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Tag: use

  • Police killed SoCal man with a ‘less-lethal’ round. Officer’s use of force is ruled justified

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    In the dark, early-morning hours outside a McDonald’s in Orange County, a police officer fired a shotgun loaded with so-called less-lethal munitions at a man swinging a belt, cursing at officers and believed to be under the influence of drugs, authorities said.

    One, two, three, then four shots of beanbag rounds were fired from a distance of around 30 feet, but the man did not comply with orders to get on the ground, according to a report released Thursday by the Orange County district attorney’s office.

    So, the officer fired a fifth shot. It pierced the man’s chest, and he fell to the ground bleeding profusely. Less than an hour later, he was pronounced dead.

    Investigators at the district attorney’s office recently determined that Fullerton Police Cpl. Nicholas Jarvis was justified in his use of force that killed Alejandro Campos Rios, 50, on March 6, 2024.

    “Corporal Jarvis’ deployment of the less-lethal bean bag shotgun at that distance was in accordance with his training and reasonable under the circumstances,” the report states.

    Less-lethal munitions such as beanbag rounds are designed to spread the force of impact over a larger area, without penetrating the skin, offering officers an alternative to bullets when defending against threats. And as police departments’ use of force across the nation has come under greater scrutiny in recent years, the use of less-lethal munitions has grown considerably.

    “I can appreciate that there seems to be more less-lethal methods being used as opposed to just straight out shooting people,” said civil rights attorney Kellen Davis, who has prosecuted many use-of-force cases against police departments. “But I think that force, period, should be a last resort. I would appreciate seeing more deescalation tactics as opposed to use of any sort of force.”

    Less-lethal munitions have been attributed to a decrease in fatal officer-involved shootings. However, they remain a controversial tool because of the injuries they can cause — and, in rare cases such as this, death.

    The 18-page report released by the district attorney’s office paints a detailed picture of the circumstances leading up to Campos Rios’ death, but it does not provide a clear answer as to how a tool intended to stun and disable became a fatal instrument.

    The incident began at 2:55 a.m. on March 6, 2024, when the Fullerton Police Department received a call from a woman who worked at a McDonald’s at 1341 S. Brookhurst Road, reporting “two homeless men” who appeared to be “actively on drugs” near the entrance of the building. She said she feared for the safety of her coworkers arriving to work.

    An officer arrived at 3:06 a.m. and approached Campos Rios, who was singing and yelling and began thrashing his body and a nylon belt with a metal buckle in a “wild manner,” according to the report.

    The officer called for backup, and Jarvis soon arrived at the scene, where he also saw Campos Rios acting erratically and assumed he was under the influence of narcotics, according to the report. The officer told Campos Rios to drop the belt and sit on the curb, but he refused.

    The officers repeatedly asked Campos Rios to comply with their orders. He ignored them and continued throwing the belt around, cursing at officers, singing, yelling and hitting a pillar with his hands. Aside from the belt, the report does not detail any weapon he possessed.

    At 3:13 a.m., Jarvis loaded six 12-gauge drag-stabilized beanbag rounds into a Remington Model 870 Police Magnum shotgun and positioned himself around 30 feet away from Campos Rios, the report states. Officers are trained that that device can be deployed 20 to 100 feet from a target, the report states.

    The initial responding officer activated his taser, so that it created a warning noise. Campos Rios then approached him, cursing, and slammed the belt on the ground in his direction. The officer announced that he would fire his taser, and then he fired the taser, which appeared to strike Campos Rios and only agitate him further.

    Jarvis then yelled, “Bean bag! Bean bag!” and fired one round at Campos Rios, striking him in the arm. Campos Rios walked away from the first officer and toward the McDonald’s entrance, and Jarvis discharged his weapon four more times, with the final round striking Campos Rios in the chest.

    Paramedics began performing lifesaving measures at 3:22 a.m.; Campos Rios was pronounced dead at UC Irvine Medical Center at 3:55 a.m. His cause of death was ruled a penetrating chest injury to the heart and the accumulation of blood between the chest and lungs.

    The report states that Jarvis’ use of force was justified because “substantial reliable evidence supports the conclusion that at the time of the shooting, Corporal Jarvis reasonably feared for his life and the lives of others.”

    It is rare, but not unheard of, for less-lethal munitions to cause death.

    An analysis of nearly 2,000 people wounded by rubber bullets, beanbag rounds and other projectiles used by law enforcement from 1990 to 2017 found that 15% of people were permanently disabled and 3% died. Of the 53 people who died, 26 suffered head and neck trauma, and 15 suffered chest and abdominal trauma.

    The study explains that the muzzle velocity of less-lethal munitions is similar to that of lethal ammunition and that severe injuries are typically caused by rounds that strike vital organs from a close range. To prevent severe injury, officers are trained to fire from what have been deemed safe distances.

    “Safe shooting distances are not well validated, however, and are highly variable among weapons, countries and manufacturers,” the study states, adding that, in practice, less-lethal munitions may be deployed “from distances much closer than deemed safe.”

    In 2021, Gov. Newsom signed Assembly Bill 48 into law, which placed restrictions around the use of less-lethal weapons, including that they cannot be aimed at the head, neck or any other vital organs.

    Recent pro-immigration protests in Los Angeles have revived the debate around the use of less-lethals as demonstrators and members of the media have been injured by beanbag rounds and 40 mm projectiles, resulting in dozens of lawsuits.

    Davis, the civil rights attorney, said that in his experience prosecuting use-of-force cases it is extremely rare for less-lethal munitions to cause death.

    “It sounds to me like there was something defective with the weapon,” he said.

    When asked about possible defects, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said their job was to “determine whether any of the officers violated any criminal laws and did not include a review of any issues of civil liability or whether or not department policy was followed.” The Fullerton Police Department did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

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    Clara Harter

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  • California bill would force lawmakers to start talking about controversial capitol annex project

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    California lawmakers will consider a bill that could force public conversations on the secretive California Capitol Annex project for the first time in years. Assemblyman Josh Hoover, R-Folsom, filed AB 2445 which would invalidate the non-disclosure agreements that have been shielding basic information from the public about the taxpayer funded project. The project includes a new office building and parking garage for state lawmakers and the governor that is expected to be complete by Fall of 2027. Non-disclosure agreements are contracts that legally force people to keep quiet. In September of 2024, KCRA 3 first reported project leaders forced more than 2,000 people and counting to sign them, including some state lawmakers, government officials and members of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s staff. “This comes after years working behind the scenes and across the aisle to get information on the capitol annex,” Hoover said in an interview with KCRA 3 Wednesday. He said those efforts didn’t gain a lot of traction, and project leaders continue to keep information not just from the public, but also lawmakers. “We need to have a public conversation,” he said. Hoover’s bill would also prohibit the construction of a visitor’s center on the state capitol’s iconic west side. Project leaders quietly decided to not move forward with that aspect of the plan but told no one until KCRA 3 pressed for information last summer. Hoover wants the decision put into state law. The California Legislature’s Joint Rules Committee overseeing the project has not held a single hearing on it since 2021 and the group has not updated the estimated cost to taxpayers since 2022, which at the time was set at $1.1 billion. Nearly three months after project leaders Assemblywoman Blanca Pacheco and State Senator John Laird promised to be more transparent, they have yet to update taxpayers on the price tag. They have also rejected KCRA 3’s repeated requests for an interview since the start of this year. Pacheco and Laird would not do an interview for this story and did not have an update on a cost estimate as of Wednesday night. A spokesperson for the project said the project’s new management company was still “crunching the numbers” and would provide an update as soon as possible. Project leaders have been saying this since December. “We are aware of the legislative proposal pending in the Assembly and will let the legislative process run its course,” Pacheco and Laird said in a joint statement. “I see a brave leadership doing the right thing and getting the issue behind them,” said Dick Cowan, the former leader of the now defunct Historic State Capitol Commission who was part of a group that sued over the project. “If the leadership ignores this bill, if they don’t refer it to a committee, if they don’t give it a hearing, that public trust is still at risk.” The projectBack in 2016, California lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown agreed to demolish the capitol’s 1950’s annex building and construct a new one citing safety issues. The plan included not just a new building but also a parking garage and visitor’s center on the west side of the state capitol. The 525,000 square foot office building will specifically house the offices of California’s 120 state lawmakers, governor and lieutenant governor. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis will no longer be in office once it’s complete. In 2021, a group named Save Our Capitol sued over the project citing environmental concerns. A state appellate court sided with the group, agreeing that project leaders did not provide the public with an accurate description of the project or a thorough analysis of how the demolition of the old annex would impact the environment. In 2024, California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom rushed a bill that exempted the project from the California Environmental Quality Act to halt the litigation. A year after that litigation ended, project leaders continued to use it as an excuse to not update taxpayers on the cost. Even with a price tag of about $1.1 billion, it would still be considered one of the most expensive buildings in the country and cost nearly as much as an NFL stadium. Project leaders said they’ve spent $573.8 million so far and that it was 50% complete as of December of 2025. The secrecy The legislature’s Joint Rules Committee has been keeping basic information about the project confidential since it started.In the fall of 2024 through a series of open records requests, KCRA 3 broke the story that more than 2,000 people signed the broad non-disclosure agreements including five state lawmakers, dozens of government officials, and a handful of people in the governor’s office. With the information protected under NDAs, the estimated price tag of the project doubled between 2018 and 2021. Various legal experts told KCRA 3 they were alarmed by the development noting taxpayers and voters are entitled to the information. While it is legal, some state lawmakers and experts said the use of NDAs like this should be banned. Hoover’s bill attempts to prohibit the use of NDAs in this manner moving forward. “I think when you’re going to spend over a billion dollars, you need to have more transparency than this,” Hoover said. The original legislative architect of the Capitol Annex Project and the establishment of the NDAs was then Assemblyman Ken Cooley, a Democrat from Sacramento. Hoover defeated Cooley in the 2022 election. Cooley has ignored years’ worth of KCRA 3’s requests for information surrounding the decision to use NDAs. Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco replaced Cooley as the leader of the Joint Rules Committee when Cooley lost his seat. She and Vice Chairman of the committee, State Senator John Laird, have defended the use of the NDAs stating they’re meant to protect security and bid information”The NDAs are for public safety. They exist to protect the physical integrity of the building and safeguard everyone – legislators, staff, journalists and the multitude of daily schoolchildren and visitors. Invalidating these standard safety protocols would be a serious security risk.” The project NDAs do not explicitly say the words security and bid information. They protect any and all information related to the project. When pressed about this in an interview in December, Pacheco said, “These were drafted by legal counsel, and I can’t say why legal counsel would draft it in such a manner. Sometimes legal counsel prefers to have broad language.” Cowan has said Hoover’s proposal to get rid of them will be the only way for project leaders to truly know what went wrong. “They have to talk to everyone involved, because at the moment those people are afraid to speak,” Cowan said. Longtime lobbyist and Adjunct McGeorge School of Law Professor Chris Micheli said if lawmakers were to pass the proposal, it could be challenged in court. “States can’t impair existing contracts,” Micheli noted. “However, if there were a legal challenge, how would the courts look at it? Is it reasonable? Is it necessary? Does it serve a significant public purpose? I think if those three tests are viewed favorable then the invalidation could occur.” Project leaders have been making a series of decisions behind closed doors and have a history of withholding public records. KCRA 3 reported in 2024 the secret stonework project leaders quietly approved that involved mining 2 million pounds of rock from Central California, shipping it to Italy to be finished into stone and shipping it back to the state to eventually be placed on part of the facade of the new building. Following the January 6 attacks on the nation’s capitol, project leaders also added millions in new security expenses. State law has given project leaders the ability to meet and decide aspects of the project outside of public view. In addition to the leaders of the Joint Rules Committee, public records show the meetings also include the governor’s Director of Operations, the director of the Department of General Services and a representative with the project’s management company. Neither the governor’s office nor Joint Rules Committee could provide records showing how long these meetings lasted and whether a vote took place.Records provided to KCRA 3 through a Legislative Open Records Request show this group met nine times in 2019, seven times in 2020, one time in 2023 and one time in 2025. The west side visitor’s center The state law that established the capitol annex also established the west side visitor’s center, which has yet to materialize. The west side is the capitol’s main public square where there are often protests, demonstrations, press conferences and major events. Hoover’s bill AB 2445 would change the annex law and prohibit the demolition of the West Steps for a visitor’s center and require any future visitor’s center to be placed anywhere else around the state capitol. The visitor’s center was also at the center of the environmental lawsuit. Project leaders confirmed to KCRA 3 last year that they did not intend to move forward with the visitor’s center. It’s not clear what they plan to do with the money that was meant for it. “During the legal process it was determined that the best path forward to finish the Annex on time, was to no longer pursue the Visitors Center on the West Steps. At this time, we are focused on finishing the Annex and a conversation about building a Visitor’s Center may begin at a later date,” Pacheco and Laird said in a joint statement. “Those words are not as comforting as the words I would want to hear, that ‘we commit, we’ll put in writing,’” Cowan told KCRA 3 in an interview. “Those are nice soft words but they don’t prevent work from starting later.” Records provided to KCRA 3 show on July 31, 2025, project leaders notified Plant Construction Company that the work had not been approved to proceed after stalling since 2023 because of the lawsuit. “We thank you for your work on the Visitor Center and look forward to a future opportunity to work with your team,” wrote the Chief Administrative Officers of the Senate and Assembly, Erika Contreras and Lia Lopez. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

    California lawmakers will consider a bill that could force public conversations on the secretive California Capitol Annex project for the first time in years.

    Assemblyman Josh Hoover, R-Folsom, filed AB 2445 which would invalidate the non-disclosure agreements that have been shielding basic information from the public about the taxpayer funded project. The project includes a new office building and parking garage for state lawmakers and the governor that is expected to be complete by Fall of 2027.

    Non-disclosure agreements are contracts that legally force people to keep quiet. In September of 2024, KCRA 3 first reported project leaders forced more than 2,000 people and counting to sign them, including some state lawmakers, government officials and members of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s staff.

    “This comes after years working behind the scenes and across the aisle to get information on the capitol annex,” Hoover said in an interview with KCRA 3 Wednesday. He said those efforts didn’t gain a lot of traction, and project leaders continue to keep information not just from the public, but also lawmakers.

    “We need to have a public conversation,” he said.

    Hoover’s bill would also prohibit the construction of a visitor’s center on the state capitol’s iconic west side. Project leaders quietly decided to not move forward with that aspect of the plan but told no one until KCRA 3 pressed for information last summer. Hoover wants the decision put into state law.

    The California Legislature’s Joint Rules Committee overseeing the project has not held a single hearing on it since 2021 and the group has not updated the estimated cost to taxpayers since 2022, which at the time was set at $1.1 billion.

    Nearly three months after project leaders Assemblywoman Blanca Pacheco and State Senator John Laird promised to be more transparent, they have yet to update taxpayers on the price tag. They have also rejected KCRA 3’s repeated requests for an interview since the start of this year.

    Pacheco and Laird would not do an interview for this story and did not have an update on a cost estimate as of Wednesday night. A spokesperson for the project said the project’s new management company was still “crunching the numbers” and would provide an update as soon as possible.

    Project leaders have been saying this since December.

    “We are aware of the legislative proposal pending in the Assembly and will let the legislative process run its course,” Pacheco and Laird said in a joint statement.

    “I see a brave leadership doing the right thing and getting the issue behind them,” said Dick Cowan, the former leader of the now defunct Historic State Capitol Commission who was part of a group that sued over the project.

    “If the leadership ignores this bill, if they don’t refer it to a committee, if they don’t give it a hearing, that public trust is still at risk.”

    The project

    Back in 2016, California lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown agreed to demolish the capitol’s 1950’s annex building and construct a new one citing safety issues. The plan included not just a new building but also a parking garage and visitor’s center on the west side of the state capitol.

    The 525,000 square foot office building will specifically house the offices of California’s 120 state lawmakers, governor and lieutenant governor. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis will no longer be in office once it’s complete.

    In 2021, a group named Save Our Capitol sued over the project citing environmental concerns. A state appellate court sided with the group, agreeing that project leaders did not provide the public with an accurate description of the project or a thorough analysis of how the demolition of the old annex would impact the environment.

    In 2024, California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom rushed a bill that exempted the project from the California Environmental Quality Act to halt the litigation.

    A year after that litigation ended, project leaders continued to use it as an excuse to not update taxpayers on the cost. Even with a price tag of about $1.1 billion, it would still be considered one of the most expensive buildings in the country and cost nearly as much as an NFL stadium.

    Project leaders said they’ve spent $573.8 million so far and that it was 50% complete as of December of 2025.

    The secrecy

    The legislature’s Joint Rules Committee has been keeping basic information about the project confidential since it started.

    In the fall of 2024 through a series of open records requests, KCRA 3 broke the story that more than 2,000 people signed the broad non-disclosure agreements including five state lawmakers, dozens of government officials, and a handful of people in the governor’s office.

    With the information protected under NDAs, the estimated price tag of the project doubled between 2018 and 2021.

    Various legal experts told KCRA 3 they were alarmed by the development noting taxpayers and voters are entitled to the information. While it is legal, some state lawmakers and experts said the use of NDAs like this should be banned. Hoover’s bill attempts to prohibit the use of NDAs in this manner moving forward.

    “I think when you’re going to spend over a billion dollars, you need to have more transparency than this,” Hoover said.

    The original legislative architect of the Capitol Annex Project and the establishment of the NDAs was then Assemblyman Ken Cooley, a Democrat from Sacramento. Hoover defeated Cooley in the 2022 election. Cooley has ignored years’ worth of KCRA 3’s requests for information surrounding the decision to use NDAs.

    Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco replaced Cooley as the leader of the Joint Rules Committee when Cooley lost his seat. She and Vice Chairman of the committee, State Senator John Laird, have defended the use of the NDAs stating they’re meant to protect security and bid information

    “The NDAs are for public safety. They exist to protect the physical integrity of the building and safeguard everyone – legislators, staff, journalists and the multitude of daily schoolchildren and visitors. Invalidating these standard safety protocols would be a serious security risk.”

    The project NDAs do not explicitly say the words security and bid information. They protect any and all information related to the project. When pressed about this in an interview in December, Pacheco said, “These were drafted by legal counsel, and I can’t say why legal counsel would draft it in such a manner. Sometimes legal counsel prefers to have broad language.”

    Cowan has said Hoover’s proposal to get rid of them will be the only way for project leaders to truly know what went wrong.

    “They have to talk to everyone involved, because at the moment those people are afraid to speak,” Cowan said.

    Longtime lobbyist and Adjunct McGeorge School of Law Professor Chris Micheli said if lawmakers were to pass the proposal, it could be challenged in court.

    “States can’t impair existing contracts,” Micheli noted. “However, if there were a legal challenge, how would the courts look at it? Is it reasonable? Is it necessary? Does it serve a significant public purpose? I think if those three tests are viewed favorable then the invalidation could occur.”

    Project leaders have been making a series of decisions behind closed doors and have a history of withholding public records.

    KCRA 3 reported in 2024 the secret stonework project leaders quietly approved that involved mining 2 million pounds of rock from Central California, shipping it to Italy to be finished into stone and shipping it back to the state to eventually be placed on part of the facade of the new building.

    Following the January 6 attacks on the nation’s capitol, project leaders also added millions in new security expenses.

    State law has given project leaders the ability to meet and decide aspects of the project outside of public view. In addition to the leaders of the Joint Rules Committee, public records show the meetings also include the governor’s Director of Operations, the director of the Department of General Services and a representative with the project’s management company. Neither the governor’s office nor Joint Rules Committee could provide records showing how long these meetings lasted and whether a vote took place.

    Records provided to KCRA 3 through a Legislative Open Records Request show this group met nine times in 2019, seven times in 2020, one time in 2023 and one time in 2025.

    The west side visitor’s center

    The state law that established the capitol annex also established the west side visitor’s center, which has yet to materialize.

    The west side is the capitol’s main public square where there are often protests, demonstrations, press conferences and major events.

    Hoover’s bill AB 2445 would change the annex law and prohibit the demolition of the West Steps for a visitor’s center and require any future visitor’s center to be placed anywhere else around the state capitol.

    The visitor’s center was also at the center of the environmental lawsuit.

    Project leaders confirmed to KCRA 3 last year that they did not intend to move forward with the visitor’s center. It’s not clear what they plan to do with the money that was meant for it.

    “During the legal process it was determined that the best path forward to finish the Annex on time, was to no longer pursue the Visitors Center on the West Steps. At this time, we are focused on finishing the Annex and a conversation about building a Visitor’s Center may begin at a later date,” Pacheco and Laird said in a joint statement.

    “Those words are not as comforting as the words I would want to hear, that ‘we commit, we’ll put in writing,’” Cowan told KCRA 3 in an interview. “Those are nice soft words but they don’t prevent work from starting later.”

    Records provided to KCRA 3 show on July 31, 2025, project leaders notified Plant Construction Company that the work had not been approved to proceed after stalling since 2023 because of the lawsuit.

    “We thank you for your work on the Visitor Center and look forward to a future opportunity to work with your team,” wrote the Chief Administrative Officers of the Senate and Assembly, Erika Contreras and Lia Lopez.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • As ICE scales up hiring, whistleblower documents reveal deep cuts to training program

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    WASHINGTON — New whistleblower documents detail substantial cuts by the Trump administration to the training requirements for new immigration officers.

    Among the cuts are the elimination of practical exams, use of force and legal training courses, and an overall reduction in training time, contrary to an official’s testimony to Congress earlier this month.

    The documents, provided to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) by whistleblowers from the Department of Homeland Security, were publicly revealed ahead of a forum Monday with congressional Democrats — the third in recent weeks probing what the members view as abusive and illegal tactics used by federal agents.

    Lauren Bis, deputy assistant public affairs secretary at Homeland Security, said no training hours have been cut.

    “Our officers receive extensive firearm training, are taught de-escalation tactics, and receive 4th and 5th Amendment comprehensive instruction,” she said. “The training does not stop after graduation from the academy. Recruits are put on a rigorous on-the-job training program that is tracked and monitored.”

    Earlier this month, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons testified to Congress that while the agency had reduced the number of training days to 42 from 75, “We went from five days a week to six days a week. Five days a week was five eight-hour days and we’ve gone to six 12-hour days.”

    But the documents appear to contradict Lyons’ testimony.

    “The schedules reflected on these documents indicate that current ICE recruits receive nearly 250 fewer hours of training than previous cohorts of recruits,” according to a 90-page memorandum from minority staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Blumenthal is the top Democrat on that committee.

    Blumenthal’s office also disclosed the identity of one whistleblower: Ryan Schwank, an attorney who most recently served as an instructor for new Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruits at the ICE Academy within the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.

    Schwank, who resigned Feb. 13, is one of two whistleblowers who made a confidential disclosure to Blumenthal’s office last month regarding an ICE policy allowing agents to forcefully enter people’s homes without a judicial warrant.

    In his testimony Monday, Schwank said that for the last five months, he watched ICE leadership dismantle its training program. What remains, he said, is a “dangerous husk.”

    Schwank said the assertion by Homeland Security leaders that cadets receive the same training in a shorter time frame “is a lie.”

    “This means that cadets are not taught what it means to be objectively reasonable, the very standard which the law requires them to meet when deciding whether or not to use deadly force,” he said. “Our jobs as instructors are to teach them so well they can make split-second decisions about what they can and cannot do in life-or-death situations. Yet in the name of churning out an endless stream of officers, DHS leadership has dismantled the academic and practical tests that we need to know if cadets can safely and lawfully perform their job.”

    Schwank said he was shown the secret memo authorizing forceful home entry on his first day as a training instructor. He was told to teach its contents but not to take notes on it or discuss its existence.

    “Never in my career had I ever received such a blatant unlawful order, nor one conveyed in such a troubling manner,” he said. “Incredibly, I was being shown this memo in secret by my supervisor, who made sure that I understood that disobedience would cost me my job.”

    “So in effect, you were told, as an instructor on the law, that you were to train ICE agents how to break the law,” Blumenthal told Schwank.

    Schwank told Blumenthal that the reason he received the training position was because the lawyer in the position before him had been forced to resign on their refusal to teach the contents of the memo.

    Another witness at the forum was Teyana Gibson Brown, whose husband, Garrison Gibson, was arrested in Minneapolis last month after agents burst through their door with guns drawn. She said she and her husband repeatedly asked to see a warrant but were ignored.

    “I heard the door pop and I realized we were no longer protected,” she said. “Ten officers that were all armed were standing in front of me and my family. Words can never be sufficient for me to portray what sorts of horror we felt in this moment.”

    Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) said the notion that “ICE wants to write its own permission slip, without a judge, to break down your door and to violate your rights” should terrify all Americans. Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, led the forum with Blumenthal.

    Blumenthal’s office did not confirm whether Schwank or the other whistleblower, who is still anonymous, provided the documents that were released Monday and included in the 90-page memo.

    The documents show ICE has eliminated more than a dozen practical exams that ICE officers previously needed to graduate. In July 2021, a cadet needed to pass 25 practical exams to graduate. Now, nine are required.

    Eliminated exams include “Judgment pistol shooting,” “Criminal encounters,” and “Determine removability.”

    “All of these are now instead evaluated, if at all, mainly by open-book, multiple-choice written exams and without any graded practical examinations,” the memo states.

    During the hearing, Blumenthal raised a poster showing the two lists of exam topics. The longer list, Schwank told him, was a vital lesson on things like “how to use their firearms safely, how to encounter an individual they intended to detain, much like Mrs. Gibson Brown’s husband.”

    Tests that used to be closed-book became open-book, he said. As a result, he watched cadets graduate despite using excessive force in practical exercises.

    Comparisons between the program’s syllabus table of contents and general information sections from July 2025 — before the surge in hiring — and this month show that ICE appears to have cut whole courses, such as use of force simulation training, U.S. government structure, criminal versus removal proceedings, and use of force.

    In a statement, Homeland Security said no training requirements have been removed and that new recruits get 56 days of training and an average of 28 days of on-the-job training. The agency said training was streamlined to cut redundancy and incorporate technological advancements without cutting subject matter content.

    Candidates still learn the same elements always required, the agency said, including multiple classes on use-of-force policy, as well as safe arrest techniques and de-escalation.

    The training reductions come as ICE plans to bring up more than 4,000 new Enforcement and Removal Operations officers this fiscal year, which ends in September. One of the documents notes that ICE had graduated 803 new officers in 2026 as of Jan. 29 and projected 3,204 more graduates by the end of the fiscal year.

    In its statement, Homeland Security said the agency is prepared to train 12,000 new hires this year, and that the majority of new hires are experienced law enforcement officers who have already gone through a police academy.

    Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) asked Schwank about the new officers ICE has hired.

    “Are they police officers that already have this training, so they don’t have to worry about it?” she asked. “Is it individuals that don’t have any law enforcement background?”

    Schwank said the cadets he met genuinely wanted to learn and to do their jobs correctly but didn’t arrive with a law enforcement background.

    “I’ve had cadets who are 18 years old,” he said. “I had a cadet who celebrated her 19th birthday in her classes. We have cadets who don’t have college degrees. We have cadets for whom English is not their primary language.”

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    Andrea Castillo

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  • L.A. stopped a couple from demolishing Marilyn Monroe’s home. Now, they’re suing

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    A Brentwood couple is suing the city of Los Angeles and Mayor Karen Bass, claiming their constitutional rights were violated when city officials blocked them from demolishing the home where Marilyn Monroe died in 1962.

    In a 37-page complaint that accuses the city of collusion and bias, the lawsuit filed by homeowners Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank claims L.A. “deprived Plaintiffs of their intended demolition of the house and the use and enjoyment of their Property without any actual benefit to the public.”

    It’s yet another chapter in a saga surrounding the fate of the famous property, which began in 2023 when Milstein, a wealthy real estate heiress, and Bank, a reality TV producer with credits including “The Apprentice” and “Survivor,” bought the home for $8.35 million. They own the property next door and hoped to tear down Monroe’s place to expand their estate.

    The pair quickly obtained demolition permits from the Department of Building and Safety, but once their plans became public, an outcry erupted. A legion of historians, Angelenos and Monroe fans claimed the 1920s haunt, where the actor died in 1962, is an indelible piece of the city’s history.

    Councilmember Traci Park, who represents L.A.’s 11th Council District where the home is located, said she received hundreds of calls and emails urging her to protect it. In September 2023, she held a news conference dressed as Monroe — bright red lipstick, bobbing blond hair — urging the City Council to declare it a landmark.

    The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission started the landmark application process in January 2024, barring the owners from destroying the house in the meantime. L.A. City Council unanimously voted to designate it as a historic cultural monument a few months later, officially saving it from destruction.

    It’s not the first legal challenge brought by Milstein and Bank. The pair sued the city in 2024, accusing the city of “backdoor machinations” in preserving a house that doesn’t deserve to be a historic cultural monument.

    An L.A. Superior Court Judge threw out the suit in September 2025, calling it “an ill-disguised motion to win so they can demolish the home.”

    The latest lawsuit includes a variety of damages, claiming the property’s monument status has turned it into a tourist attraction, bringing trespassers who leap over the walls surrounding the property. In November, burglars broke into the home searching for memorabilia, the suit alleges.

    The lawsuit accuses the city of taking no efforts to stop trespassers and failing to compensate the owners for their loss of use and enjoyment of the property. It also notes that the homeowners offered to pay to relocate the home, but the city ignored them.

    An aerial view of the house in Brentwood where Marilyn Monroe died is seen on July 26, 2002.

    (Mel Bouzad / Getty Images)

    The feud has stirred up a larger conversation on what exactly is worth protecting in Southern California, a region loaded with architectural marvels and Old Hollywood haunts swirling with celebrity legend and gossip.

    Fans claim the house, located on 5th Helena Drive, is too iconic to be torn down. Monroe bought it for $75,000 in 1962 and died there six months later, the only home she ever owned by herself. The phrase “Cursum Perficio” — Latin for “The journey ends here” — was adorned in tile on the front porch, adding to the property’s lore.

    Milstein and Bank claim it has been remodeled so many times over the years, with 14 different owners and more than a dozen renovation permits issued over the last 60 years, that it bears no resemblance to its former self. Some Brentwood locals consider it a nuisance because fans and tour buses flock to the address for pictures, even though the only thing visible from the street is the privacy wall.

    “There is not a single piece of the house that includes any physical evidence that Ms. Monroe ever spent a day at the house, not a piece of furniture, not a paint chip, not a carpet, nothing,” their previous lawsuit claimed.

    With their latest lawsuit, Milstein and Bank are seeking a court order allowing them to demolish the house and compensation for the decline in property value after the city’s decision to declare it a monument.

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    Jack Flemming

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  • Project Next proposal for Osceola Heritage Park

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    PHOTO: Kimley-Horn via Osceola County

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  • Sheriff’s office employee facing charges for unauthorized access of database

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    A Lake County Sheriff’s Office employee is facing charges for accessing law enforcement databases to look into people unrelated to her work.According to a report from the sheriff’s office, 30-year-old Hannah Colon worked for the sheriff’s office in dispatch and as a clerk in the criminal investigations division.”On October first, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office received allegations that Ms. Hannah Colon was accessing various law enforcement databases that are restricted,” Deputy Stephanie Early with the sheriff’s office said.After the sheriff’s office started looking into Colon’s use of law enforcement databases, a probable cause affidavit says they questioned Colon about running two different names through the Driver and Vehicle Information Databases on three different dates. The names belonged to her husband and her husband’s ex-wife, the report says.The affidavit says in April 2023, she looked at the ex-wife’s record on things like vehicles, addresses, transaction details and driver history.According to the affidavit, she told deputies it was to access the woman’s address to apply for an order of protection against her, which she did in June 2023.The deputy pointed out she could have gotten the information from her husband.The sheriff’s office says the use is concerning.”We are only supposed to use our databases for authorized use only,” Deputy Early said. “So the fact that there are employees, that this could happen, is very concerning for us, and we make sure that this does not happen again.”Something Colon isn’t facing charges for, but the probable cause affidavit says “compounded” investigators’ suspicions, was observations from coworkers. The document says Colon had recently asked a homicide detective questions about an upcoming homicide trial while wearing new glasses that have the capability to record. It says that coworkers knew Colon was Facebook friends with the defendant in that trial, Darion McGee, who the report says is a suspect in two Lake County homicides.One appears to be the killing of Mustafa Connelly. Connelly was found shot and set on fire in a vacant lot in the Leesburg area in December 2021. McGee pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges in May 2023. According to court records, that trial was set to start Tuesday.The sheriff’s office couldn’t say if they believed Colon shared any information with anyone involved in the case. When asked if Colon’s questions regarding the trial were being investigated any further, Early said, “The investigation is still ongoing. She is on unpaid leave at the moment.”Colon was released on bond. WESH 2 attempted to contact Colon but did not hear back Tuesday night.

    LAKE COUNTY, Fla. —

    A Lake County Sheriff’s Office employee is facing charges for accessing law enforcement databases to look into people unrelated to her work.

    According to a report from the sheriff’s office, 30-year-old Hannah Colon worked for the sheriff’s office in dispatch and as a clerk in the criminal investigations division.

    “On October first, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office received allegations that Ms. Hannah Colon was accessing various law enforcement databases that are restricted,” Deputy Stephanie Early with the sheriff’s office said.

    After the sheriff’s office started looking into Colon’s use of law enforcement databases, a probable cause affidavit says they questioned Colon about running two different names through the Driver and Vehicle Information Databases on three different dates. The names belonged to her husband and her husband’s ex-wife, the report says.

    The affidavit says in April 2023, she looked at the ex-wife’s record on things like vehicles, addresses, transaction details and driver history.

    According to the affidavit, she told deputies it was to access the woman’s address to apply for an order of protection against her, which she did in June 2023.

    The deputy pointed out she could have gotten the information from her husband.

    The sheriff’s office says the use is concerning.

    “We are only supposed to use our databases for authorized use only,” Deputy Early said. “So the fact that there are employees, that this could happen, is very concerning for us, and we make sure that this does not happen again.”

    Something Colon isn’t facing charges for, but the probable cause affidavit says “compounded” investigators’ suspicions, was observations from coworkers. The document says Colon had recently asked a homicide detective questions about an upcoming homicide trial while wearing new glasses that have the capability to record. It says that coworkers knew Colon was Facebook friends with the defendant in that trial, Darion McGee, who the report says is a suspect in two Lake County homicides.

    One appears to be the killing of Mustafa Connelly. Connelly was found shot and set on fire in a vacant lot in the Leesburg area in December 2021. McGee pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges in May 2023. According to court records, that trial was set to start Tuesday.

    The sheriff’s office couldn’t say if they believed Colon shared any information with anyone involved in the case. When asked if Colon’s questions regarding the trial were being investigated any further, Early said, “The investigation is still ongoing. She is on unpaid leave at the moment.”

    Colon was released on bond. WESH 2 attempted to contact Colon but did not hear back Tuesday night.

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  • Trump administration increasingly places immigrants in solitary confinement, report finds

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    WASHINGTON — Use of solitary confinement in immigration detention is soaring under the Trump administration, according to a report published Wednesday by Physicians for Human Rights using federal data and records obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed at least 10,588 people in solitary confinement from April 2024 to May 2025, the report found. Contributors also included experts from Harvard University’s Peeler Immigration Lab and Harvard Law School.

    The use of solitary confinement during the first four months of the current Trump administration increased each month, on average, at twice the rate found between 2018 and 2023, researchers found, and more than six times the rate during the last several months of 2024.

    “Every month from February through May, which are the full calendar months of the new administration, the number of people placed in solitary in ICE [custody] increased by 6.5%,” said Dr. Katherine Peeler, medical advisor for Physicians for Human Rights, and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “That was really dismaying.”

    Solitary confinement, in which detainees are held alone for at least 22 hours a day, is used in ICE detention facilities as a form of punishment or to protect certain at-risk immigrants.

    In a statement Thursday, assistant Homeland Security secretary Tricia McLaughlin said ICE prioritizes the safety and security of people in its custody.

    Detainees are placed into disciplinary segregation “only after they are found guilty by a disciplinary hearing panel,” she said.

    Any detainee scheduled for removal, release, or transfer is also placed into administrative segregation for 24 hours, she added. According to ICE’s National Detention Standards, “such segregation may be ordered for security reasons or for the orderly operation of the facility.”

    The United Nations has called solitary confinement longer than 15 consecutive days a form of torture.

    ICE defines vulnerable detainees as those with serious medical or mental health conditions, disabilities, and those who are elderly, pregnant or nursing, at risk of harm due to sexual orientation or gender identity, or victims of abuse.

    Among those categorized as vulnerable, the report states that solitary confinement lasted twice as long, on average, during the first three months of 2025 compared with the first fiscal quarter of 2022, when the agency started reporting those statistics.

    This year, vulnerable detainees spent an average of 38 consecutive days in isolation, compared with 14 days in late 2021, according to the report.

    The report notes that use of solitary confinement in immigration detention has risen “at an alarming rate” over the last decade, and that billions of dollars authorized earlier this year by Congress to expand detention will likely exacerbate the issue. It calls on the federal government to end the practice against immigrants who are detained for civil deportation proceedings, and for states and members of Congress to exercise oversight.

    Nearly 59,000 immigrants were held in ICE custody as of Sept. 7, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization.

    The researchers at Physicians for Human Rights analyzed individual cases in New England and found “systemic use of solitary confinement for arbitrary and retaliatory purposes,” such as requesting showers, sharing food or reporting sexual assault.

    In California, detainees were placed in solitary confinement 2,546 times from September 2018 to September 2023, said Arevik Avedian, a lecturer and director of empirical research services at Harvard Law School.

    Last year, ICE changed the way it reports that data. Instead of placements, in which the same person could be counted multiple times for different stints in solitary confinement, ICE now reports the number of individuals.

    In California, ICE reported that 596 people were placed in solitary confinement from April 2024 to May 2025, she said.

    During the period of 2018-2023, two California facilities ranked in the top five with the highest number of solitary confinement placements, she said — the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County, and the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.

    This year, the data reflect ICE’s investment in Republican-led states. According to the report, facilities with the most solitary confinement stints included Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, Montgomery Processing Center in Texas, Buffalo Service Processing Center in New York, South Texas ICE Processing Center, and Eloy Detention Center in Arizona tied with Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center.

    A previous report by the same authors found that ICE had used solitary confinement more than 14,000 times between 2018 and 2023, including one Otay Mesa detainee who was held for 759 days.

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    Andrea Castillo

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  • Pepper-balls, rifle rounds, drones: UC police get green light for military-grade weapons

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    SAN FRANCISCO — University of California police will be replenishing and increasing their stockpile of military-grade weapons and equipment — including drones, bullets and thousands of pepper ball rounds — as part of an annual request approved Wednesday by the governing board of regents.

    As UC’s handling of protests and campus security comes under scrutiny from the Trump administration, five campuses — UCLA, Irvine, Santa Barbara, San Diego and San Francisco — asked for more weapons, while those in Berkeley, Davis, Merced, Riverside and Santa Cruz did not seek to make new purchases.

    The biggest request came from UC San Diego, which said it needed 5,000 new 5.56-millimeter caliber rifle rounds to replace ones used in trainings. At UC Irvine, police asked for 1,500 pepper-ball projectiles. UCLA, which has a significant weapons inventory compared to other campuses — among it 39,500 rifle rounds and ammo — made relatively few requests, including four new pepper-ball launchers and 100 sponge foam rounds.

    California law enforcement agencies are required by state law to make annual reports on the acquisition and use of weapons that qualify as military equipment. The definition includes munitions, explosives and long-range acoustic devices, which are regularly used by U.S. law enforcement and are not exclusive to the military. Some equipment under the definition, such as drones, are not traditional weapons but used for patrol and special events.

    A report from the office of UC President James B. Milliken presented Wednesday to the board of regents, which approved the requests, added that the tools “are not used indiscriminately but with caution to protect the lives of UC community members/visitors and UC officers when bringing an incident to a conclusion with the least amount of force.”

    The report said “no UC campus uses or receives goods from the U.S. Department of Defense and Law Enforcement Support Office program for surplus military equipment.”

    Under the state law, police departments also have to disclose use of such weapons in the last year. In 2024, the report said weapons were primarily used during training and that new orders would help replenish supplies used in those exercises.

    There were dozens of non-training exceptions at UCLA:

    • On June 10, 2024, police deployed 240 pepper-ball projectiles “during an incident involving an aggressive crowd.” It added that none of the rounds were “aimed at individuals and there were no reports of these rounds directly affecting any person.” A single sponge foam round was also fired. Police were responding to a pro-Palestinian encampment and protest.
    • A long-range acoustic device was used for crowd management 71 times. The report described the device as “a portable speaker used to provide increased sound and clarity over public address systems, bullhorns, or megaphones so officers can effectively communicate with crowds and provide emergency directions to people in large areas so they can take immediate actions such as sheltering in place or evacuating.”
    • A sponge foam round was fired “during an arrest when a suspect put their hand near a police officer’s firearm.”

    The report also detailed non-training uses at two additional campuses: UC Davis deployed drones 11 times for “patrol and special events,” and UC Santa Cruz also used a long-range acoustic device for crowd management at least once.

    California Assembly Bill 481, which requires the disclosures, was signed into law in 2021. But public scrutiny of UC policing has grown since 2024, when pro-Palestinian protests grew across the 10-university system and officers clashed with demonstrators at several campuses.

    UCLA police, the LAPD and California Highway Patrol were faulted in internal and external reports, including one compiled by a congressional education committee, for a failure to coordinate and quickly respond to a violent attack on a UCLA encampment on April 30 and May 1, 2024. The agencies have also faced criticism and lawsuits by pro-Palestinian protesters after officers shut down multiple demonstrations that year.

    Since then, UCLA has created a new top campus safety post, installed new police leadership and instituted changes to protest rules, including zero tolerance of encampments.

    Speaking at the regents meeting Wednesday during a public comment period, UCLA associate professor Chelsea Shover encouraged regents to reject the purchases.

    “My concern is that it will be used against students and faculty,” said Shover, who works in the medical and public health schools. In an interview, Shover added, “I have no confidence military-grade equipment will make the campus safer, as last year’s UCLA campus protests made clear.”

    Together with demands President Trump has made recently to restrict protests and speech freedoms at UCLA — in exchange for the release of frozen federal research funding — “this sets a worrying and chilling effect on rights protected by the 1st Amendment,” Shover said.

    Graeme Blair, a UCLA professor of political science who was part of the 2024 encampment and additional pro-Palestinian protests, said he believed Wednesday’s presentation “obscures an extraordinary use of force that injured students and faculty” during the June 10, 2024, campus protest that ended in arrests.

    Blair said the police-fired projectiles ended up “hitting students and faculty, leaving them bruised and with burning eyes.” Police reported only using one foam round. Blair said he witnessed multiple rounds.

    “The fact that UCPD fails to describe these harms calls into question whether they can be trusted with more munitions and their deployment,” he said. “Less-lethal munitions like sponge rounds, rubber bullets, and pepper balls have no place on a college campus, much less to be deployed against students and faculty exercising their right to free expression.”

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    Jaweed Kaleem

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  • Veteran L.A. County politician to challenge Kenneth Mejia for city controller

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    Isadore Hall, a former state legislator and Compton City Council member, launched a campaign Monday to challenge Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia.

    Mejia, a young leftist who electrified the typically staid race for controller in 2022, announced his own reelection bid earlier this month.

    Hall, who is backed by a slew of prominent endorsers, argues that Mejia has been more focused on “social media theatrics” than protecting tax dollars.

    He said he would bring common sense leadership and accountability, citing his lengthy track record in elected office and master’s degrees in management and public administration, as well as experience weeding out government waste and fraud in Compton.

    Hall, who moved to Los Angeles in 2016 and represented parts of the city in both the Assembly and the state Senate, said he launched his bid after being asked by “some elected officials,” along with several pastors and labor leaders, though he declined to provide specifics.

    Hall’s endorsements include L.A. County Supervisors Janice Hahn and Kathryn Barger, L.A. City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, California Treasurer Fiona Ma, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and five state legislators. If elected, Hall would be the city’s first Black controller; Mejia, who is Filipino American, previously made history as the first Asian American elected to citywide office in L.A.

    “It’s one thing to be a great finance person or an auditor or a person who understands numbers … but you also have to have a temperament. You also have to understand the importance of governance,” Hall said, arguing that Mejia’s office is poorly managed and lacks good communication with city department heads and other local leaders.

    Mejia has sought to demystify the city’s complex budget process and finances with frequent social media videos. His office has audited the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of helicopters, homeless shelter bed data and the implementation of an anti-tenant harassment ordinance, among other topics.

    It’s still unclear whether other candidates will enter the race for controller — a coveted role that is one of three citywide offices, along with mayor and city attorney.

    L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez has been rumored to potentially be interested in a bid for either mayor or controller, though she declined to discuss her plans with The Times last week.

    Hall and Mejia represent vastly different flanks of the Democratic Party, and the coming race will almost certainly pit L.A. establishment politics against the city’s ascendant left.

    Three years ago, despite being heavily outspent, Mejia made political mincemeat of Paul Koretz, who had held elected office since before he was born. Young voters who were previously unaware that L.A. even had a controller were galvanized by Mejia’s unorthodox campaign, which directed an unprecedented spotlight toward L.A.’s chief accounting officer, auditor and paymaster.

    Mejia’s successful campaign coincided with a moment where faith in L.A. City Hall was at a nadir amid numerous criminal scandals and an explosive leaked recording of some City Council members frankly discussing politics in sometimes racist terms. The question in 2026 will be whether the civic pendulum has shifted and if the phrase “veteran politician” still doubles as an effective slur. Mejia will also now be running as the incumbent rather than an outsider.

    Hall, 52, has spent roughly 15 years in elected office, beginning with the Compton school board in his mid-20s.

    Like Mejia, who is now 34, Hall found success in politics relatively young. But his career ascended the old-fashioned way — through incrementally higher offices and with the support of the pastors, labor and community groups who have long powered the Democratic political machine in South L.A. and surrounding cities.

    After losing a hard-fought bid for Congress in 2016, Hall was appointed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown to the California Agricultural and Labor Relations Board. Hall was originally seen as a shoo-in victor during his congressional campaign, but underdog challenger Nanette Barragán succeeded, in part, by hammering him on his ties to special interests in the oil, alcohol and tobacco industries, according to prior Times reporting.

    Mejia first made his name with unsuccessful runs for Congress as a Green Party candidate. He found his stride and exploded as a political pied piper of sorts during the 2022 election, where his energetic TikTok videos, sharp billboards and occasional dances in a Pikachu costume helped fuel the energy of the moment.

    Attempts by critics to paint Mejia in 2022 as too “extreme” because of his anti-police positions and past bombastic tweets largely fell flat.

    He faced some growing pains in City Hall, including early staff turmoil within his office, but he has largely been a quieter presence than many expected.

    As the race heats up, Mejia will almost certainly attack Hall for a number of controversies involving campaign finance.

    During his 2014 campaign for state Senate, rivals attacked Hall for his use of campaign funds to pay for expensive dinners, limousine rentals, luxury suites at concerts and trips — expenses he defended as legitimate campaign costs.

    In his 2016 congressional run, he was accused of illegally spending general election funds during the primary. A Federal Election Commission audit confirmed some misuse but took no enforcement action.

    Hall said last week that he hadn’t been an expert in the complex rules of congressional campaign finance but held his accountant accountable for the error and learned from the experience.

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    Julia Wick

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  • Critics fault Supreme Court for allowing immigration stops that consider race and ethnicity

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    WASHINGTON — Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that U.S. Border Patrol agents violated the Constitution when they stopped a car on a freeway near San Clemente because its occupants appeared to be “of Mexican ancestry.”

    The 4th Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable searches, the justices said then, and a motorist’s “Mexican appearance” does not justify stopping them to ask about their immigration status.

    But the court sounded a decidedly different note on Monday when it ruled for the Trump administration and cleared the way for stopping and questioning Latinos who may be here illegally. By a 6-3 vote, the justices set aside a Los Angeles judge’s temporary restraining order that barred agents from stopping people based in part on their race or apparent ethnicity.

    “Apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. “However, it can be a relevant factor when considered along with other salient factors.”

    Critics of the ruling said it had opened the door for authorizing racial and ethnic bias.

    UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham called it “shocking and appalling. I don’t know of any recent decision like this that authorized racial discrimination.”

    Arulanantham noted that Kavanaugh’s writings speak for the justice alone, and that the full court did not explain its ruling on a case that came through its emergency docket.

    By contrast, he and others pointed out that the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. prohibited the use of race or ethnicity as a factor in college admissions.

    “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Roberts wrote for a 6-3 majority in 2023. That decision struck down the affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

    “Today, the Supreme Court took a step in a badly wrong direction,” Ilya Somin, a George Mason University law professor, wrote on the Volokh Conspiracy blog. “It makes no sense to conclude that racial and ethnic discrimination is generally unconstitutional, yet also that its use is ‘reasonable’ under the 4th Amendment.”

    Reports had already emerged before the decision of ICE agents confronting U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents before they have been able to prove their status, compelling many to begin carrying documentation around at all times.

    In New York on Monday, one man outside a federal court was pushed by ICE agents before being able to show them his identification. He was let go.

    Asked by The Times to respond to increasing concern among U.S. citizens they could be swept up in expanded ICE raids as a result of the ruling, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that individuals should not be worried.

    She added that immigration agents conduct targeted operations with the use of law enforcement intelligence.

    “The Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration’s right to stop individuals in Los Angeles to briefly question them regarding their legal status, because the law allows this, and this has been the practice of the federal government for decades,” Leavitt said. “The Immigration and Nationality Act states that immigration officers can briefly stop an individual to question them about their immigration status, if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the United States. And reasonable suspicion is not just based on race — it’s based on a totality of the circumstances.”

    On X, the House Homeland Security Committee Democrats responded to Leavitt’s comments, writing: “ICE has jailed U.S. citizens. The Trump Admin is defending racial profiling. Nobody is safe when ‘looking Hispanic’ is treated as probable cause.”

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent pointed out that nearly half of the residents of Greater Los Angeles are Latino and can speak Spanish.

    “Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground and handcuffed because of their looks, their accents, and the fact that they make a living by doing manual labor,” she wrote. “Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.”

    At issue in the case was the meaning of “reasonable suspicion.”

    For decades, the court has said police and federal agents may stop and question someone if they see something specific that suggests they may be violating the law.

    But the two sides disagreed over whether agents may stop people because they appear to be Latinos and work as day laborers, at car washes or other low-wage jobs.

    President Trump’s lawyers as well as Kavanaugh said agents may make stops based on the “totality of the circumstances” and that may include where people work as well as their ethnicity. They also pointed to the data that suggests about 10% of the people in the Los Angeles area are illegally in the United States.

    Tom Homan, the White House border advisor, said that the legal standard of reasonable suspicion “has a group of factors you must take into consideration,” adding, “racial profiling is not happening at all.”

    It is a “false narrative being pushed,” Homan told MSNBC in an interview, praising the Supreme Court decision. “We don’t arrest somebody or detain somebody without reasonable suspicion.”

    Times staff writer Andrea Castillo, in Washington, contributed to this report.

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    David G. Savage, Michael Wilner

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  • After militarizing U.S. streets, Trump turns guns on the drug trade

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    WASHINGTON — The F-35 is the most advanced fighter jet on the planet, capable of waging electronic warfare, of dropping nuclear weapons, of evading the surveillance and missile defenses of America’s most fearsome enemies at supersonic speeds.

    Ten of them are being deployed by a newly branded War Department to Puerto Rico to combat drug traffickers in dinghies.

    It is the latest example of the Trump administration using disproportionate military force to supplement, or substitute for, traditional law enforcement operations — first at home on the streets of U.S. cities and now overseas, where the president has labeled multiple drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and has vowed a “tough” response.

    On Tuesday, that response began with an inaugural “kinetic strike” targeting a small vessel in the Caribbean allegedly carrying narcotics and 11 members of Tren de Aragua, one of the Venezuelan gangs President Trump has designated a terrorist group. Legally designating a gang or cartel as a terrorist entity ostensibly gives the president greater legal cover to conduct lethal strikes on targets.

    The operation follows Trump’s deployment of U.S. forces to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., for operations with dubious justifications, as well as threats of similar actions in San Francisco, Chicago and New Orleans, moves that a federal judge said last week amount to Trump “creating a national police force with the President as its chief.”

    Trump has referred to both problems — urban crime and drug trafficking — as interlinked and out of control. But U.S. service members have no training in local law or drug enforcement. And experts question a strategy that has been tried before, both by the United States and regional governments, of launching a war against drugs only to drive leaders in the trade to militarize themselves.

    U.S. drug policy “has always been semi-militarized,” said Jeremy Adelman, director of the Global History Lab at Princeton University. Trump’s latest actions simply make more explicit the erasure of a line “that separates law enforcement from warfare.”

    “One side effect of all this is that other countries are watching,” Adelman said. “By turning law enforcement over to the military — as the White House is also doing domestically — what’s to stop other countries from doing the same in international waters?

    “Fishermen in the South China Sea should be worried,” he added.

    The Trump administration has not provided further details on the 11 people killed in the boat strike. But officials said the departure of a drug vessel from Venezuela makes Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s dictatorial president labeled by the White House as a top drug kingpin, indirectly responsible.

    “Let there be no doubt, Nicolás Maduro is an indicted drug trafficker in the United States, and he’s a fugitive of American justice,” Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of State and national security advisor, said on a tour of the region Thursday, citing a grand jury indictment in the Southern District of New York.

    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a news conference Wednesday in Mexico City.

    (Hector Vivas / Getty Images)

    The president’s war on drug cartels will continue, Rubio said, adding that regional governments “will help us find these people and blow them up.”

    Maduro has warned the strike indicates that Washington seeks regime change in Caracas. The Venezuelan military flew two aircraft near a U.S. vessel in international waters Thursday night, prompting an angry response from Pentagon officials and Trump to direct his Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to “do what you want to do” in response.

    “Despite how dangerous this performance could be, because of its political consequences, it can’t be taken seriously as a drug policy,” said Lina Britto, an expert on Latin America and the Caribbean at Northwestern University with a focus on the history of the drug trade. “It lacks rigorousness in the analysis of how drug trafficking operates in the hemisphere.”

    Most drugs entering the U.S. homeland from South America arrive in shipping containers, submarines and more efficient modes of transportation than speedboats — and primarily come through the Pacific, not the Caribbean, Britto said.

    Trump has flirted with military strikes on drug cartels since the start of his second term, working with Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, to coordinate drone strikes over Mexican territory for surveillance of cartel activity.

    But Sheinbaum has ruled out the use of force against cartels, or the deployment of U.S. forces within Mexico to combat them, warning that U.S. military action would violate Mexican sovereignty and upend collaboration between the two close-knit trade and security partners.

    Girls walk in front of a politically charged mural near the Bolivar Square in the center of Caracas, Venezuela

    Girls walk in front of a politically charged mural near the Bolivar Square in the center of Caracas, Venezuela, on Aug. 25. The Iranian Forest vessel depicted in the right side of the mural arrived in Venezuela during fuel shortages in 2020.

    (Andrea Hernández Briceño / For The Times)

    In comparison, Venezuela offers Trump a cleaner opportunity to test the use of force against drug cartels, with diplomatic ties between the two governments at a nadir. But a war with Maduro over drugs could create unexpected problems for the Trump administration, setting off a rare military conflict in a placid region and fueling further instability in a country that, over the last decade, already set off the world’s largest refugee crisis.

    Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that Trump’s use of foreign terrorist designations changes the rules of engagement in ways that allow for action “where law enforcement solutions failed in the past.”

    “What we are witnessing is a paradigm shift in real time,” Berg said. “Many of Latin America’s most significant criminal organizations are now designated foreign terrorist organizations. The administration is demonstrating that this is not only rhetorical.”

    But Paul Gootenberg, a professor at Stony Brook University and author of “Andean Cocaine: The Making of a Global Drug,” characterized Trump’s military operation as a “simplistic” approach to complex social problems.

    “This is more a performative attack on the Venezuelan regime than a serious attempt at drug policy,” Gootenberg said.

    “Militarized drug policy is nothing new — it was tried and intensified in various ways from the mid-1980s through 2000s, oftentimes under U.S. Southern Command,” he added. “The whole range and levels of ‘war on drugs’ was a long, unmitigated policy failure, according to the vast, vast majority of drug experts.”

    Times staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.

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    Michael Wilner

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  • ‘Defacing Roadway Prohibited’ signs pop up at former Pulse memorial rainbow crosswalk

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    Signs pop up at former Pulse memorial rainbow crosswalk saying ‘Defacing Roadway Prohibited’

    AND LOOK AHEAD TO THE WEEKEND IN MINUTES. SEE YOU THEN. ERIC ALSO DEVELOPING RIGHT NOW. THE BACK AND FORTH CONTINUES OUTSIDE OF PULSE, WHERE PEOPLE ON THEIR HANDS AND KNEES ONCE AGAIN COLORING THE CROSSWALK THAT THE STATE CONTINUES TO ERASE. TODAY, THAT CONTROVERSY REACHED A NEW LEVEL AS LAW ENFORCEMENT CONFRONTED PEOPLE USING CHALK AND WARNED THEM THEY COULD BE ARRESTED IF THEY CONTINUE. WESH TWO GREG FOX LIVE OUTSIDE PULSE FOR US, WHERE FRUSTRATIONS CAN BE FELT TODAY. GREG WHAT EXACTLY DID LAW? WHAT LAW COULD THEY BE VIOLATING? WELL, A COPY OF IT WAS GIVEN TO ME BY THE SERGEANT WITH THE FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL OUT HERE SAID HE WAS ALSO GIVING A COPY OF THIS TO THE PEOPLE THAT HE WAS WARNING TODAY. IF THEY WERE CAUGHT TRYING TO COLOR THE PAVEMENT FOR A WHILE TODAY, IT LOOKED LIKE THERE COULD BE ARRESTS. JUST AFTER 3:00 FRIDAY MORNING, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION CREWS ARRIVED AT THE CROSSWALK NEXT TO THE PULSE NIGHTCLUB MEMORIAL. THEY HOSED DOWN THE FRESHLY CHALKED RAINBOW FLAG PAVEMENT AND THEN POSTED SIGNS READING DEFACING ROADWAY PROHIBITED AND NO IMPEDING TRAFFIC. BUBBA TRAHAN, WHO PROVIDED WESH TWO NEWS WITH THIS VIDEO, TOLD US AN FDOT WORKER EXPLAINED THAT VIOLATORS WOULD BE WARNED FIRST AND SECOND OFFENSES WOULD RESULT IN ARREST. FDOT HAS TO COME OUT HERE AND WE HAVE TO PAY THEM SO THAT PRICE IS, YOU KNOW, TOO HIGH FOR US TO HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN AND AGAIN. BY LATE MORNING, DEMONSTRATORS WERE TESTING THE RESOLVE OF THE FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL TROOPERS GUARDING THE CROSSWALK. SO THEY’RE EXERCISING THEIR FREEDOM OF SPEECH. WE GOT A LOT OF CARS COMING THROUGH HERE. CITING SAFETY CONCERNS, MORE LAW ENFORCEMENT ARRIVED, INCLUDING ORLANDO POLICE, AS CONFRONTATIONS HEATED UP BECAUSE THEY DO NOT WANT PEOPLE TO PLACE ON THE CROSSWALKS. SO WHAT ARE THEY VIOLATING? YOU CALL THEM. THEY’LL TELL YOU. SO WHAT? COULD YOU POSSIBLY ARREST THEM FOR IF YOU CAN’T TELL THEM WHAT THEY’RE VIOLATING? THERE’S A FEW PEOPLE ALREADY GIVE OUT WARNINGS TO TWO PEOPLE. FOR WHAT? WHAT DID THEY VIOLATE? WITH NO ONE ARRESTED, THE EARLY AFTERNOON SAW A SQUAD OF DEMONSTRATORS BEGIN FILLING IN THE REST OF THE BLANK SPACES WITH RAINBOW COLORS, SOME OF THEM CLEARLY FRUSTRATED BY WHAT THEY CALLED HEAVY HANDED TACTICS BY THE ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR RON DESANTIS. ONE CROSSWALK IS ALL WE ASK FOR IN ORLANDO, AND THEY HAVE TO GET UPSET ABOUT THAT. YOU KNOW, 49 PEOPLE PASSED AWAY. IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE. DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKER ANNA ESKAMANI WONDERS WHEN THE STREET COLORING SHOWDOWN WILL END. THEY COULD SOLVE REAL PROBLEMS LIKE THE PROPERTY INSURANCE CRISIS, BUT INSTEAD THEY’RE FOCUSING ALL THEIR TIME AND ENERGY ON ON BULLYING AND HARASSING LOCAL GOVERNMENTS. AND WESH TWO NEWS REACHED OUT TO THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, THE FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL AND THE ORLANDO POLICE DEPARTMENT TO GET SOME KIND OF A STATEMENT FROM THEM ON EXACTLY WHAT WAS GOING ON HERE, HOW LONG IT’S GOING TO LAST, HOW LONG WE’RE GOING TO CONTINUE TO SEE TROOPERS OUT HERE. WE’LL UPDATE OUR STORY WHEN WE HEAR BACK. COVERI

    Signs pop up at former Pulse memorial rainbow crosswalk saying ‘Defacing Roadway Prohibited’

    Updated: 5:02 PM EDT Aug 29, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Road signs have been placed at the former Pulse memorial rainbow crosswalk that warn against defacing the roadway and impeding traffic. Demonstrators told WESH 2 that troopers warned them that if they use chalk to re-color the crosswalk, they could be arrested for criminal mischief.It’s the latest development in an ongoing fight over colorful crosswalks and street art in Florida that the state is targeting. FDOT Secretary Jared Perdue said, “Anything previously permitted or installed you can bring up from past is irrelevant now, (there is) new law and standard and it’s the … pavement art not allowed and we’re removing everything that’s not compliant with state federal standards … “Surveillance video obtained by WESH 2 shows FDOT crews erasing the rainbow crosswalk at Pulse last week in the middle of the night. Protesters have been coloring in the crosswalk, while FDOT crews continue to paint over it with black and white.Now, the signs appear to be an effort to stop the use of chalk. At one point, Orlando police and Florida Highway Patrol were stationed 24/7 at the crosswalk near Pulse – the site of the 2016 massacre. >> This is a developing story and will be updated

    ORLANDO, Fla. —

    Road signs have been placed at the former Pulse memorial rainbow crosswalk that warn against defacing the roadway and impeding traffic.

    Demonstrators told WESH 2 that troopers warned them that if they use chalk to re-color the crosswalk, they could be arrested for criminal mischief.

    It’s the latest development in an ongoing fight over colorful crosswalks and street art in Florida that the state is targeting.

    FDOT Secretary Jared Perdue said, “Anything previously permitted or installed you can bring up from past is irrelevant now, (there is) new law and standard and it’s the … pavement art not allowed and we’re removing everything that’s not compliant with state federal standards … “

    Surveillance video obtained by WESH 2 shows FDOT crews erasing the rainbow crosswalk at Pulse last week in the middle of the night.

    This content is imported from Facebook.
    You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

    Protesters have been coloring in the crosswalk, while FDOT crews continue to paint over it with black and white.

    Now, the signs appear to be an effort to stop the use of chalk.

    At one point, Orlando police and Florida Highway Patrol were stationed 24/7 at the crosswalk near Pulse – the site of the 2016 massacre.

    >> This is a developing story and will be updated

    Pulse crosswalk sighs

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  • Trial in National Guard lawsuit tests whether Trump will let courts limit authority

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    Minutes after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth trumpeted plans to “flood” Washington with National Guard members, a senior U.S. military official took the stand in federal court in California to defend the controversial deployment of troops to Los Angeles.

    The move during protests this summer has since become the model for President Trump’s increasing use of the military to police American streets.

    But the trial, which opened Monday in San Francisco, turns on the argument by California that troops called up by Trump have been illegally engaged in civilian law enforcement.

    “The military in Southern California are so tied in with ICE and other law enforcement agencies that they are practically indistinguishable,” California Deputy Atty. Gen. Meghan Strong told the court Tuesday.

    “Los Angeles is just the beginning,” the deputy attorney general said. “President Trump has hinted at sending troops even farther, naming Baltimore and even Oakland here in the Bay Area as his next potential targets.”

    Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer said in court that Hegseth’s statements Monday could tip the scales in favor of the state, which must show the law is likely to be violated again so long as troops remain.

    But the White House hasn’t let the pending case stall its agenda. Nor have Trump officials been fazed by a judge’s order restricting so-called roving patrols used by federal agents to indiscriminately sweep up suspected immigrants.

    After Border Patrol agents last week sprang from a Penske moving truck and snatched up workers at a Westlake Home Depot — appearing to openly defy the court’s order — some attorneys warned the rule of law is crumbling in plain sight.

    “It is just breathtaking,” said Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel, part of the coalition challenging the use of racial profiling by immigration enforcement. “Somewhere there are founding fathers who are turning over in their graves.”

    The chaotic immigration arrests that swept through Los Angeles this summer had all but ceased after the original July 11 order, which bars agents from snatching people off the streets without first establishing reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.

    An Aug. 1 ruling in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seemed to assure they could not resume again for weeks, if ever.

    For the Department of Justice, the 9th Circuit loss was the latest blow in a protracted judicial beatdown, as many of the administration’s most aggressive moves have been held back by federal judges and tied up in appellate courts.

    Trump “is losing consistently in the lower courts, almost nine times out of 10,” said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law.

    In the last two weeks alone, the 9th Circuit also found Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship unconstitutional and signaled it would probably rule in favor of a group of University of California researchers hoping to claw back funding from Trump’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

    Elsewhere in the U.S., the D.C. Circuit Court appeared poised to block Trump’s tariffs, while a federal judge in Miami temporarily stopped construction at the migrant detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz.

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has noted that his Department of Justice had sued the administration nearly 40 times.

    But even the breakneck pace of current litigation is glacial compared with the actions of immigration agents and federalized troops.

    Federal officials have publicly relished big-footing California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who have repeatedly warned the city is being used as a “petri dish” for executive force.

    On Monday, the White House seemed to vindicate them by sending the National Guard to Washington.

    Speaking for more than half an hour, Trump rattled off a list of American cities he characterized as under siege.

    Asked whether he would deploy troops to those cities as well, the president said, “We’re just gonna see what happens.”

    “We’re going to look at New York. And if we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago,” he said. “Hopefully, L.A. is watching.”

    This image taken from video shows U.S. Border Patrol agents jumping out of a Penske box truck during an immigration raid at a Home Depot in Los Angeles on Aug. 6, 2025.

    (Matt Finn / Fox News via Associated Press)

    The U.S. Department of Justice argues that the same power that allows the president to federalize troops and deploy them on American streets also creates a “Constitutional exception” to the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th century law that bars troops from civilian police action.

    California lawyers say no such exception exists.

    “I’m looking at this case and trying to figure out, is there any limitation to the use of federal forces?” Judge Breyer said.

    Even if they keep taking losses, Trump administration officials “don’t have much to lose” by picking fights, said Ilya Somin, law professor at George Mason University and a constitutional scholar at the Cato Institute.

    “The base likes it,” Somin said of the Trump’s most controversial moves. “If they lose, they can consider whether they defy the court.”

    Other experts agreed.

    “The bigger question is whether the courts can actually do anything to enforce the orders that they’re making,” said David J. Bier, an immigration expert at the Cato Institute. “There’s no indication to me that [Department of Homeland Security agents] are changing their behavior.”

    Some scholars speculated the losses in lower courts might actually be a strategic sacrifice in the war to extend presidential power in the Supreme Court.

    “It’s not a strategy whose primary ambition is to win,” said professor Mark Graber of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. “They are losing cases right and left in the district court, but consistently having district court orders stayed in the Supreme Court.”

    Win or lose in the lower courts, the political allure of targeting California is potent, argued Segall, the law professor who studies the Supreme Court.

    “There is an emotional hostility to California that people on the West Coast don’t understand,” Segall said. “California … is deemed a separate country almost.”

    A favorable ruling in the Supreme Court could pave the way for deployments across the country, he and others warned.

    “We don’t want the military on America’s streets, period, full stop,” Segall said. “I don’t think martial law is off the table.”

    Pedro Vásquez Perdomo, a day laborer who is one of the plaintiffs in the Southern California case challenging racial profiling by immigration enforcement, has said the case is bigger than him.

    He took to the podium outside the American Civil Liberties Union’s downtown offices Aug. 4, his voice trembling as he spoke about the temporary restraining order — upheld days earlier by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — that stood between his fellow Angelenos and unchecked federal authority.

    “I don’t want silence to be my story,” he said. “I want justice for me and for every other person whose humanity has been denied.”

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    Sonja Sharp

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  • Student who elicited “F— the police” from L.A. council candidate works for Kevin de León

    Student who elicited “F— the police” from L.A. council candidate works for Kevin de León

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    In a room full of students at Cal State L.A. last week, a young man told Los Angeles City Council candidate Ysabel Jurado that he supports the idea of abolishing the police and wanted to know where she stood on the issue.

    Jurado’s reply, which included the phrase “F— the police, that’s how I see ‘em,” drew sharp criticism this week from parts of the Eastside, where she is seeking to unseat Councilmember Kevin de León.

    On Wednesday, De León confirmed that Martin Perez, one of his staffers, is the Cal State L.A. student who posed the question.

    De León declined to say whether Perez, who handles constituent services in his office, made the recording of Jurado’s remarks, which first appeared Monday on the website of the Westside Current. But he commended his aide, saying Jurado has been sidestepping questions about police abolition.

    “He got the answer that we’ve been asking [during] five consecutive debates as to why she wants to abolish the police,” he said. “And she confirmed it with a very vulgar and crude “F—the police.”

    Jurado’s remarks at the Cal State L.A. meet-and-greet have delivered an unexpected jolt to the campaign for the 14th District, which takes in all or part of downtown, Boyle Heights, El Sereno and Eagle Rock. De León has been struggling to emerge from a two-year-old scandal over a different recording — one that featured crude and racist remarks — and is facing a fierce opponent in Jurado, a tenant rights attorney who has never run for office before.

    Councilmember Monica Rodriguez labeled Jurado’s use of the phrase immature, while Councilmember Bob Blumenfield called it “incredibly offensive.” The Los Angeles Police Protective League, which endorsed De León and represents about 8,800 officers, is now airing 30-second attack ads criticizing Jurado.

    “Her plan for public safety starts with an F-bomb,” the ad states.

    In recent weeks, Jurado has pushed back on assertions that she intends to defund the police, while also arguing that too much money is being spent on the LAPD, putting the city on the brink of a financial crisis.

    On Monday, she downplayed her use of “F— the police,” saying it was “just a lyric” from a rap song. Although she didn’t say which song, her wording parallels parts of N.W.A’s “F— Tha Police” and Kanye West’s “All Falls Down.”

    Jurado declined to comment about Perez on Wednesday. But she described the police union ad as “just noise.”

    “Our community is focused on how they’re going to put food on the table and pay their rent on time — not song lyrics,” she said in a statement. “That’s why we’re more determined than ever to lift up their needs and be their champion in City Hall. This campaign is about delivering results, not distractions.”

    Perez declined an interview request from The Times. In the recording of the meet-and-greet, he began his question by noting that he lives in the council district and is “a punk from East L.A.”

    More than a dozen people attended the event, and several recorded different questions and answers, said Elliot Avila, a Cal State L.A. student who took part in the discussion. Nevertheless, Avila said he is convinced that Perez made the recording of Jurado’s remarks.

    “He’s the one who claims to be a police abolitionist, and he’s clearly working for Kevin de León,” he said. “The only person with the motive to do that would be him.”

    Avila, who plans to vote for Jurado, said her full response to the abolition question was actually “centrist.” After using the phrase “F— the police,” Jurado pointed out that some of her constituents want more police and said the LAPD needs to focus on violent crime.

    “She was meeting [Perez] where he was at, but then walking back to a more centrist, pragmatic position,” Avila said. “I would have liked for her to go much harder against the police.”

    Perez has been an aide to De León for about a year and half, according to his LinkedIn profile. He founded and managed a clothing company in the “vibrant East L.A. punk scene” while also working as a security guard, the profile says.

    Perez has been volunteering for De León’s reelection campaign, door-knocking, phone banking and creating “art for tote bags to be used by other staffers,” his profile states.

    Jurado identified herself as an abolitionist — someone who supports the “abolition of police and the “prison industrial complex” — in a questionnaire she submitted to the Democratic Socialists of America-Los Angeles.

    De León has assailed that stance, saying it would leave neighborhoods from downtown to Boyle Heights vulnerable to violent crime. Earlier this week, he described Jurado’s use of the F-bomb as “irresponsible,” saying wealthy neighborhoods will always have the ability to hire security personnel.

    “Poor neighborhoods, low-income neighborhoods, neighborhoods that struggle every single day to make ends meet, they deserve public safety as well,” he told KTLA.

    Jurado has pushed back on the idea that she plans to defund the LAPD, saying she wants officers to focus on gangs, drugs and violent crime.

    On the campaign trail, she has also argued that the city’s approach to public safety “isn’t working,” saying that more money should be devoted to street lighting, sidewalk repairs and youth programs.

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    David Zahniser, Dakota Smith

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  • Newsom to sign California bill to limit ‘addictive’ social media feeds for kids

    Newsom to sign California bill to limit ‘addictive’ social media feeds for kids

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    California will take a major step in its fight to protect children from the ills of social media with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature on a bill to limit the ability of companies to provide “addictive feeds” to minors.

    The governor’s office said Newsom on Friday will sign Senate Bill 976, named the Protecting Our Kids From Social Media Addiction Act and introduced by state Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley). The bill was supported by state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and groups such as the Assn. of California School Administrators, Common Sense Media and the California chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

    Newsom’s wife, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, is also outspoken about the links between social media consumption and low self-esteem, depression and anxiety among youth.

    The legislation attracted an unusual collection of opponents, including the American Civil Liberties Union of California, Equality California and associations representing giants in the industry that own TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. The California Chamber of Commerce argued that the legislation “unconstitutionally burdens” access to lawful content, setting up the potential for another lawsuit in an ongoing court battle between the state and social media companies over use of the platforms by children.

    “Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night,” Newsom said. “With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits.”

    The bill, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2027, with Newsom’s signature, prohibits internet service and applications from providing “addictive feeds,” defined as media curated based on information gathered on or provided by the user, to minors without parental consent. SB 976 also bans companies from sending notifications to users identified as minors between midnight and 6 a.m. or during the school day from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. unless parents give the OK.

    The bill will effectively require companies to make posts from people children know and follow appear in chronological order on their social media feeds instead of in an arrangement to maximize engagement. Proponents of the bill point to warnings from U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and others about a mental health crisis among youths, which studies show is exacerbated by the use of social media.

    “As a mother, I’m proud of California’s continued leadership in holding technology companies accountable for their products and ensuring those products are not harmful to children. Thank you to the Governor and Senator Skinner for taking a critical step in protecting children and ensuring their safety is prioritized over companies’ profits,” Siebel Newsom said.

    The industry has argued that it’s false to assume that feeds curated by an algorithm are harmful but that a chronological feed is safe. The ACLU also argued that age verification creates potential privacy concerns because it could require the collection of additional user data that could be at risk in a security breach and because it could threaten the 1st Amendment rights of people who cannot verify their age.

    Several groups advocating for LGBTQ+ youths suggested the bill could limit youths’ ability to engage on platforms that offer emotional support for their identities, particularly for kids who live in communities that might be hostile to their identity. Giving more control to parents could also potentially result in parents choosing settings that share sensitive information about the child, the groups said.

    The bill marks the latest action in a battle between state government and social media companies taking place in the California Legislature and the court system over the use of platforms by children.

    In October, Bonta’s office filed a lawsuit with 32 other states against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, alleging that the company designed apps specifically to addict young users while misleading the public about the adverse effects.

    A bill that failed last year in the California Legislature would have made social media companies liable for up to $250,000 in damages if they knowingly promoted features that could harm children. Portions of a 2022 law that sought to require companies to provide privacy protections for children have also been held up in court.

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    Taryn Luna

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  • Duke Energy Florida to Reduce Rates for Second Time This Year

    Duke Energy Florida to Reduce Rates for Second Time This Year

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    For the second time this year, a typical Duke Energy Florida customer will see lower electric bills, this time because of a rate reduction the company is proposing to begin in June to reflect anticipated lower fuel prices.

    The company filed a fuel midcourse rate request with the Florida Public Service Commission to account for lower projections for natural gas costs.

    Under the proposal, a typical Florida residential customer with a monthly usage of 1,000 kWh would see their bill decline by $5.90, or almost 4%. The savings would be on top of a $11.29 decrease, or about 6%, a decrease that typical residential bills began showing in January.

    Similarly, typical commercial and industrial customers will see a bill decrease between 3.5% and 7.0%, varying based on factors, such as industry type and differences in customer use patterns.

    “With fuel prices expected to decline, we have an opportunity to lower rates for a second time this year for our customers, just as we prepare for the higher energy usage that come with summer months,” said Melissa Seixas, Duke Energy Florida state president. “We remain committed to providing the best possible price for Florida’s growing population, while delivering the reliable power and customer service our customers deserve today, tomorrow and for many years to come.”

    Duke Energy Florida ensures customers receive the best service to their homes, businesses and communities through expertly managing its fuel resources, and its complex systems of power generation, transformers, wires and poles across 13,000 square miles – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, under the most challenging conditions.

    The company also offers several easy-to-use energy efficiency programs and tools to help Florida customers have more control over their energy use and bills.

    Duke Energy Florida, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, owns 12,300 megawatts of energy capacity, supplying electricity to 2 million residential, commercial and industrial customers across a 13,000-square-mile service area in Florida.

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  • ICE kept a California immigrant in solitary confinement for two years, study finds

    ICE kept a California immigrant in solitary confinement for two years, study finds

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    WASHINGTON — 

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement used solitary confinement at its detention facilities more than 14,000 times between 2018 and 2023, including one California immigrant detainee who was held for 759 days, according to a report published Tuesday.

    The report found that solitary placements at ICE facilities lasted on average about a month. Nearly half exceeded 15 days.

    Solitary confinement is used in ICE detention facilities as a form of punishment as well as to protect certain at-risk immigrants.

    Human rights groups say the practice is harmful and should be scaled back dramatically at all U.S. prisons and detention facilities. The United Nations has called solitary confinement longer than 15 consecutive days a form of torture.

    ICE in recent years has come under fire from state officials and human rights groups for its reliance on the practice, and a lack of proper oversight and monitoring.

    The 71-page report — one of the most expansive looks to date into ICE’s use of solitary confinement — was conducted by Physicians for Human Rights, Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School. It was based on internal ICE records at 125 detention facilities obtained through litigation under the Freedom of Information Act.

    Researchers said ICE’s use of solitary confinement and the time periods involved were both on track to grow in 2023, though its data was only collected through Sept. 13.

    “The harms are just so well established — they’re incontrovertible,” said Sabrineh Ardalan, director of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic. “That’s why the failure to make any significant change is shocking.”

    ICE spokesperson Mike Alvarez said the agency places detainees in isolation only after careful consideration of alternatives.

    “Administrative segregation placements for a special vulnerability should be used only as a last resort,” Alvarez said. “Segregation is never used as a method of retaliation.”

    About 700 solitary placements lasted at least 90 days, and 42 lasted more than a year, according to the report.

    The longest completed instance of solitary confinement was that of a Mexican woman held at Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego for 759 consecutive days until Dec. 2, 2019. Her placement was coded as “detainee requested” and the reasoning was listed as “other,” though the record also showed a disciplinary infraction for fighting, said Arevik Avedian, director of empirical research services at Harvard Law School.

    Two other cases were longer, but they were not included in the report because they were still ongoing at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Wash., as of Sept. 13 — for 817 and 811 days, respectively.

    ICE standards generally limit disciplinary isolation to 30 days per violation. But administrative segregation, regarded as non-punitive and intended for the detainee’s safety, can be indefinite.

    ICE didn’t list the isolated immigrants’ mental health status in every record. But in the nearly 8,800 records that did include mental health information, about 40% documented mental health conditions.

    For people identified as transgender, the average length of solitary confinement was two months, researchers said.

    Alvarez said ICE doesn’t place detainees in solitary confinement solely because of mental illness unless directed or recommended to do so by medical staff. Detainees are often placed there because they request protective custody, as a result of a disciplinary hearing or to quarantine if no medical housing is available.

    Detainees with mental health issues are under the care of medical professionals, he said, and are removed from solitary confinement if they determine it has resulted in a deterioration of their health and an appropriate alternative is available.

    About 38,500 immigrants were being held by ICE as of Jan. 28, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan research organization at Syracuse University. Two-thirds of those detained have no criminal record and many others have only minor offenses, such as traffic violations.

    ICE has said it is moving to reduce its use of solitary confinement over the past decade.

    The agency issued a 2013 directive limiting its use, particularly for people with vulnerabilities, such as disabilities or mental illness.

    A 2015 memo emphasized protections for transgender people, specifying that solitary confinement “should be used only as a last resort.”

    A 2022 directive strengthened protections and reporting requirements for people with mental health conditions in solitary confinement.

    Detainees held in solitary confinement are isolated in small cells away from the general population for up to 24 hours a day and have minimal contact with other people. Prolonged solitary confinement is known to cause adverse health effects, including risk of suicide and brain damage.

    In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a 2022 bill that would have regulated and significantly reduced solitary confinement in jails, prisons and ICE facilities.

    Watchdog reports have repeatedly identified failures in ICE’s approach to and oversight of solitary confinement.

    In 2021, the California Department of Justice issued a review of ICE detention in the state, with comprehensive looks at three privately operated facilities. Cal DOJ found little distinction between the conditions for detainees in administrative isolation as for those held for disciplinary reasons. The agency also found that detainees with mental illnesses were held in solitary confinement despite the isolation worsening their conditions.

    “Most detainees in segregation are in their cells for 22 hours a day and when they are allowed outside they are generally recreating in individual cages,” the California report stated.

    The same year, a report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General found that ICE failed to consistently comply with reporting requirements for solitary confinement. Investigators analyzed records from fiscal years 2015 to 2019 and found ICE hadn’t maintained evidence showing it considered alternatives to isolation in 72% of solitary confinement placements.

    Citing that report, Democratic senators, including the late Dianne Feinstein and Sen. Alex Padilla of California, pressed ICE leaders about the agency’s “excessive and seemingly indiscriminate use of solitary confinement,” calling it a long-standing problem.

    A 2022 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that information about detainee vulnerabilities and explanations of what led to their placement in solitary confinement were inconsistent. The GAO analyzed solitary confinement placements from 2017 through 2021 and found that about 40% were for disciplinary reasons and 60% were for administrative reasons, such as protective custody.

    ICE says facility staff are required to offer people in administrative segregation the same privileges as those in general housing, including recreation, visitation, access to the law library and phones. They could also spend additional time out of isolation socializing or doing voluntary work assignments such as cleaning. Privileges for those in disciplinary segregation vary based on the amount of supervision required.

    But two dozen formerly detained people interviewed by the report authors described having limited or no access to phone calls, recreation, medical care and medications.

    Karim Golding, 39, of Jamaica was detained by ICE from 2016 to 2021. At the Etowah County Detention Center in Alabama, which ICE stopped using in 2022 because of its “long history of serious deficiencies,” Golding said he spent nearly two months in solitary confinement after testing positive for COVID-19. He now lives in New York.

    Golding said that during the height of the pandemic, as the facility allowed busloads of new detainees in without following proper distancing or isolation guidelines, he urged the staff to provide tests. He and other detainees submitted dozens of sick calls requesting tests.

    When the staff finally complied, he and several others were placed in solitary after testing positive for the coronavirus. He said he believes the move was retaliatory.

    Golding remembers sometimes spending 40 hours at a time in his dingy 8×10-foot cell with holes in the concrete walls and no access to a shower. The isolation was lonely, he recalled.

    “I went to sleep one night and woke up suffocating in the cell,” he said. “I started to cry because there was no panic button inside these cells. There was no officer, anything for help.”

    Two other detainees reached by The Times said they were held in solitary confinement at facilities in Texas and Louisiana for several days while on a hunger strike.

    As a candidate, President Biden pledged to end the use of solitary confinement in federal prisons. He signed an executive order in 2022 promising to ensure incarcerated people are “free from prolonged segregation.”

    Authors of Tuesday’s report called on Biden to phase out the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention.

    “There is still time,” Ardalan said. “This is one legacy he could leave from his administration.”

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    Andrea Castillo

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  • Biden’s marijuana pardons are welcome stopgap – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

    Biden’s marijuana pardons are welcome stopgap – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

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    President Biden on Friday demonstrated the proper use of presidential clemency power when he pardoned thousands of people who had been convicted of various nonviolent marijuana violations on federal land.

    The reasons he cited included addressing racial disparities in drug prosecution and sentencing, and that’s an important point. Criminal laws in theory cover all Americans equally, but in practice, laws punishing possession or use of small amounts of cannabis have been enforced over the years disproportionately against Black people. Unequal enforcement can render a colorblind law racist and an instrument of injustice. Clemency is a tool that, when wielded properly, can remediate flaws in the administration of criminal law.

    It was the second time Biden has granted cannabis pardons. The first round in December 2022 covered most people convicted of marijuana use and possession. Last week’s action included many who fell through the cracks, such as those convicted of “attempted possession.”

    The two separate actions are welcome but don’t correct the underlying problem. We still have federal laws and regulations that impose sanctions out of proportion to the alleged harm. Marijuana remains a “Schedule 1” drug under the Controlled Substances Act, a more serious classification than that applied to fentanyl, which few dispute is a far more harmful substance if misused. Possession and use of marijuana in the District of Columbia or on federal land can still result in…

    Original Author Link click here to read complete story..

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    MMP News Author

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  • Anti-abortion Conservatives’ First Target If Trump Returns

    Anti-abortion Conservatives’ First Target If Trump Returns

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    The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision about the most common pharmaceutical used for medication abortions may be just the beginning of the political battle over the drug.

    Earlier this month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of lower-court rulings that would severely reduce access to mifepristone. The Court’s acceptance of the case marked a crucial juncture in the legal maneuvering over the medication.

    But however the high court rules, pressure is mounting inside the GOP coalition for the next Republican president to broadly use executive authority at the Food and Drug Administration and the Justice Department to limit access to mifepristone and to reduce what abortion opponents call “chemical abortion.”

    “Chemical abortion will be front and center and presented front and center by the pro-life movement if there is a Republican president,” Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, told me. “There is going to be a lot of action we want to see taken.”

    The possibility of new executive-branch restrictions on abortion drugs, which are now used in a majority of all U.S. abortions, underscores the stakes over abortion in the 2024 presidential election. Even if Donald Trump or another Republican wins back the White House next year, they might not have enough votes in Congress to pass a nationwide ban on the practice. But through executive action, the next GOP president could unilaterally retrench access to mifepristone in every state, however the Supreme Court decides the current case. Multiple former FDA officials and advocates on both sides of the issue told me that through regulatory and legal actions by the FDA, the Justice Department, or both, the next Republican president could impose all the limits on access to mifepristone that anti-abortion groups are seeking in the lawsuit now before the high court.

    Read: Abortion is inflaming the GOP’s biggest electoral problem

    “The FDA is a highly regulated space, so there are a lot of hoops they would have to jump through,” Jeremy Sharp, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for policy planning, legislation, and analysis during part of Barack Obama’s second term, told me. “But if they got a commissioner in there that was ideologically motivated, and if they changed the staff leadership, then there’s a lot they could do before anybody could get in the way and stop them.”

    The growing Republican focus on using executive-branch authority against abortion access marks a new front in the broader political confrontation over reproductive rights. While Roe v. Wade was in place, the social conservative movement was focused overwhelmingly on trying to reverse the nationwide right to abortion and “wasn’t zoned in on this issue” of federal regulatory authority over abortion drugs, Hawkins noted.

    Medication abortion involves two drugs: mifepristone followed by misoprostol (which is also used to prevent stomach ulcers). From 2000 through 2022, almost 6 million women in the U.S. used mifepristone to end a pregnancy, according to the FDA. In all those cases of women using the drug, the agency has recorded only 32 deaths (including for reasons unrelated to the drug) and a little more than 1,000 hospitalizations. The risk of major complications has been less than half of 1 percent.

    Neither of the past two Republican presidents acted against the drugs administratively or even faced sustained pressure from social conservatives to do so. The FDA initially approved mifepristone for use in abortion during the final months of Bill Clinton’s presidency, in 2000. But during Republican President George W. Bush’s two terms, the FDA made no effort to rescind that approval.

    During Obama’s final year, the FDA significantly loosened the restrictions on usage of the drug. (Among other things, the agency reduced the number of physician visits required to obtain the drugs from three to one; increased from seven to 10 the number of weeks into a pregnancy the drugs could be used; and permitted other medical professionals besides physicians to prescribe the drugs if they received certification.) During Trump’s four years, the FDA did not move to undo any of those decisions.

    But the right’s focus on abortion drugs has significantly increased since Trump left office. According to Hawkins, one reason is that the COVID pandemic crystallized awareness of how many abortions are performed remotely with the drugs, rather than in medical settings. Even more important may have been the decision by the six GOP-appointed Supreme Court justices in 2022 to overturn Roe. By fulfilling the top goal of anti-abortion activists, that decision both freed them to concentrate on other issues and raised their ambitions.

    In one measure of that growing zeal, social conservative groups and Republican elected officials have pushed back much harder against Joe Biden’s attempts to expand access to mifepristone than they did against Obama’s moves. Under Biden, the FDA has eliminated the requirement for an in-person visit to obtain mifepristone; instead it allows patients to get a prescription for the drug through a telehealth visit and then receive it through the mail. The FDA under Biden has also allowed pharmacies that receive certification to dispense the drug.

    As I wrote earlier this year, the paradox is that Biden’s rules will be felt almost entirely in the states where abortion remains legal. Almost all red states have passed laws that still require medical professionals to be present when the drugs are administered, and, even though the FDA allows their use through 10 weeks of pregnancy, the drugs cannot be prescribed in violation of state time limits (or absolute bans) on abortion.

    Shortly after last November’s midterm election, an alliance of conservative groups sued in federal court to overturn not only Biden’s measures to ease access to the drug but also the changes approved in 2016 under Obama, and even the decision under Clinton in 2000 to approve the drug at all.

    ​​Read: Why Trump might just roll to the presidential nomination

    In April 2023, Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee and abortion opponent, ruled almost entirely for the plaintiffs, striking down the Biden and Obama regulations and the FDA’s original approval of the drug. In August, a panel of three Republican-appointed judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Kacsmaryk’s ruling overturning the Obama and Biden regulatory changes. But the panel, by 2–1, ruled that it was too late to challenge the drug’s original approval.

    The Supreme Court along the way blocked the implementation of any of these rulings until it reached a final decision in the case, so mifepristone has remained available. In its announcement earlier this month, the Court agreed to hear appeals to the Fifth Circuit decision erasing the Obama and Biden administrations’ regulatory changes but declined to reconsider the circuit court’s upholding of mifepristone’s original approval. Those choices have raised hopes among abortion-rights activists that the Court appears inclined to reverse the lower court’s ruling and preserve the existing FDA rules. “We are very hopeful this is an indicator the Court is not inclined to rule broadly on medication abortion and they are concerned about the reasoning of the decisions [so far],” said Rabia Muqaddam, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, a group that supports legal abortion.

    But the legal process has shown that even a Supreme Court decision maintaining the current rules is unlikely to end the fight over mifepristone. The reason is that the proceedings have demonstrated much broader support in the GOP than previously for executive-branch action against the drug.

    For instance, 124 Republicans in the House of Representatives and 23 GOP senators have submitted a brief to the Supreme Court urging it to affirm the Fifth Circuit’s ruling overturning the Obama and Biden actions on mifepristone. “By approving and then deregulating chemical abortion drugs, the FDA failed to follow Congress’ statutorily prescribed drug approval process and subverted Congress’ critical public policy interests in upholding patient welfare,” the Republican legislators wrote. Republican attorneys general from 21 states submitted a brief with similar arguments in support of the decision reversing the Obama and Biden administrations’ regulatory actions.

    In another measure, a large majority of House Republicans voted last summer to reverse the FDA’s decisions under Biden that expanded access to the drugs. Though the legislation failed when about two dozen moderates voted against it, the predominant support in the GOP conference reflected the kind of political pressure the next Republican president could face to pursue the same goals through FDA regulatory action.

    Simultaneously, conservatives have signaled another line of attack they want the next GOP president to pursue against medication abortions. In late 2022, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion that the Postal Service could deliver the drugs without violating the 19th-century Comstock Act, which bars use of the mail “to corrupt the public morals.” That interpretation, the opinion argued, was in line with multiple decisions by federal courts spanning decades that the law barred the mailing of only materials used in illegal abortions.

    Conservatives are arguing that the next Republican administration should reverse that OLC ruling and declare that the Comstock Act bars the mailing of medications used in any abortions.

    The fact that both Kacsmaryk and Circuit Court Judge James Ho, also appointed by Trump, endorsed that view in their rulings on mifepristone this year offers one measure of the receptivity to this idea in conservative legal circles. As telling was a letter sent last spring by nine GOP senators to major drug-store chains warning that they could be held in violation of the Comstock Act not only if they ship abortion drugs to consumers but even if they use the mail or other freight carriers to deliver the drugs to their own stores.

    Trump and his leading rivals for the 2024 GOP nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, have avoided explicit commitments to act against medication abortions. But all of these efforts are indications of the pressure they would face to do so if elected. Hawkins said that anti-abortion groups have chosen not to press the candidates for specific plans on regulatory steps against mifepristone but instead intend to closely monitor the views of potential appointments by the next GOP president, the same tactic signaled by the senators in their letter to drug-store chains. “It will make for probably the most contentious fight ever over who is nominated and confirmed” for the key positions at the FDA and other relevant agencies, Hawkins told me.

    Stephen Ostroff, who served as acting FDA commissioner under both Obama and Trump, told me that future Republican appointees would likely find more success in reconsidering the regulations governing access to mifepristone than in reopening the approval of the drug altogether this long after the original approval. Even reconsidering the access rules, he predicts, would likely ignite intense conflict between political appointees and career scientific staff.

    “I think it would be challenging for a commissioner to come in and push the scientific reviewers and other scientific staff to do things they don’t think are appropriate to do,” Ostroff told me. “You’d have to do a lot of housecleaning in order to be able to accomplish that.” But, he added, “I’m not saying it is impossible.”

    In fact, political appointees under presidents of both parties have at times overruled FDA decisions. Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary for Obama, blocked an FDA ruling allowing the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception to girls younger than 17; the Biden White House has delayed an FDA decision to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes, amid concerns about a possible backlash among Black voters.

    Many legal and regulatory experts closely following the issue believe that a Republican president’s first target would be the FDA’s decision to allow mifepristone to be prescribed remotely and shipped by mail or dispensed in pharmacies. To build support for action against mifepristone, a new FDA commissioner also might compel drug companies to launch new studies about the drug’s safety or require the agency’s staff to reexamine the evidence despite the minimal number of adverse consequences over the years, Sharp told me.

    Faced with continuing signs of voter backlash on efforts to restrict abortion, any Republican president might think twice before moving aggressively against mifepristone. And any future attempt to limit the drug—through either FDA regulations or a revised Justice Department opinion about the Comstock Act—would face an uncertain outcome at the Supreme Court, however the Court decides the current case. The one certainty for the next GOP president is that the pressure from social conservatives for new regulatory and legal action against mifepristone will be vastly greater than it was the most recent two times Republicans controlled the executive branch. “We want all the tools in the tool kit being used to protect mothers and children from these drugs,” Hawkins told me. Amid such demands, the gulf between the FDA’s future decisions about the drug under a Republican or Democratic president may become much wider than it has been since mifepristone first became available, more than two decades ago.

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    Ronald Brownstein

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  • Unsealed surveillance videos show violence against inmates inside L.A. County jails

    Unsealed surveillance videos show violence against inmates inside L.A. County jails

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    In one video, a jailer kneels on an inmate’s neck. In another, two deputies slam a man’s head into a wall. In yet another, two jailers punch a handcuffed inmate repeatedly — even after he’s fallen to the ground.

    A new trove of surveillance videos from inside the Los Angeles County jails offers a rare view of the culture of violence that has persisted behind bars despite a decades-long federal lawsuit and years of jail oversight.

    The release of the six videos comes months after The Times and independent news site Witness LA asked a federal judge to make them public. Lawyers for the county fought to keep the footage confidential, but after a hearing this fall, U.S. District Court Judge Dean Pregerson ordered the material to be released.

    Such visual documentation of use-of-force against inmates typically remains unseen by the public, as most jail videos are protected from disclosure.

    Before turning over the videos, the county blurred the footage to conceal the identities of staff and inmates. All but one of the clips are silent. Most are short, and it is impossible to know what came before or after the incidents shown. The shortest is 14 seconds. The longest is just over 15 minutes.

    What is visible are several incidents in which deputies overpower men who are restrained. In only one instance does an inmate — in handcuffs — appear to kick at two deputies who are behind him. They punch him in the head, wrestle him to the ground and continue punching.

    Though federal court filings show that county jailers kick and punch inmates less frequently than they used to, the videos indicate the department has not fully reined in the use of force that spurred a lawsuit more than a decade ago.

    In a lengthy statement, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it was aware of Pregerson’s decision to unseal the videos and called their disclosure “an opportunity to build further trust within the community it serves.”

    The incidents in the videos “are not representative of interactions between deputies and inmates in the Los Angeles County Jail system,” the largest in the U.S., the statement said. “The videos that have been unsealed represent six of the millions of interactions that occurred over a more than two and one-half year period between October 24, 2019 (the date of the earliest use of force incident depicted) and July 4, 2022 (the date of the most recent use of force incident depicted).”

    Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the videos show “unnecessary force in a variety of different guises.” The “most brutal,” he said, was a 14-second clip in which “two deputies take an incarcerated person out of his cell and then proceed to throw him headlong into either a concrete wall or a plexiglass wall.”

    He said that video — previously obtained by The Times — depicts an “absolutely unnecessary” use of force for which “there’s clearly no justification.” The inmate “does not do anything to them. And frankly, even if he had, it’s almost impossible to justify that kind of force.”

    Dated July, 2022, it is the most recent video released. According to the Sheriff’s Department statement, in that video, “the actions of the deputies are currently being scrutinized by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office at the request of the Department for possible criminal prosecution.”

    Another video that raised red flags for ACLU attorneys shows a deputy kneeling on an inmate’s neck. The deputy later wrote in a report that he acted “inadvertently” — a description Eliasberg disputed, asserting that an inadvertent action does not last nearly a minute.

    Videos showing staff using force against inmates in Los Angeles County were released as part of a court case. A correctional officer kneels on a jailed man’s neck.

    “This gentleman did get disciplined for putting knee to neck,” Eliasberg said. “He did not get disciplined for dishonest reporting. … Dishonest reporting is cancer to the operation of a law enforcement agency.”

    A Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman said “appropriate administrative action was taken” after the incident but would offer no further detail.

    In four of the six videos, Eliasberg said, he did not believe the deputies involved were disciplined. Sheriff’s Department officials did not offer clarification, and the department statement did not address that.

    The statement did point out that deputies in the county’s jails work under difficult circumstances and often deal with people who have been accused of violent crimes.

    “There has been a complete cultural shift away from the days when such abuses were tolerated,” the statement said. “Sheriff Luna is intent on building on that progress comprehensively, and at a more rapid pace than his predecessors.”

    The videos came to light as part of a long-standing lawsuit over use of force against inmates in the Los Angeles County jails. The suit, now known as Rosas vs. Luna, began in 2012 when inmates accused deputies of “degrading, cruel and sadistic” attacks. Many of the incidents, the suit alleged, were “far more severe than the infamous 1991 beating of Rodney King.”

    After three years of legal wrangling, the inmates, represented by the ACLU, and the county came to an agreement about specific changes the department would make to cut down on the number of beatings behind bars. Though records show there has been some progress toward that goal — including a 20% reduction in use-of-force from 2021 to 2022 — outside experts and ACLU lawyers say the department has yet to fulfill the requirements of the 2015 settlement.

    Deputies still punch inmates in the face at a rate of just under once a week, according to court records. And jailers have been making use of a controversial full-body restraint known as the WRAP, which encases inmates in a blanket-like device from their ankles to their shoulders. Last year, an investigation by the news outlet Capital & Main found that the device had led to several lawsuits, and that safety claims about its use were based on anecdotes.

    Given those and other ongoing concerns, earlier this year the inmates’ lawyers asked the county to make some changes to its plan to reduce use-of-force behind bars. These included the creation of a revised WRAP policy, mandatory-minimum punishments for deputies who violate certain use-of-force policies and a ban on deputies punching inmates in the head except in situations that could require deadly force.

    To show why they believed those changes were needed, ACLU lawyers submitted several videos of jail violence, along with internal department reports.

    Aside from footage of the punching and kneeling incidents, one of the videos shows a person bleeding on the ground and moaning and deputies employing the WRAP device to subdue him. ACLU attorneys raised concerns about the fact that deputies covered the man’s face in a spit mask — used to prevent people from spitting — while he was bleeding heavily. Medical exams later found that he had sustained an orbital bone fracture.

    Because most of the videos — except for one that was previously reported on by The Times — had been given to the ACLU under a protective order as part of the lawsuit, the civil rights group wasn’t allowed to share them publicly.

    When the organization’s lawyers decided to attach them to their filing as evidence, they did so under seal.

    The Times and Witness LA filed a motion to have the videos made public, arguing in a September federal court hearing that they merited different consideration than other material the Sheriff’s Department gives the ACLU because they’d been filed as evidence of troubling allegations about ongoing violence behind bars.

    The county said releasing the videos could create security problems, such as revealing where cameras are located inside the jails. But when the judge questioned whether the cameras were concealed, attorneys for the county admitted they were plainly visible.

    The attorneys went on to say that releasing the videos could endanger the privacy of deputies who work in the jails. They also raised concerns about whether the videos would be taken out of context. Ultimately the judge decided to order the videos blurred and to allow the parties to provide written context for the released footage.

    Since the ACLU submitted the videos to the court several months ago, the inmates’ lawyers have continued to negotiate with the county over changing some Sheriff’s Department policies inside its jails. During a hearing in October, the two sides said they had agreed on a new WRAP policy to curb use of the device.

    But Eliasberg told the court he was still worried about the department’s “continued pattern” of finding uses of force — including punches to the head — to be justified and within policy even when court-appointed monitors who reviewed the incidents did not.

    The county and the ACLU have still not come to agreement on an updated policy restricting how often deputies can punch inmates in the face. The ACLU has pushed for banning such “head strikes” except when deadly force is necessary. Lawyers for the county have advocated for keeping in place a policy allowing head strikes whenever a deputy faces the threat of serious injury.

    At a hearing in September, the county’s lawyers stressed that such blows only make up about 2% of all use-of- force incidents in the jails.

    “The videos and the monitors’ continued reporting make clear that there is need for a more restrictive head strike policy to make sure that head strikes are used only in the most exceptional circumstances and to make sure that staff are disciplined appropriately,” Eliasberg said. “There is still a major problem.”

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    Keri Blakinger, Maria L. La Ganga

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