the end of the fight over the Epstein files — even as both Blanche and President Donald Trump have said they think it’s time to move on.
Congress forced the disclosure of the Epstein documents after passing the Epstein Files Transparency Act last November over Trump’s initial objections. But the bipartisan group of lawmakers who pushed for the law’s passage say there are still millions of files that have not been released, which the DOJ argued fell within exceptions to the law not requiring their disclosure.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who led the effort to release the files, have asked to view the unredacted files — and are still threatening Attorney General Pam Bondi with impeachment or contempt for failing to comply with the law if more are not disclosed.
“The DOJ has protected the Epstein class with blanket redactions in some areas while failing to protect the identities of survivors in other areas,” Khanna said in a statement to CNN. “Congress cannot properly assess DOJ’s handling of the Epstein and Maxwell cases without access to the complete record.”
The documents released on Friday include the names of numerous high-profile men who interacted with Epstein — who died by suicide in 2019 awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges — a list that included Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and the former Prince Andrew, among many others. All have denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein and have never been charged by law enforcement with any crimes.
But Epstein survivors say the files appear to shield those who specifically enabled the convicted sex offender’s abuse, as well as other men who may have been named in the survivors’ statements that were completely redacted.
One Epstein survivor pointed to another FBI form contained in the files where full pages were blacked out.
“It basically outlines everything that this person experienced and shared with the FBI. It was seven pages long and four of them looked like this,” Jess Michaels told CNN in an interview. “What happened to her and who did it is also redacted. So you cannot say in the same sentence: ‘There were no men, there was no list’ and redact this much of a statement. Because if there’s no men, then there’s no reason to redact it. There’s no other reason.”
One of the most anticipated documents in the files was the controversial draft indictment from the Southern District of Florida from the 2000s, which would have charged Epstein, along with three others, who were described as having been “employed” by Epstein.
The individuals are all described as having conspired to “persuade, induce, and entice individuals who had not attained the age of 18 years to engage in prostitution.” But their names are redacted.
The files also include numerous email exchanges with Epstein that appear to describe the procurement of women.
A redacted individual from a Paris modeling agency wrote in a 2013 email to Epstein: “New Brazilian just arrived, sexy and cute, 19yo .”
The email appears in the files twice: In one version, the modeling agency’s name is redacted, but in another, the agency is not redacted from the sender’s email signature.
In a 2018 email to Epstein, another redacted individual wrote: “I found at least 3 very good young poor.”
“Meet this one,” the person continued. “Not the beauty queen but we both likes her a lot.”
In a letter to Congress on Friday, the Justice Department detailed how it made redactions, saying it complied with the law by redacting victim information, child sex abuse materials and anything that would jeopardize an active investigation.
DOJ also withheld 200,000 pages “covered by various privileges, including deliberative process privilege, the work-product doctrine, and attorney-client privilege,” according to the letter.
At his press conference last Friday announcing the release of the files, Blanche said they did not contain information about evidence that would lead to the prosecution of any men who abused women.
“I said this earlier, there’s this built-in assumption that somehow there’s this hidden tranche of information of men that we know about that we’re covering up or that we’re choosing not to prosecute. That is not the case,” Blanche said. “I don’t know whether there are men out there that abuse these women.”
In the hours after Friday’s DOJ release, CNN reported that multiple survivors, including anonymous “Jane Doe” victims, were seeing their names and information throughout the documents that were published.
Attorneys for some of the survivors sent a letter saying the DOJ’s failure to properly redact victims’ information had triggered an “unfolding emergency,” asking two federal judges in New York for an “immediate judicial intervention.”
Sunday’s letter included testimony from various anonymous “Jane Doe” victims who described receiving death threats and harassment from the media since the publication of the files.
“When DOJ believed it was ready to publish, it needed only to type each victim’s name into its own search function. Any resulting hit should have been redacted before publication. Had DOJ done that, the harm would have been avoided,” the lawyers wrote.
DOJ said in a response filed to the judges that it had removed all documents that victims or their lawyers identified, and a Justice Department spokesperson had said it had 500 reviewers looking at the files “for this very reason.”
“Mistakes were made by – you have really hard-working lawyers that worked for the past 60 days. Think about this though: you’re talking about pieces of paper that stack from the ground to two Eiffel Towers,” Blanche said Monday on Fox News. “The minute that a victim or their lawyer reached out to us since Friday, we immediately dealt with it and pulled it down.”
Epstein’s survivors say the release of names, even if corrected, is yet another example of how the Justice Department failed them.
“Publishing images of victims while shielding predators is just a failure of complete justice,” Epstein survivor Sharlene Rochard told CNN. “There’s this deep sense of betrayal when the systems meant to protect you becomes the one causing all of this harm.”
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Less than a year after taking over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointing himself chairman, President Trump has announced that the venue will shut down for two years, beginning July 4, to undergo a major renovation.
“This important decision … will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated Center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years, and turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music and Entertainment, far better than it has ever been before,” Trump wrote Sunday on his social media website.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who serves as an ex officio member of the center’s board of trustees, condemned Trump’s decision to close the venue in a statement issued early Monday.
“As President Trump continues his demolition tour of Washington, he’s now setting his sights on one of America’s great cultural institutions,” Whitehouse said. “And yet again, he’s bucking rules and convention to do so. If he succeeds, it will be because of a series of suspect and illegal actions to commandeer the Kennedy Center as a clubhouse for his friends and political allies and install leadership who will satisfy his every whim.”
Whitehouse attributed Trump’s decision to an attempt to cover up “his failures by shuttering a national landmark that belongs to the American people” and noted that the president announced his intentions without getting input from “the Board, Congress, and others, as law and precedent dictate.”
The president’s announcement came in the wake of a cascade of Trump-initiated changes for the center that began in mid-December when its board voted to rename the venue the Trump-Kennedy Center and quickly added the president’s name above Kennedy’s on the building’s exterior.
Prominent artists soon began canceling performances, including jazz drummer Chuck Redd, who pulled out of a Christmas Eve show, and the jazz group the Cookers, which canceled two New Year’s Eve performances.
Additional cancellations included banjo player Béla Fleck and “Wicked” composer Stephen Schwartz, who announced he no longer intended to host a May 15 gala at the center. Opera star Renée Fleming followed, although scheduling conflicts were the reason given.
There was also the stunning news last month that the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution to leave the venue, which it has occupied since 1971.
Last week brought a new low for the center’s calendar when renowned composer Philip Glass added his name to the growing list of protest cancellations. Glass sent a letter to the Kennedy Center board saying that he would no longer stage June’s world premiere of Symphony No. 15 “Lincoln” at the center.
“Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony. Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership,” Glass wrote in the letter, which was shared with The Times.
The National Symphony Orchestra had commissioned the piece and appeared to be caught off guard by Glass’ announcement. Executive Director Jean Davidson said the orchestra only learned of the news at the same time as the press.
Arts watchers soon began wondering about the orchestra’s future at the center. Would it leave like the Washington National Opera? Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center head of communications, said that wasn’t a possibility.
“The relationship is strong, and we have a wonderful season here with Maestro [Gianandrea Noseda] in his 10th year leading the NSO,” Daravi wrote in an email, noting the “record-breaking success at the recent Gala benefiting the NSO which launched the new season. The event raised $3.45 million, marking an all-time fundraising record for the organization.”
Daravi’s email did not hint at the prospect of the center closing. Trump also did not appear to be leaning in that direction early last week when he posted on his social media site that he was intent on bettering the arts complex.
“People don’t realize that the Trump Kennedy Center suffered massive deficits for many years and, like everything else, I merely came in to save it, and, if possible, make it far better than ever before!” Trump wrote.
In Sunday’s post announcing the Kennedy Center’s imminent closure, Trump didn’t acknowledge the recent cancellations, nor did he make mention of myriad reports that ticket sales at the venue had been plummeting. He simply said the closure would result in extraordinary results.
“[I]f we don’t close, the quality of Construction will not be nearly as good, and the time to completion, because of interruptions with Audiences from the many Events using the Facility, will be much longer. The temporary closure will produce a much faster and higher quality result!” Trump wrote.
Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell confirmed the news on X, writing, “I am grateful for President Trump’s visionary leadership. I am also grateful to Congress for appropriating an historic $257M to finally address decades of deferred maintenance and repairs at the Trump Kennedy Center.”
It remains unclear whether the National Symphony Orchestra will perform elsewhere during the closure. The orchestra did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Jessica Gelt
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How do you find the missing?
If you do find them, how can you help?
Oakland civil rights attorney James Cook has been on the ground in Minnesota for months figuring out answers to these question as he goes.
A fast-talking Minneapolis native who still lives in the Twin Cities part time, Cook is one of a handful of attorneys who have dropped everything to aid (for free) those caught up in the federal crackdown — protesters, immigrants and detained citizens — too many of whom have found themselves facing deportation, arrest or even been disappeared, at least for a time.
Civil rights attorney James Cook in the rear view mirror as he makes phone calls in his car in Minneapolis.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
“They are leaders that are on the ground really helping people through this process,” Minnesota school board member Chauntyll Allen told me.
She’s one of the protesters arrested inside a local church, charged with conspiracy to deprive others of their constitutional rights by Pam Bondi’s politicized Department of Justice, which also Friday arrested journalist Don Lemon for the same incident. Cook is one of the lawyers now representing Allen.
“It shows us that the judicial arm, or some of the judicial arm of our democracy, is willing to step up and ensure that our democracy stands strong,” Allen said of Cook and others like him.
While it’s the images of clashes in the streets that captivate media and audiences, it’s lawyers like Cook who are fighting an existential battle in the background to preserve the rule of law in a place where it is increasing opaque, to put it gently.
The legal work behind detentions has largely been an overlooked battlefield that will likely rage on years after ICE departs the streets, leaving in its wake hundreds if not thousands of long-and-winding court cases.
Beyond the personal fates they will determine, the outcome of the civil litigation Cook and others are spearheading will likely force whatever transparency and accountability can be pulled from these chaotic and troubling times.
It’s time-consuming and complicated work vital not just to people, but history.
Or, as Cook puts it, “I’ll be 10 years older when all this s— resolves.”
Federal agents stand guard against a growing wall of protesters on Jan. 24 in Minneapolis, just hours after Alex Pretti was shot by federal agents.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
Cook told me this while on his way to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building where some detainees are being held, maybe. It’s hard to find out. A few years ago, when immigration enforcement in Minnesota ramped up under the first Trump term, activists tried to get the name of the building changed, arguing Whipple, the first Protestant Episcopal bishop in the state, had been an advocate of the marginalized and wouldn’t want his name associated with what the feds were up to.
It didn’t work, but the movement’s slogan, “What would Whipple do?” still has resonance in this town, where two American citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, have been fatally shot while protesting — incidents ugly enough that Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about them.
Cook is well aware that the guns carried by the federal agents are not for show, even without the Boss’ new ballad. Just a few days ago, one of the first times he drove his beat-up truck up to the gate, the federal guards at Whipple pointed their guns at him.
“I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m going to take my keys out of the ignition, drop them on the ground. So please don’t shoot,’” he said.
They lowered the guns, but Cook was scared, a feeling that doesn’t come easy.
Long before his law degree, when he was a punk-rock loving teen in the 1980s, fresh out of Southwest High, the public school not too far from Whipple, a former coach convinced him to give up college dreams and instead pursue a shot at making the first Muay Thai kickboxing team at the Olympics.
The martial art ended up not making it as an official Olympic sport, but the experience launched Cook into a professional boxing and kickboxing career that took him to competitions around the world, and taught him fear is not a reason to back down.
But, “Father Time is undefeated,” Cook said. “I got older and I started losing fights, and I was like, all right, time to get back to life.”
That eventually led him to obtaining a law degree in San Francisco, where after an intern stint as a public defender, he decided he wanted to be a trial attorney, fighting in court.
Civil rights attorney James Cook has been doing pro bono immigration work since the crackdown began in Minneapolis.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
He started cold-calling John Burris, another Bay Area lawyer who is an icon of civil rights and police misconduct cases. Burris, who has been called the “Godfather of Police Litigation,” was involved in the “Oakland Riders” case in 2000, when officers were discovered to have planted evidence. He also represented Rodney King, the family of Oscar Grant, and the family of Joseph Mann among many others.
But Burris, a boxing fan, didn’t respond to Cook’s calls until the young lawyer offered him free tickets to one of his fights, which he was still doing on the side.
“And then immediately I got a call back,” Cook said.
Burris said Cook’s history as a fighter intrigued him, but “I did say to James, you can’t be a fighter and lawyer. You can’t get punched in your head all the time.”
Cook did not take this advice.
Still, Burris said, “It was his persistence that I admired, because the type of work we’re involved in, you need people who are dedicated, who have some real commitment to the work, and he showed that kind of consistency and dedication.”
Cook’s been working with Burris more than 20 years now, but until recently, the labyrinth of the immigration system wasn’t his area of expertise. It’s been a crash course for him, he said, on the often arcane laws that govern who gets to stay in America and who doesn’t.
It’s also been a crash course on what a civil rights emergency looks like. Along with his work looking for locked-up immigrants, Cook spends a lot of time on the streets at protests, helping people understand their rights — and limitations — and seeing first hand what is happening.
“If you ever wondered what you would have done in Germany, now is the time,” he said. “Now is the time to do something. People are being interned.”
In the hours after Pretti was shot, Cook was at the location of the shooting, in the middle of the tear gas, offering legal help to anyone who needed it and bearing witness to conduct that will almost certainly face scrutiny one day, even if government leaders condone it now.
Law enforcement officers launch tear gas canisters as they work to push the crowd back and expand their perimeter in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
“The way the officers chase people down, protesters who were really just protesting lawfully and were beaten and pepper sprayed and gassed — all those are civil rights violations,” Burris said. “And so the law is the guardrails. So there has to be lawyers who are prepared to protect those guardrails and to stand as centurions, as I refer to us.”
Cook has tried to calm protesters, he told me, and prevent clashes. But people are mad, and resolute. His greatest fear is summer — when warm weather could bring even larger crowds if enforcement is still ongoing. He’s worried that the actions of the federal agents will spill over into anger at local cops enforcing local laws, leading to even more chaos.
“I’ve always supported cops as long as they do their job correctly,” Cook said.
For now, he’s taking it one day at a time, one case at a time, one name at a time.
Protesters raise an inverted American flag as law enforcement officers launch tear gas canisters in Minneapolis after Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
Tuesday, Cook passed through the armed checkpoint at Whipple carrying a list of about seven people, folks who have been picked up by federal agents for one reason or another, or reasons unknown, and now cannot be located. They are not in the public online system that is meant to track detainees, and family and friends have not heard from them.
If he’s lucky, Cook will get information on one or two, that they are indeed inside, or maybe at a detention center in Texas, where many have been sent. But there will be more whose location remains unknown. He’ll make calls, fill out forms and come back tomorrow. And the tomorrow after that.
“This is what we do,” he said. “I’m always in it for the long run. I mean, you know, shoot, yeah, that’s kind of the way it works.”
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Anita Chabria
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Those “jury duty” scam calls many Central Floridians have been getting may be coming from an unexpected place: a prison — linked to organized criminal networks.A joint investigation involving state and federal agencies found inmates inside a Georgia prison were behind a wave of jury duty scams targeting victims across the country, including Florida. Sarasota Detective Andrew Rowe says the jury duty scam network he has been investigating has moved staggering amounts of money. He said that “from September 2023 through roughly November 2024, $87 million flowed through one platform alone.”Rowe’s investigation began about two years ago and ultimately helped connect the scam calls to a Georgia prison. He believes roughly 90% of the scam jury duty calls hitting Central Florida trace back to the same perpetrators.The breakthrough came in January 2024, when a Sarasota woman received a call saying she had missed jury duty. Investigators say she was pressured into sending about $18,000 in bitcoin. Rowe and his partner traced the money to a woman in Macon, Georgia. She told police her boyfriend — who was incarcerated — was using cellphones inside the prison to run the scam.That raised a major question: How are inmates getting phones behind bars?Rowe says the investigation expanded quickly, including evidence suggesting contraband was being delivered by drones dropping bags containing items like phones and drugs. To confirm what they were hearing, Rowe says investigators received a call from the inmate. In the background, he says, they could hear the sounds of prison life: cell doors and inmates yelling.How the scam sounds so realDetectives say the scammers do their homework to make the calls convincing. They use real deputy names found on agency Facebook pages and spoof numbers. He says the inmates also pull personal details using online search tools.In one recent case reported in Volusia County, a scammer posed as the sheriff’s second-in-command, Chief Deputy Brian Henderson. A recording captured the fake message:”This is Chief Deputy Brian Henderson … Volusia County Sheriff’s Department. I need you to give me a call back.”Investigators say the voice was not Henderson’s.A local case tied to the Georgia inmatesMarion County deputies recorded at least one case believed to be linked to the same Georgia inmate group. In that case, a woman lost $4,000 after receiving a call that sounded legitimate and included personal information like her name, address and date of birth.When she told the scammer she was going to call her son, who works for the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, the report states the caller insisted there was no need, saying they had already spoken to him, even referencing him by name.Detectives say fear is the weapon. Victims are told they could be arrested if they do not comply, and many of the people targeted could lose their jobs if they were arrested for a felony. Rowe says scammers also appear to target people with professional licenses — such as medical licenses — because Florida’s public records make many of those details searchable.Investigators say it’s bigger than one caseIn the Sarasota investigation, indictments were secured for an inmate and his girlfriend, who are awaiting sentencing. However, Rowe says the operation likely extends beyond one couple.”This is much bigger. We have a pretty good suspicion that this is being done to support the gangs on the outside.”What you should doLaw enforcement’s message is simple: Do not send money, gift cards, or cryptocurrency to anyone saying you missed jury duty — and do not trust caller ID.If you get a call like this, hang up and contact your local sheriff’s office using a verified number from the agency’s official website.
Those “jury duty” scam calls many Central Floridians have been getting may be coming from an unexpected place: a prison — linked to organized criminal networks.
A joint investigation involving state and federal agencies found inmates inside a Georgia prison were behind a wave of jury duty scams targeting victims across the country, including Florida.
Sarasota Detective Andrew Rowe says the jury duty scam network he has been investigating has moved staggering amounts of money. He said that “from September 2023 through roughly November 2024, $87 million flowed through one [pay] platform alone.”
Rowe’s investigation began about two years ago and ultimately helped connect the scam calls to a Georgia prison. He believes roughly 90% of the scam jury duty calls hitting Central Florida trace back to the same perpetrators.
The breakthrough came in January 2024, when a Sarasota woman received a call saying she had missed jury duty. Investigators say she was pressured into sending about $18,000 in bitcoin.
Rowe and his partner traced the money to a woman in Macon, Georgia. She told police her boyfriend — who was incarcerated — was using cellphones inside the prison to run the scam.
That raised a major question: How are inmates getting phones behind bars?
Rowe says the investigation expanded quickly, including evidence suggesting contraband was being delivered by drones dropping bags containing items like phones and drugs.
To confirm what they were hearing, Rowe says investigators received a call from the inmate. In the background, he says, they could hear the sounds of prison life: cell doors and inmates yelling.
Detectives say the scammers do their homework to make the calls convincing. They use real deputy names found on agency Facebook pages and spoof numbers. He says the inmates also pull personal details using online search tools.
In one recent case reported in Volusia County, a scammer posed as the sheriff’s second-in-command, Chief Deputy Brian Henderson. A recording captured the fake message:
“This is Chief Deputy Brian Henderson … Volusia County Sheriff’s Department. I need you to give me a call back.”
Investigators say the voice was not Henderson’s.
Marion County deputies recorded at least one case believed to be linked to the same Georgia inmate group. In that case, a woman lost $4,000 after receiving a call that sounded legitimate and included personal information like her name, address and date of birth.
When she told the scammer she was going to call her son, who works for the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, the report states the caller insisted there was no need, saying they had already spoken to him, even referencing him by name.
Detectives say fear is the weapon. Victims are told they could be arrested if they do not comply, and many of the people targeted could lose their jobs if they were arrested for a felony.
Rowe says scammers also appear to target people with professional licenses — such as medical licenses — because Florida’s public records make many of those details searchable.
In the Sarasota investigation, indictments were secured for an inmate and his girlfriend, who are awaiting sentencing. However, Rowe says the operation likely extends beyond one couple.
“This is much bigger. We have a pretty good suspicion that this is being done to support the gangs on the outside.”
Law enforcement’s message is simple: Do not send money, gift cards, or cryptocurrency to anyone saying you missed jury duty — and do not trust caller ID.
If you get a call like this, hang up and contact your local sheriff’s office using a verified number from the agency’s official website.
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In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.
“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”
“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”
WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.
That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.
Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.
Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.
WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.
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Jessica Gelt
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A police officer in Canton, Ohio, is lucky to be alive after an accused shoplifter pointed a gun in his face and pulled the trigger. The whole incident was captured on body cam video.The video is in the player above, however, viewer discretion advised Canton police were called to the Walmart on Thursday afternoon for two people shoplifting.Police took 23-year-old Katerina Jeffrey and 21-year-old Shane Newman into custody after being accused of shoplifting.Before the two sat down, Newman was patted down.”Nothing on you that’s going to poke me, stab me?” the police officer asked Newman.Newman replied no.Minutes passed as the officer asked the two people for their names.After giving the officer a fake name, video showed Newman pulling a gun out of a pouch he was hiding. He shot the gun, but it did not go off. He then tried to reload and pointed it at the officer again.The theft prevention officer then jumped on Newman, causing him to drop the gun.The officer brought Newman to the ground and called for backup.Officers later found two bullets in Jeffrey’s pocket, who also had two warrants out for her arrest.Newman had one warrant of his own and was holding onto several pills.Jeffrey is facing a robbery charge and Newman is facing several charges, including assaulting a peace officer and attempted murder.
A police officer in Canton, Ohio, is lucky to be alive after an accused shoplifter pointed a gun in his face and pulled the trigger.
The whole incident was captured on body cam video.
The video is in the player above, however, viewer discretion advised
Canton police were called to the Walmart on Thursday afternoon for two people shoplifting.
Police took 23-year-old Katerina Jeffrey and 21-year-old Shane Newman into custody after being accused of shoplifting.
Before the two sat down, Newman was patted down.
“Nothing on you that’s going to poke me, stab me?” the police officer asked Newman.
Newman replied no.
Minutes passed as the officer asked the two people for their names.
After giving the officer a fake name, video showed Newman pulling a gun out of a pouch he was hiding. He shot the gun, but it did not go off.
He then tried to reload and pointed it at the officer again.
The theft prevention officer then jumped on Newman, causing him to drop the gun.
The officer brought Newman to the ground and called for backup.
Officers later found two bullets in Jeffrey’s pocket, who also had two warrants out for her arrest.
Newman had one warrant of his own and was holding onto several pills.
Jeffrey is facing a robbery charge and Newman is facing several charges, including assaulting a peace officer and attempted murder.
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Prince William and his eldest son, Prince George, put on aprons to help make Christmas lunch at a homeless shelter, a charity that the Prince of Wales first visited as a child with his mother, the late Princess Diana.The royal father and son were seen decorating a Christmas tree and helping with meal preparations in the kitchen at The Passage in central London, in a video posted to William’s YouTube account on Saturday.“Proud to join volunteers and staff at The Passage in preparing Christmas lunch – this year with another pair of helping hands,” read a post on the social media account of William and his wife, Princess Catherine.William is the royal patron of The Passage, which he first visited when he was 11 with his mother, Diana. The heir to the throne has visited the charity in recent years, but this was the first time George, 12, joined him.The young royal signed his name in a book on the same page that Diana and William had written their names 32 years ago, in December 1993.William was shown pouring Brussels sprouts onto an oven tray, while George helped set out Yorkshire puddings and set a long table for dozens of attendees.William launched his Homewards project in 2023 to tackle homelessness.
Prince William and his eldest son, Prince George, put on aprons to help make Christmas lunch at a homeless shelter, a charity that the Prince of Wales first visited as a child with his mother, the late Princess Diana.
The royal father and son were seen decorating a Christmas tree and helping with meal preparations in the kitchen at The Passage in central London, in a video posted to William’s YouTube account on Saturday.
“Proud to join volunteers and staff at The Passage in preparing Christmas lunch – this year with another pair of helping hands,” read a post on the social media account of William and his wife, Princess Catherine.
William is the royal patron of The Passage, which he first visited when he was 11 with his mother, Diana. The heir to the throne has visited the charity in recent years, but this was the first time George, 12, joined him.
The young royal signed his name in a book on the same page that Diana and William had written their names 32 years ago, in December 1993.
William was shown pouring Brussels sprouts onto an oven tray, while George helped set out Yorkshire puddings and set a long table for dozens of attendees.
William launched his Homewards project in 2023 to tackle homelessness.
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WASHINGTON — Lawmakers unhappy with Justice Department decisions to heavily redact or withhold documents from a legally mandated release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein threatened Saturday to launch impeachment proceedings against those responsible, including Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general.
Democrats and Republicans alike criticized the omissions, while Democrats also accused the Justice Department of intentionally scrubbing the release of at least one image of President Trump, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggesting it could portend “one of the biggest coverups in American history.”
Trump administration officials have said the release fully complied with the law, and that its redactions were crafted only to protect victims of Epstein, a disgraced financier and convicted sex offender accused of abusing hundreds of women and girls before his death in 2019.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), an author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the release of the investigative trove, blasted Bondi in a social media video, accusing her of denying the existence of many of the records for months, only to push out “an incomplete release with too many redactions” in response to — and in violation of — the new law.
Khanna said he and the bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), were “exploring all options” for responding and forcing more disclosures, including by pursuing “the impeachment of people at Justice,” asking courts to hold officials blocking the release in contempt, and “referring for prosecution those who are obstructing justice.”
“We will work with the survivors to demand the full release of these files,” Khanna said.
He later added in a CNN interview that he and Massie were drafting articles of impeachment against Bondi, though they had not decided whether to bring them forward.
Massie, in his own social media post, said Khanna was correct in rejecting the Friday release as insufficient, saying that it “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law.”
The lawmakers’ view that the Justice Department’s document dump failed to comply with the law echoed similar complaints across the political spectrum Saturday, as the full scope of redactions and other withholdings came into focus.
The frustration had already sharply escalated late Friday, after Fox News Digital reported that the names and identifiers of not just victims but of “politically exposed individuals and government officials” had been redacted from the records — which would violate the law, and which Justice Department officials denied.
Among the critics was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who cited the Fox reporting in an exasperated post late Friday to X.
“The whole point was NOT to protect the ‘politically exposed individuals and government officials.’ That’s exactly what MAGA has always wanted, that’s what drain the swamp actually means. It means expose them all, the rich powerful elites who are corrupt and commit crimes, NOT redact their names and protect them,” Greene wrote.
Senior Justice Department officials later called in to Fox News to dispute the report. But the removal of a file published in the Friday evening release, capturing a desk in Epstein’s home with a drawer filled of photos of Trump, reinforced bipartisan concerns that references to the president had been illegally withheld.
In a release of documents from the Epstein family estate by the House Oversight Committee this fall, Trump’s name was featured over 1,000 times — more than any other public figure.
“If they’re taking this down, just imagine how much more they’re trying to hide,” Schumer wrote on X. “This could be one of the biggest coverups in American history.”
Several victims also said the release was insufficient. “It’s really kind of another slap in the face,” Alicia Arden, who went to the police to report that Epstein had abused her in 1997, told CNN. “I wanted all the files to come out, like they said that they were going to.”
Trump, who signed the act into law after having worked to block it from getting a vote, was conspicuously quiet on the matter. In a long speech in North Carolina on Friday night, he did not mention it.
However, White House officials and Justice Department leaders rejected the notion that the release was incomplete or out of compliance with the law, or that the names of politicians had been redacted.
“The only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law — full stop,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche. “Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim.”
Other Republicans defended the administration. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, said the administration “is delivering unprecedented transparency in the Epstein case and will continue releasing documents.”
Epstein died in a Manhattan jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He’d been convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution in Florida, but served only 13 months in custody in what many condemned as a sweetheart plea deal for a well-connected and rich defendant.
Epstein’s acts of abuse have attracted massive attention, including among many within Trump’s political base, in part because of unanswered questions surrounding which of his many powerful friends may have also been implicated in crimes against children. Some of those questions have swirled around Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had what the president has described as a falling out.
Evidence has emerged in recent months that suggests Trump may have had knowledge of Epstein’s crimes during their friendship.
Epstein wrote in a 2019 email, released by the House Oversight Committee, that Trump “knew about the girls.” In a 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of conspiring with Epstein to help him sexually abuse girls, Epstein wrote that “the dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him … he has never once been mentioned.”
Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
The records released Friday contained few if any major new revelations, but did include a complaint against Epstein filed with the FBI back in 1996 — which the FBI did little with, substantiating long-standing fears among Epstein’s victims that his crimes could have been stopped years earlier.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the president’s most consistent critics, wrote on X that Bondi should appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain under oath the extensive redactions and omissions, which he called a “willful violation of the law.”
“The Trump Justice Department has had months to keep their promise to release all of the Epstein Files,” Schiff wrote. “Epstein’s survivors and the American people need answers now.”
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Kevin Rector, Michael Wilner
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Share your photos from a family party or neighborhood reunion with the community through the Times “Friends & Neighbors” section. The column is not for commercial or institutional use — we want to keep it for individual readers’ photos.
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WASHINGTON — No one seems to know what happened to Vicente Ventura Aguilar.
A witness told his brother and attorneys that the 44-year-old Mexican immigrant, who doesn’t have lawful immigration status, was taken into custody by immigration authorities on Oct. 7 in SouthLos Angeles and suffered a medical emergency.
But it’s been more than six weeks since then, and Ventura Aguilar’s family still hasn’t heard from him.
The Department of Homeland Security said 73 people from Mexico were arrested in the Los Angeles area between Oct. 7 and 8.
“None of them were Ventura Aguilar,” said Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant Homeland Security public affairs secretary.
“For the record, illegal aliens in detention have access to phones to contact family members and attorneys,” she added.
McLaughlin did not answer questions about what the agency did to determine whether Ventura Aguilar had ever been in its custody, such as checking for anyone with the same date of birth, variations of his name, or identifying detainees who received medical attention near the California border around Oct. 8.
Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center who is representing Ventura Aguilar’s family, said DHS never responded to her inquiries about him.
The family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar, 44, says he has been missing since Oct. 7 when a friend saw him arrested by federal immigration agents in Los Angeles. Homeland Security officials say he was never in their custody.
(Family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar)
“There’s only one agency that has answers,” she said. “Their refusal to provide this family with answers, their refusal to provide his attorneys with answers, says something about the lack of care and the cruelty of the moment right now for DHS.”
His family and lawyers checked with local hospitals and the Mexican consulate without success. They enlisted help from the office of Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles), whose staff called the Los Angeles and San Diego county medical examiner’s offices. Neither had someone matching his name or description.
The Los Angeles Police Department also told Kamlager-Dove’s office that he isn’t in their system. His brother, Felipe Aguilar, said the family filed a missing person’s report with LAPD on Nov. 7.
“We’re sad and worried,” Felipe Aguilar said. “He’s my brother and we miss him here at home. He’s a very good person. We only hope to God that he’s alive.”
Felipe Aguilar said his brother, who has lived in the U.S. for around 17 years, left home around 8:15 a.m. on Oct. 7 to catch the bus for an interview for a sanitation job when he ran into friends on the corner near a local liquor store. He had his phone but had left his wallet at home.
One of those friends told Felipe Aguilar and his lawyers that he and Ventura Aguilar were detained by immigration agents and then held at B-18, a temporary holding facility at the federal building in downtown Los Angeles.
The friend was deported the next day to Tijuana. He spoke to the family in a phone call from Mexico.
Detainees at B-18 have limited access to phones and lawyers. Immigrants don’t usually turn up in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement online locator system until they’ve arrived at a long-term detention facility.
According to Felipe Aguilar and Toczylowski, the friend said Ventura Aguilar began to shake, went unconscious and fell to the ground while shackled on Oct. 8 at a facility near the border. The impact caused his face to bleed.
The friend said that facility staff called for an ambulance and moved the other detainees to a different room. Toczylowski said that was the last time anyone saw Ventura Aguilar.
She said the rapid timeline between when Ventura Aguilar was arrested to when he disappeared is emblematic of what she views as a broad lack of due process for people in government custody under the Trump administration and shows that “we don’t know who’s being deported from the United States.”
Felipe Aguilar said he called his brother’s cell phone after hearing about the arrests but it went straight to voicemail.
Felipe Aguilar said that while his brother is generally healthy, he saw a cardiologist a couple years ago about chest pain. He was on prescribed medication and his condition had improved.
His family and lawyers said Ventura Aguilar might have given immigration agents a fake name when he was arrested. Some detained people offer up a wrong name or alias, and that would explain why he never showed up in Homeland Security records. Toczylowski said federal agents sometimes misspell the name of the person they are booking into custody.
Vicente Ventura Aguilar, who has been missing since Oct. 7, had lived in the United States for 17 years, his family said.
(Family of Vicente Ventura Aguilar)
But she said the agency should make a significant attempt to search for him, such as by using biometric data or his photo.
“To me, that’s another symptom of the chaos of the immigration enforcement system as it’s happening right now,” she said of the issues with accurately identifying detainees. “And it’s what happens when you are indiscriminately, racially profiling people and picking them up off the street and holding them in conditions that are substandard, and then deporting people without due process. Mistakes get made. Right now, what we want to know is what mistakes were made here, and where is Vicente now?”
Surveillance footage from a nearby business reviewed by MS NOW shows Ventura Aguilar on the sidewalk five minutes before masked agents begin making arrests in South Los Angeles. The footage doesn’t show him being arrested, but two witnesses told the outlet that they saw agents handcuff Ventura Aguilar and place him in a van.
In a letter sent to DHS leaders Friday, Kamlager-Dove asked what steps DHS has taken to determine whether anyone matching Ventura Aguilar’s identifiers was detained last month and whether the agency has documented any medical events or hospital transports involving people taken into custody around Oct. 7-8.
“Given the length of time since Mr. Ventura Aguilar’s disappearance and the credible concern that he may have been misidentified, injured, or otherwise unaccounted for during the enforcement action, I urgently request that DHS and ICE conduct an immediate and comprehensive review” by Nov. 29, Kamlager-Dove wrote in her letter.
Kamlager-Dove said her most common immigration requests from constituents are for help with visas and passports.
“Never in all the years did I expect to get a call about someone who has completely disappeared off the face of the earth, and also never did I think that I would find myself not just calling ICE and Border Patrol but checking hospitals, checking with LAPD and checking morgues to find a constituent,” she said. “It’s horrifying and it’s completely dystopian.”
She said families across Los Angeles deserve answers and need to know whether something similar could happen to them.
“Who else is missing?” she said.
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Andrea Castillo
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About Friends and Neighbors
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‘To me, it’s family’: Statue honoring Chinook the explorer dog unveiled
Updated: 1:11 AM EST Nov 17, 2025
New Hampshire’s state dog was memorialized Saturday during a statue unveiling in Tamworth, to honor the heroic past of a breed that started in the Granite State.The Chinook became the official state dog in 2010 and is one of the few officially designated state dogs in the country. The name is adapted from a dog of the same name, owned by author and explorer Arthur Walden.State history tells that Walden owned property in Wonalancet in 1917, when Chinook was born. The Chinook Owner’s Association says that the two were the first sled dog team to summit Mount Washington successfully, and brought sled dog races to New England for the first time.In 1929, Walden and Chinook were enlisted for an Antarctic supply expedition. During the trip, Chinook is said to have wandered away, never to be seen again.Over the years, the Association says the breed faced endangered status, at one point, with numbers only in the hundreds registered nationwide. In recent decades, Chinooks have found a resurgence across the country as a dog known for its energy, intelligence, and kindness. Saturday afternoon, the Tamworth History Center unveiled a bronze sculpture of the original Chinook, modeled after surviving photographs of Walden’s dog.The sculpture took a year and a half to design and build.”It’s beyond flattering,” said sculptor Peter Dransfield. “I think, like a lot of bronze sculptures you see around town, it’s going to be here forever.”Chinook owners from all over the country were invited to the unveiling ceremony, with some coming from as far as Virginia and Washington state.“It’s the New Hampshire state dog for a reason, born and bred here. To me, it’s family,” said Tyler Sweeney of Alexandria, Virginia, originally from Weare, New Hampshire. “Ninety-six years later, we’re having the unique opportunity to bring Chinook home,” said sculptor Andrea Kennett, “if not in body, certainly in spirit.”The Tamworth History Center used local fundraising efforts to create the statue. Board members say it was one of the fastest fundraising goals they’ve ever reached.
New Hampshire’s state dog was memorialized Saturday during a statue unveiling in Tamworth, to honor the heroic past of a breed that started in the Granite State.
The Chinook became the official state dog in 2010 and is one of the few officially designated state dogs in the country. The name is adapted from a dog of the same name, owned by author and explorer Arthur Walden.
State history tells that Walden owned property in Wonalancet in 1917, when Chinook was born. The Chinook Owner’s Association says that the two were the first sled dog team to summit Mount Washington successfully, and brought sled dog races to New England for the first time.
In 1929, Walden and Chinook were enlisted for an Antarctic supply expedition. During the trip, Chinook is said to have wandered away, never to be seen again.
Over the years, the Association says the breed faced endangered status, at one point, with numbers only in the hundreds registered nationwide. In recent decades, Chinooks have found a resurgence across the country as a dog known for its energy, intelligence, and kindness.
Saturday afternoon, the Tamworth History Center unveiled a bronze sculpture of the original Chinook, modeled after surviving photographs of Walden’s dog.
The sculpture took a year and a half to design and build.
“It’s beyond flattering,” said sculptor Peter Dransfield. “I think, like a lot of bronze sculptures you see around town, it’s going to be here forever.”
Chinook owners from all over the country were invited to the unveiling ceremony, with some coming from as far as Virginia and Washington state.
“It’s the New Hampshire state dog for a reason, born and bred here. To me, it’s family,” said Tyler Sweeney of Alexandria, Virginia, originally from Weare, New Hampshire.
“Ninety-six years later, we’re having the unique opportunity to bring Chinook home,” said sculptor Andrea Kennett, “if not in body, certainly in spirit.”
The Tamworth History Center used local fundraising efforts to create the statue. Board members say it was one of the fastest fundraising goals they’ve ever reached.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a call to overturn its landmark decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
The justices turned away an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the high court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Davis had been trying to get the court to overturn a lower-court order for her to pay $360,000 in damages and attorney’s fees to a couple denied a marriage license.
Her lawyers repeatedly invoked the words of Justice Clarence Thomas, who alone among the nine justices has called for erasing the same-sex marriage ruling.
Thomas was among four dissenting justices in 2015. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito are the other dissenters who are on the court today.
Roberts has been silent on the subject since he wrote a dissenting opinion in the case. Alito has continued to criticize the decision, but he said recently he was not advocating that it be overturned.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was not on the court in 2015, has said that there are times when the court should correct mistakes and overturn decisions, as it did in the 2022 case that ended a constitutional right to abortion.
But Barrett has suggested recently that same-sex marriage might be in a different category than abortion because people have relied on the decision when they married and had children.
Davis drew national attention to eastern Kentucky’s Rowan County when she turned away same-sex couples, saying her faith prevented her from complying with the high court ruling. She defied court orders to issue the licenses until a federal judge jailed her for contempt of court in September 2015.
She was released after her staff issued the licenses on her behalf but removed her name from the form. The Kentucky legislature later enacted a law removing the names of all county clerks from state marriage licenses.
Davis lost a reelection bid in 2018.
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Mark Sherman
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When it comes to Proposition 50, Marcia Owens is a bit fuzzy on the details.
She knows, vaguely, it has something to do with how California draws the boundaries for its 52 congressional districts, a convoluted and arcane process that’s not exactly top of the mind for your average person. But Owens is abundantly clear when it comes to her intent in Tuesday’s special election.
“I’m voting to take power out of Trump’s hands and put it back in the hands of the people,” said Owens, 48, a vocational nurse in Riverside. “He’s making a lot of illogical decisions that are really wreaking havoc on our country. He’s not putting our interests first, making sure that an individual has food on the table, they can pay their rent, pay electric bills, pay for healthcare.”
Peter Arensburger, a fellow Democrat who also lives in Riverside, was blunter still.
President Trump, said the 55-year-old college professor, “is trying to rule as a dictator” and Republicans are doing absolutely nothing to stop him.
So, Arensburger said, California voters will do it for them.
Or at least try.
“It’s a false equivalency,” he said, “to say that we need to do everything on an even keel in California, but Texas” — which redrew its political map to boost Republicans — “can do whatever they want.”
Proposition 50, which aims to deliver Democrats at least five more House seats in the 2026 midterm election, is either righteous payback or a grubby power grab.
A reasoned attempt to even things out in response to Texas’ attempt to nab five more congressional seats. Or a ruthless gambit to drive the California GOP to near-extinction.
It all depends on your perspective.
Above all, Proposition 50 has become a political ink-blot test; what many California voters see depends on, politically, where they stand.
Mary Ann Rounsavall thinks the measure is “horrible,” because that’s how the Fontana retiree feels about its chief proponent, Gavin Newsom.
“He’s a jerk,” the 75-year-old Republican fairly spat, as if the act of forming the governor’s name left a bad taste in her mouth. “No one believes anything he says.”
Timothy, a fellow Republican who withheld his last name to avoid online trolls, echoed the sentiment.
“It’s just Gavin Newsom playing political games,” said the 39-year-old warehouse manager, who commutes from West Covina to his job at a plumbing supplier in Ontario. “They always talk about Trump. ‘Trump, Trump, Trump.’ Get off of Trump. I’ve been hearing this crap ever since he started running.”
Riverside and San Bernardino counties form the heart of the Inland Empire. The next-door neighbors are politically purple: more Republican than the state as a whole, but not as conservative as California’s more rural reaches. That means neither party has an upper hand, a parity reflected in dozens of interviews with voters across the sprawling region.
On a recent smoggy morning, the hulking San Bernardino Mountains veiled by a gray-brown haze, Eric Lawson paused to offer his thoughts.
The 66-year-old independent has no use for politicians of any stripe. “They’re all crooks,” he said. “All of them.”
Lawson called Proposition 50 a waste of time and money.
Gerrymandering — the dark art of drawing political lines to benefit one party over another — is, as he pointed out, hardly new. (In fact, the term is rooted in the name of Elbridge Gerry, one of the nation’s founders.)
What has Lawson particularly steamed is the cost of “this stupid election,” which is pushing $300 million.
“We talk and talk and talk and we print money for all this talk,” said Lawson, who lives in Ontario and consults in the auto industry. “But that money doesn’t go where it’s supposed to go.”
Although sentiments were evenly split in those several dozen conversations, all indications suggest that Proposition 50 is headed toward passage Tuesday, possibly by a wide margin. After raising a tidal wave of cash, Newsom last week told small donors that’s enough, thanks. The opposition has all but given up and resigned itself to defeat.
It comes down to math. Proposition 50 has become a test of party muscle and a talisman of partisan faith and California has a lot more Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents than Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.
Andrea Fisher, who opposes the initiative, is well aware of that fact. “I’m a conservative,” she said, “in a state that’s not very conservative.”
She has come to accept that reality, but fears things will get worse if Democrats have their way and slash California’s already-scanty Republican ranks on Capitol Hill. Among those targeted for ouster is Ken Calvert, a 16-term GOP incumbent who represents a good slice of Riverside County.
“I feel like it’s going to eliminate my voice,” said Fisher, 48, a food server at her daughter’s school in Riverside. “If I’m 40% of the vote” — roughly the percentage Trump received statewide in 2024 — “then we in that population should have fair representation. We’re still their constituents.” (In Riverside County, Trump edged Kamala Harris 49% to 48%.)
Amber Pelland says Proposition 50 will hurt voters by putting redistricting back into the hands of politicians.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Amber Pelland, 46, who works in the nonprofit field in Corona, feels by “sticking it to Trump” — a tagline in one of the TV ads supporting Proposition 50 — voters will be sticking it to themselves. Passage would erase the political map drawn by an independent commission, which voters empowered in 2010 for the express purpose of wrestling redistricting away from self-dealing lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento.
“I don’t care if you hate the person or don’t hate the person,” said Pelland, a Republican who backs the president. “It’s just going to hurt voters by taking the power away from the people.”
Even some backers of Proposition 50 flinched at the notion of sidelining the redistricting commission and undoing its painstaking, nonpartisan work. What helps make it palatable, they said, is the requirement — written into the ballot measure — that congressional redistricting will revert to the commission after the 2030 census, when California’s next set of congressional maps is due to be drafted.
“I’m glad that it’s temporary because I don’t think redistricting should be done in order to give one political party greater power over another,” said Carole, a Riverside Democrat. “I think it’s something that should be decided over a long period and not in a rush.” (She also withheld her last name so her husband, who serves in the community, wouldn’t be hassled for her opinion.)
Texas, Carole suggested, has forced California to act because of its extreme action, redistricting at mid-decade at Trump’s command. “It’s important to think about the country as a whole,” said the 51-year-old academic researcher, “and to respond to what’s being done, especially with the pressure coming from the White House.”
Felise Self-Visnic, a 71-year-old retired schoolteacher, agreed.
She was shopping at a Trader Joe’s in Riverside in an orange ball cap that read “Human-Kind (Be Both).” Back home, in her garage-door window, is a poster that reads “No Kings.”
She described Proposition 50 as a stopgap measure that will return power to the commission once the urgency of today’s political upheaval has passed. But even if that wasn’t the case, the Democrat said, she would still vote in favor.
“Anything,” Self-Visnic said, “to fight fascism, which is where we’re heading.”
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Mark Z. Barabak
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Consumer confidence is dropping. The national debt is $38 trillion and climbing like the yodeling mountain climber in that “The Price is Right” game. Donald Trump’s approval ratings are falling and the U.S. is getting more and more restless as 2025 comes to a close.
What’s a wannabe strongman to do to prop up his regime?
Attack Latin America, of course!
U.S. war planes have bombed small ships in international waters off the coast of Venezuela and Colombia since September with extrajudicial zeal. The Trump administration has claimed those vessels were packed with drugs manned by “narco-terrorists” and have released videos for each of the 10 boats-and-counting it has incinerated to make the actions seem as normal as a mission in “Call of Duty.”
“Narco-terrorists intending to bring poison to our shores, will find no safe harbor anywhere in our hemisphere,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on social media and who just ordered an aircraft carrier currently stationed in the Mediterranean to set up shop in the Caribbean. It’ll meet up with 10,000 troops stationed there as part of one of the area’s biggest U.S. deployments in decades, all in the name of stopping a drug epidemic that has ravaged red America for the past quarter century.
This week, Trump authorized covert CIA actions in Venezuela and revealed he wants to launch strikes against land targets where his people say Latin American cartels operate. Who cares whether the host countries will give permission? Who cares about American laws that state only Congress — not the president — can declare war against our enemies?
It’s Latin America, after all.
The military buildup, bombing and threat of more in the name of liberty is one of the oldest moves in the American foreign policy playbook. For more than two centuries, the United States has treated Latin America as its personal piñata, bashing it silly for goods and not caring about the ugly aftermath.
“It is known to all that we derive [our blessings] from the excellence of our institutions,” James Monroe concluded in the 1823 speech that set forth what became known as the Monroe Doctrine, which essentially told the rest of the world to leave the Western Hemisphere to us. “Ought we not, then, to adopt every measure which may be necessary to perpetuate them?”
Our 19th century wars of expansion, official and not, won us territories where Latin Americans lived — Panamanians, Puerto Ricans, but especially Mexicans — that we ended up treating as little better than serfs. We have occupied nations for years and imposed sanctions on others. We have propped up puppets and despots and taken down democratically elected governments with the regularity of the seasons.
The culmination of all these actions were the mass migrations from Latin America that forever altered the demographics of the United States. And when those people — like my parents — came here, they were immediately subjected to a racism hard-wired into the American psyche, which then justified a Latin American foreign policy bent on domination, not friendship.
Nothing rallies this country historically like sticking it to Latinos, whether in their ancestral countries or here. We’re this country’s perpetual scapegoats and eternal invaders, with harming gringos — whether by stealing their jobs, moving into their neighborhoods, marrying their daughters or smuggling drugs — supposedly the only thing on our mind.
That’s why when Trump ran on an isolationist platform last year, he never meant the region — of course not. The border between the U.S. and Latin America has never been the fence that divides the U.S. from Mexico or our shores. It’s wherever the hell we say it is.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro Urrego addresses the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 23 at U.N. headquarters.
(Pamela Smith / Associated Press)
That’s why the Trump administration is banking on the idea that it can get away with its boat bombings and is salivating to escalate. To them, the 43 people American missile strikes have slaughtered on the open sea so far aren’t humans — and anyone who might have an iota of sympathy or doubt deserves aggression as well.
That’s why when Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the U.S. of murder because one of the strikes killed a Colombian fisherman with no ties to cartels, Trump went on social media to lambaste Petro’s “fresh mouth,” accuse him of being a “drug leader” and warn the head of a longtime American ally he “better close up these killing fields [cartel bases] immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.”
The only person who can turn down the proverbial temperature on this issue is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who should know all the bad that American imperialism has wrought on Latin America. The U.S. treated his parents’ homeland of Cuba like a playground for decades, propping up one dictator after another until Cubans revolted and Fidel Castro took power. A decades-long embargo that Trump tightened upon assuming office the second time has done nothing to free the Cuban people and instead made things worse.
Instead, Rubio is the instigator. He’s pushing for regime change in Venezuela, chumming it up with self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and cheering on Trump’s missile attacks.
“Bottom line, these are drug boats,” Rubio told reporters recently with Trump by his side. “If people want to stop seeing drug boats blow up, stop sending drugs to the United States.”
You might ask: Who cares? Cartels are bad, drugs are bad, aren’t they? Of course. But every American should oppose every time a suspected drug boat launching from Latin America is destroyed with no questions asked and no proof offered. Because every time Trump violates yet another law or norm in the name of defending the U.S. and no one stops him, democracy erodes just a little bit more.
This is a president, after all, who seems to dream of treating his enemies, including American cities, like drug boats.
Few will care, alas. It’s Latin America, after all.
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Gustavo Arellano
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Banc of California will raise its profile in downtown Los Angeles by putting its name on top of a skyscraper and nearly doubling the size of its offices.
The Los Angeles bank’s expansion comes at a time when downtown office landlords have been struggling with high vacancies since the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a shift to remote work for many businesses.
Banc of California has leased 40,000 square feet at 865 S. Figueroa St. and secured the rights to emblazon its name atop the 35-story tower just north of L.A. Live, the bank recently announced.
“We moved our headquarters to Los Angeles two years ago because we believe in this city and in the power of the entrepreneurs and businesses that call it home,” Chief Executive Jared Wolff said.
The bank used to be based in Santa Ana and is now headquartered in Brentwood.
Its downtown offices are currently nearby in the Figueroa at Wilshire building, where the bank rents nearly 23,000 square feet, according to real estate data provider CoStar.
The bank plans to move to its new offices downtown by the end of summer. The financial terms of its 11-year lease there were not disclosed.
Banc of California’s growth in downtown Los Angeles follows recent expansions in Beverly Hills and New York City.
In June, the bank moved its corporate office in New York to a prominent location on Park Avenue. In March, it expanded its corporate office in Beverly Hills with signage atop a 12-story building at 9701 Wilshire Blvd. on the corner of Roxbury Drive.
The bank also has its name on a building next to the 405 Freeway on Olympic Boulevard.
Prominent signs on its office buildings are important to the bank, a representative said, in part because the downtown tower will be visible during the 2028 Olympics and perhaps be part of skyline backdrops during coverage of the event.
About a third of the office space in downtown’s financial district is vacant, according to real estate brokerage CBRE, about the same as a year ago.
Many institutional investors, such as pension funds and insurance companies, have often been reluctant in recent years to make big bets on L.A. because the rapidly changing rules make it impossible to predict profits.
Among investors’ concerns are public policies such as the United to House Los Angeles (Measure ULA) transfer tax on large real estate sales, and also temporary limits on evicting tenants that were enacted during the pandemic.
Banc of California said it is now the largest independent bank headquartered in Los Angeles and the third-largest bank headquartered in California.
“Expanding our presence in downtown demonstrates how committed we are to serving the Greater L.A. market,” Wolff said.
The bank announced its results for the three months through September on Wednesday. It said its revenue climbed 5% to $288 million. It flipped to a net profit during the third quarter compared with a net loss a year earlier.
“Given our attractive footprint and strong position in key markets, we believe we are
uniquely positioned to continue this momentum,” Wolff said in a prepared statement with the earnings announcement. “Looking ahead, we see a good pipeline for the fourth quarter and remain confident that our disciplined approach positions us well to drive profitable, long-term growth.”
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Roger Vincent
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Ever meet a Mr. Baker who actually makes bread?
Some call it destiny, others call it nominative determinism (It’s a real thing).
Nominative determinism is an idea that your name nudges you towards your career.
It’s not hard science, just a hilarious pattern you can’t unsee once you notice it.
So here’s a victory lap for fate: perfectly named people doing exactly what their name suggests.
Destiny? Coincidence? Either way, the name tag says it all, and it’s perfection.
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Ty
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