Witness recalls “massive show of force” by Trump’s secret police
A portrait of tyranny but also resistance, Mel Buer tells me.
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Late last week, the president and his Republicans passed legislation that will supercharge ongoing efforts to purge America of immigrants. Their new tax-and-spending bill includes funding for ICE and Border Patrol that’s far greater than the military budgets of most countries.
Four days later, on Tuesday, we saw what can happen with a secret and highly-resourced national police force that’s loyal to Donald Trump.
Unidentified federal agents, some of them dressed military-style and carrying what looked like machine guns, swept over a small park in Los Angeles. There was no reason given for the exercise, but the consequences of it were clear, according to LA Mayor Karen Bass.
“It is outrageous and un-American that we have federal armed vehicles in our park,” she said at a presser. “What happened to the criminals, the drug dealers, the violent individuals? Who were in the park today were children. It was their summer camp, their summer day camp.”
“There’s no plan other than fear, chaos and politics,” Mayor Bass went on to say. “Home Depot one day, a car wash the next, armed vehicles and what looked like mounted military units in a park the next day.”
She added that it looked like “a city under military occupation.”
From what I can tell, this wasn’t hyperbole.
After all, Tuesday’s exercise was in addition to the president’s order to send thousands of National Guard troops, as well as 500 Marines, to LA for the stated purpose of keeping the peace. Then there’s what US Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said last month at a presser, during which a US senator was manhandled and handcuffed.
“We are not going away,” Secretary Noem said on June 12. “We are staying here to liberate [Los Angeles] from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”
This is the view from 10,000 feet. What did Tuesday look like on the ground? Was there anything going on in MacArthur Park to justify a military-style presence? Something that Mayor Bass wanted to omit?
The answer is no, according to Mel Buer. She’s an independent journalist and eyewitness to Tuesday’s events. Mel told me that there was nothing going on. Instead, she said, the whole thing seemed to be “a massive show of force by multiple federal agencies, and subsequent reporting by other outlets after the fact, as well as the mayor's statements at the press conference Tuesday, seem to support that.”
Though it was a “very clear portrait” of Donald Trump’s goal of making an example of sanctuary cities like Los Angeles, Mel told me, it was a clear portrait of something else: grassroots resistance to tyranny.
“There's a fierceness to the resistance that I think is unique to the cultural and political makeup of the city,” Mel said during our interview. “And, at the risk of getting too misty-eyed: There's also a deep level of community care here – folks take care of one another.”
Mayor Bass said the scene looked like “a city under military occupation." You were there. What did you see? Is that accurate?
It certainly felt that way. Around 10:30 am Tuesday, over a dozen vehicles from multiple federal agencies rolled into the park. Some were armored military vehicles full of heavily armed personnel who jumped out and began taking positions at multiple points in the park.
To say it shattered the calm of the neighborhood would be an understatement. It was certainly alarming to see such a heavily armed presence in portions of the park that were previously full of young folks playing soccer an hour before.
Was there anything going that would justify such a heavy presence? Were there protests? Was there violence? Something that could warrant legitimately such a reaction by the federal government?
We weren't aware of anything that would warrant such a heavy response. MacArthur Park is in a neighborhood with a heavy immigrant population – City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez called the park "The Ellis Island of the West Coast" during a press conference. Before the feds arrived, folks were fishing in the pond, children were playing soccer on the field. It was a quiet morning.
When folks learned that an occupation was happening, many of them turned out in protest of the operation. Dozens of neighbors from the surrounding neighborhood showed up. We also spoke with some community members who had heard of a potential operation taking place in the park on social media the night before, and they showed up early to put up signs and comb through the park to alert neighbors that something might happen and suggested strongly that they leave.
No violence as far as I am aware. We didn't witness any detentions by federal agents either. To me, it seemed like a massive show of force by multiple federal agencies, and subsequent reporting by other outlets after the fact, as well as the mayor's statements at the press conference Tuesday, seem to support that.
What would be the utility of such a demonstration? Why there, in LA? Mayor Bass suggested that it was merely to sow fear and to intimidate for the purpose of social control. Is that reality or hype?
As many local community organizers have noted, Los Angeles features a heavy immigrant population. Nearly half of Los Angeles County is foreign-born. The resistance to the ICE raids at the start of June has continued. Community patrols are a daily affair, as are tireless efforts to keep neighbors safe from roving bands of ICE agents.
At a press conference put on by Unión del Barrio, an organization that has operated for decades as a safety net for vulnerable immigrant populations, they noted that efforts to repel ICE raids across the city have had an impact. LA is a city that won't let this happen in silence, and many groups across the city are involved in that resistance.
It’s worth noting that there are also a number of legal challenges to the National Guard and the Marines being deployed to the city, from a number of parties– including the governor's office. At the same time, the feds are suing the city of Los Angeles over its sanctuary city status.
Altogether, this presents a very clear portrait of the administration's goals: it wants to make a very clear point that sanctuary cities and states are vulnerable to the administration's attacks. So, in effect, what we saw Tuesday was a clear and alarming show of force within the boundaries of a heavily immigrant neighborhood in a sanctuary city.
It also seems to be a very clear portrait of resistance, as well as the role of civic pride in that resistance. As a journalist, you have interviewed numerous people who have said, more or less, the conflict here is between us and them, the "us" being Angelenos and the "them" being the feds, or even Trump. Thoughts on that?
Lemme put it this way – this city is something else, man.
Angelenos are a truly beautiful group of people, who care deeply about their city, take pride in their identity as immigrants, as Angelenos, and as Californians, and bristle at any hint of someone wanting to come into their neighborhoods and fuck with their neighbors.
There's a fierceness to the resistance that I think is unique to the cultural and political makeup of the city. And, at the risk of getting too misty-eyed: There's also a deep level of community care here – folks take care of one another. I saw it during the wildfires back in January.
I have other thoughts, but I'll leave it at that.
I would presume, and tell me if I'm right, that in that civic pride is knowledge that local law enforcement is not always on the side of Angelenos. You have posted images of LAPD appearing to work with, at least tolerate, what Mayor Bass said was a "military occupation." So there are two fronts. How do local activists think about that?
I think in most organizing circles you're going to find that the average person doesn't trust the police to solve these issues. Certainly not LAPD, or the sheriff's department, who have also been responsible for doing damage to many communities in the county. This isn't unique to Los Angeles, as we know. The sense I get is that it will be community members themselves, not those who sit in the offices in City Hall or the local precinct, who will keep the community safe.
The community organizers are the real heroes here – they've put themselves on the line time and again to defend the community against the brutality of these raids. The reality is that families are being shredded by these operations. The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights reported that over 2,000 people have been detained, deported or disappeared. They've been taken at bus stops, pulled out of their cars, disappeared from their street vendor carts, rounded up in workplace raids. Those sorts of actions are nothing short of absolute violence being meted out upon a hardworking community that contributes so much to the vibrancy of this city. If the average person isn't angry about that, I'm not sure how else to get them to care.
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