George Floyd Remembered On 5th Anniversary Of His Death
George Floyd, a resident of Minneapolis, Minn., lost his life at the hands of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who knelt on Floyd's neck for nine minutes. On the fifth anniversary of his death, many on social media are honoring George Floyd's life.
On this day (May 25) five years ago, George Floyd was arrested after a store clerk at Cup Food alerted the police that Floyd used a counterfeit $20 bill inside the establishment. Officers J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane arrived on the scene shortly after 8:00 PM local time. The officers approached Floyd's SUV and ordered him to show his hands before pulling him out of the vehicle.
Chauvin and Officer Tou Thao arrived next, making it a total of four officers on Floyd. The officers pulled Floyd out of the backseat of a squad car with Kueng, Lane, and Chauvin physically holding down Floyd. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck, who repeatedly said he couldn't breathe, and was suffering from an anxiety attack, according to onlookers.
The officers ignored Floyd's complaints about his discomfort, with Thao, who kept bystanders at bay, reportedly telling folks, 'This is why you don't do drugs, kids.' The observers noticed that Floyd was no longer moving, and officers discovered that he no longer had a pulse. Witnesses say that the officers did nothing to attempt to revive Floyd as he was lying face down on the pavement.
The death of George Floyd sparked citywide demonstrations and protests around the nation, calling for the arrest of the four officers. Floyd's murder bolstered the 'Defund The Police' movement, and tensions between police officers and Black and other minority groups grew as a result.
Chauvin was later charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter, and was sentenced to 22 and a half years. Chauvin pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating Floyd's civil rights for ignoring his pleas for help, not administering medical care, and for using extreme measures to subdue him. The other three officers faced similar charges.
Lane pleaded guilty to state level charges of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter and sewas ntenced to three years to be served alongside a 2 and a half year federal sentence. Kueng pleaded guilty to the same charge and was sentenced to 3 and a half years in state prison to be served with his 2 and a half year federal sentence. Thao waived his right to a trial but was later found guilty of aiding and abetting manslaughter and sentenced to almost five years in prison.
Naturally, right-wing trolls and MAGA enthusiasts are pushing the theory that Floyd overdosed on drugs instead of focusing on the charges that the officers actually pleaded guilty to. If these tough-guy officers believed they didn't commit a crime, protests and folks calling for their heads wouldn't have made them fold. It didn't stop them from killing a Black man in broad daylight, right?
On X, George Floyd's name is one of the top trending topics. We've got those reactions listed below.
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Photo: The Washington Post / Getty
George Floyd Remembered On 5th Anniversary Of His Death was originally published on hiphopwired.com
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'Cracking heads': Trump, DOJ moves signal end of reforms after George Floyd movement
When George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer five blocks from her home, Nichole Subola visited the site of his death again and again, trying to wrap her mind around it. Police reform seemed within reach as she watched the global impact of the protests. The floral arrangements, drawings and signs filled the streets in a place that came to be known as "George Floyd Square." Five years later, Subola, 59, isn't sure if local police will follow through on their commitment now that the Trump administration is abandoning federal consent decrees in cities that promised real change in training and hiring practices. More: An officer partially blinded a teen amid George Floyd protests. Was force excessive? "There's a consensus here that the police need to do better, but it's so hard to erase what happened viscerally," she said. "There's just no trust in the police, not for me and my community, and other parts of the city, there just isn't. I don't think it was there to begin with." Millions poured into the country's streets demanding systemic change in the wake of Floyd's murder on Memorial Day − coupled with the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by Louisville police two months prior. Many believed America was turning a corner in terms of police accountability. Even Trump, who rarely criticized police action, called Floyd's death a "very sad event" in a May 27, 2020 tweet. "Justice will be served," he said. Much of that was snatched away in the years that followed, most notably in 2021 when Congress failed to pass sweeping reform package dubbed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. During Biden's presidency, federal investigators started a dozen "pattern or practice" probes into police departments across the nation, including Phoenix, Trenton and Memphis. None yielded any court-binding consent decrees, however, and then came the largest setback of all: Donald Trump returning to the White House. The president's team has now swung the pendulum in the opposite direction from five years ago, even attempting to rescind findings of constitutional violations in the cities where Floyd and Taylor lost their lives. Experts and voters on both sides of the debate say the U.S. Justice Department's decision on May 21 establishes a new political order for the country's ongoing police accountability debate, including the possibility of pardoning officers convicted by federal prosecutors during the Biden years. Among Trump's allies in the law enforcement ranks, there are cheers among those who argue consent decrees micromanage departments and were overused by the previous administration. Police reforms are better handled by local elected leaders and residents, who know their public safety needs better than Washington, said Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, which supports officers who are prosecuted or fired for actions while in the line of duty. "It should be a patchwork," he said. "Law enforcement is local, so the police in Minneapolis should conduct themselves in the way the citizens of Minneapolis want." But those on the other side of the fence assert the president is giving police officers a green light to do as they please. Jim Mulvaney, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who previously served as deputy commissioner of New York state's human rights division, points out Trump often encouraged law enforcement to be rougher on certain suspects during the campaign. "He signaled back then that hard-handed law enforcement was what he wanted," he said. "Not obeying the Constitution, but cracking heads." Pulling back from those consent decrees coincides with a larger sea change at the Justice Department, which has reportedly lost 70% of its civil rights division lawyers since January. Administration officials have also shifted the division's focus toward enforcing the president's executive orders, such as combating antisemitism in higher education, ending alleged radical indoctrination in public schools and defending women's rights from "gender ideology extremism" in athletics and other areas. Up until the DOJ's announcement this month, Mulvaney said there has been a long-held presumption that the federal government would keep local law enforcement in check. "They've now been told, don't worry about it. And I think that that's only going to encourage bad behavior and at a very high cost," he said. Many activists and voters who spoke with USA TODAY echoed those concerns, but emphasized they aren't giving up on racial equality or seeking changes to law enforcement. Instead of lobbying Congress or engaging in large acts of civil disobedience, different forms of resistance are being spotlighted. "The solutions have never come from the system; they always came from people in the community. So I think this could be an opportunity to build more of that energy if we use it properly," said Rodney Salomon, 37, of Neptune Township, N.J., co-founder of KYDS, Konscious Youth Development & Service, a nonprofit that focuses on transforming communities through mindfulness, restorative practices and youth leadership. Others point to seeking change through economic actions like the Black-church led boycott of Target after the retail giant quashed its diversity initiatives. The company's first-quarter sales fell 3.8%, compared to analysts' estimates of a 1.08% decline. They are looking to find innovative ways to protect residents through technology, such as Selwyn Jones, a Floyd relative who developed the MYTH app, which would send out a panic alert to a person's emergency contacts when they're involved in a police interaction in real time. Kay Harris, 72, who lived in Asbury Park, N.J., through the city's race riots in the 1960s, said federal oversight is critical, but balancing the scales may have to come from other branches of government, such as the courts. "We cannot depend on the local precincts to do it themselves. I mean that is why we are in the position we are in right now," she said. "That doesn't mean that all police officers are unethical, but there are just too many rogue police officers who do just what they want." Asbury Park, for instance, settled at least five suits in roughly a decade involving allegations of racial discrimination. The victims were awarded $1.9 million in defense and settlement costs, city officials say. "If (Trump) is the law and order president, then he should ensure that law and order is followed appropriately," Harris said. "He is trying to roll things back to the 1950s." The Trump administration's decision to walk back reform efforts came days before the fifth anniversary of Floyd's murder on May 25, 2020. That timing wasn't lost on Justin Thamert, of Foley, Minnesota, a town about 65 miles north of Minneapolis, who said emotions remain raw. "I don't think anybody's gotten over it," he said. The 34-year-old mechanic, who voted for Trump last fall, said the Biden administration turned its back on law enforcement and made officers feel afraid to do their jobs. But he isn't sure federal authorities should abandon reform efforts in Minneapolis, which include minimizing the need to use force; investigating allegations of employee misconduct; and providing confidential mental health wellness services to officers and other public safety personnel. "I wouldn't shut the door," Thamert said. "I think (Minneapolis) will need help. I don't agree with them completely pulling out." Leaders in the cities where Taylor and Floyd died have been quick to pledge, regardless of the Trump administration's reversal, that they will seek to continue implementing changes to their law enforcement operations. Minneapolis was "making more progress towards the reforms" than most other municipalities in the country under a consent decree, Mayor Jacob Frey noted, citing a recently released independent evaluator's report. The report found the department had reduced its backlog of use-of-force cases under review from more than 1,100 to about 400 in the last six months. "The people in this city have demanded change for years and we're going to make sure we get this done," Frey told USA TODAY. Like many local officials, Frey, a Democrat, who is seeking reelection this year, has walked a political tightrope in the wake of controversial police encounters. He was criticized by Trump as a "very weak radical left mayor" in 2020 for his handling of the unrest that engulfed the city, but was slammed by left-leaning activists for opposing a 2021 ballot initiative that sought radical change and completely overhaul the police department with a new public safety agency. The plan would have shifted oversight from the mayor's office to the city council. However, 56% of voters rejected that idea. Frey said Minneapolis is standing by the court-ordered reforms, emphasizing that homicides and shootings are down. The city is rolling out new use-of-force measures, improving community engagement and making sure its work is transparent and accountable, he said. "So Donald Trump can do whatever he wants," Frey continued. "The bottom line is, regardless of what the White House does, we are moving forward, anyway." Similarly, Louisville officials immediately used the DOJ's decision to unveil a 214-page plan mirroring similar goals set by the Biden administration. It calls for hiring an independent monitor for up to five years who will help develop a plan covering use of force, community policing, misconduct investigations and behavioral health response. "We as a city are committed to reform," said Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, a Democrat seeking reelection next year, at a May 21 press conference. There are some omissions in Louisville's new plan, however. The trimmed-down local plan removed a line about the use of Tasers that mandated officers learn about "the risks to persons exhibiting signs of mental illness, substance use, or experiencing behavioral health crisis," according to the Courier-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network. Antonio Brown, 39, participated in the Louisville protests almost daily in the summer of 2020. He said his faith in federally supported police reforms waned after Trump was reelected. "I'm not surprised by what Trump's administration is doing, but I do wonder what our mayor is going to do, because he ran on change," Brown said. Other city officials and local activists have expressed skepticism about Greenberg, who contested some findings in the original 2023 federal report that determined the Louisville police department "unlawfully discriminates against Black people in its enforcement activities." Critics point out that the independent monitor's contract under the local plan is only renewable for up to five years, for instance. Greenberg also hasn't committed to rehiring the city's inspector general, who is charged with examining police misconduct and has butted heads with Louisville police since 2021. "It's definitely going to get worse if we don't see any change," said Brown, a machine operator at a local manufacturing company. "This is why we came outside –for reform. So if we don't get reform... I'm not going back in." As advocates on both sides of the police accountability debate decipher what Trump's about-face means for those communities, some are now focusing on what his administration might do next as allies seek to redefine the summer of 2020. Conservative activists have publicly lobbied for the president to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of Floyd's murder. Trump previously said that he wasn't considering pardoning Chauvin. But, Minneapolis officials said they are prepared for an emergency response with state and federal authorities while calming the waters. Frey pointed out, for example, that even if Chauvin were to be pardoned by Trump from his 21-year federal sentence, that would not free the former officer for his 22-year state sentence for second- and third-degree murder. By law, Trump doesn't have the power to pardon state sentences. In recent weeks, Trump's suppoters have publicly called for the same reprieve to be extended to former Louisville police detective Brett Hankinson, one of three officers who raided Taylor's apartment in 2020. He faces a life sentence after being found guilty last fall by a federal jury of violating the 26-year-old ER technician's civil rights. Right-leaning advocates noted Hankison was acquitted on state charges in 2022, and spotlight that no one was injured as a result of his gunfire on the night Taylor was shot to death. "Hankison should be completely (absolved) of any wrongdoing," Brandon Tatum, a former Arizona police officer turned YouTube political commentator, told his roughly 1.6 million Instagram followers on May 14. Tatum argued Hankinson is more deserving of a pardon than Chauvin, adding that he reached out to leaders in Congress to contact the White House on behalf of the former Louisville officer. Johnson, of the law enforcement defense fund, has called on the Trump administration to take a closer look at other cases they describe as "politically motivated," including a 2023 case involving a Massachusetts police sergeant facing federal charges for filing a false report. He said his group has not actively advocated for Hankinson's pardon, but that it does, "believe he is a good candidate for clemency." Trump has already wielded his executive authority in such a manner during his first week in office when he pardoned two Washington, D.C. police officers convicted last fall in the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, who was riding a moped on a sidewalk without a helmet when he ignored instructions to stop. Jerrod Moore, 44, an Atlanta construction inspector, said federal authorities investigating these type of case could have done more to weed out bad officers. He said changes coming from the national level have proven to be unreliable, and that he wouldn't be surprised if Trump pardoned more police officers convicted of violating people's constitutional rights in the coming years. "He's very selective about who he wants to pardon, and if he does, it will be an officer in one of the more egregious crimes," Moore said. "It's very clear who his target audience is. Look who he's pardoned already." Contributing: Charles Daye, Stephanie Kuzydym, Josh Wood, Keely Doll, Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY Network This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump, DOJ moves signal shift for police accountability after Floyd
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Trump's LA National Guard orders draw comparisons to Jan. 6
WASHINGTON – One group was considered a rampaging mob whose members bear-sprayed and beat police officers while breaking into the seat of American democracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power. The other was a more dispersed and uncoordinated group of violent agitators burning empty cars, looting and throwing rocks at police. In the first incident, the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, then-President Donald Trump never called in the National Guard, despite pleas from local officials and some congressional lawmakers. They said troops were needed to prevent further violence from an angry mob that Trump himself had riled up to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. In the second case, which is still ongoing, Trump not only deployed the California National Guard over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom, he also called in 700 active duty Marines to quell anti-ICE protests that erupted in Los Angeles over aggressive immigration raids. The contrast between Trump's actions in 2021, when the U.S. Capitol was overrun by a violent mob, and this month in Los Angeles is proof, his critics say, the president is using the U.S. military for political purposes. But some supporters of the president say the more appropriate comparison isn't with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, but the riots and disturbances that rocked American cities in the summer of 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd. The Floyd protests showed "you've got to put out small fires before they turn into forest fires,' Jay Town, who served as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama during Trump's first administration, told USA TODAY. Trump said the troops were needed in Los Angeles to put down a 'form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States." The protests in Los Angeles are seen as more tepid compared to the Jan. 6 riots in terms of constituting a rebellion or threat to the federal government, according to Newsom, Democratic lawmakers, and legal experts. They accuse Trump − who was impeached and criminally indicted over Jan. 6, though the charges were dropped after his reelection − of deploying soldiers to serve his own political ends. "There was not plausibly a rebellion in Los Angeles, under any reasonable interpretation of the term," said Chris Mirasola, a law professor at the University of Houston and a former Department of Defense legal advisor. Critics saw a cracked mirror image of Jan. 6 in Trump's mobilization of the National Guard in Los Angeles. 'This is a reverse of Jan. 6, where Trump allowed his most violent supporters to attack the Capitol on his behalf," Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., told USA TODAY, "and here he is sending in federal troops to provoke his opponents to attack them.' "In both instances, his aim is chaos,' Swalwell said. Four people died during the Jan. 6 assault on Congress and five police officers died in its aftermath − one from a stroke the following day and four by suicide. About 140 other law enforcement officers were injured. More than 1,575 people were charged in connection with Jan. 6, ranging from misdemeanors such as trespassing to felonies such as assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy. At least 600 were charged with the felony of assaulting or impeding law enforcement, according to the Police Executive Research Forum. Damages for Jan. 6 surpassed $2.7 billion, according to an investigation by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In the current case, at least nine LAPD officers and an unknown number of protesters have been hurt, with most sustaining minor injuries. The Los Angeles Police Department has arrested more than 500 people in eight days of protests, the majority of them on minor charges such as failure to disperse or not obeying a nighttime curfew. Two were charged with throwing firebombs, authorities said on June 11. Though the extent of damage from the current LA protests are unknown, it is far less significant than on Jan. 6, Democratic lawmakers and city and state officials say. Trump and other administration officials repeatedly have said there's no comparison between Jan. 6 and the Los Angeles violence, and that California and LA officials forced the President's hand by failing to quell the growing protests. 'Generations of Army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion,' Trump told Army soldiers in a June 10 speech at Fort Bragg, N.C. 'As commander in chief, I will not let that happen.' Trump didn't make any such pronouncements four years ago as a stunned nation watched the Capitol attack unfold, with organized groups including the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia taking leading roles. In 2021, Trump spent 187 minutes watching the Capitol assault on TV, while mobs ransacked Congressional offices and hunted for Democratic lawmakers and even his own vice president, Mike Pence, according to a House committee investigating the attack. Hours later, only after the crowd began dispersing, Trump posted a video on social media at 4:17 p.m.: 'Go home. We love you, you're very special.' It wasn't until 5:20 p.m. on Jan. 6 that the first National Guard troops arrived at the Capitol, while police secured the complex. 'In a bipartisan way, on Jan. 6 − with violence against the Constitution, against the Congress and against the United States Capitol − we begged the president of the United States to send in the National Guard,' former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., told reporters. 'He would not do it.' 'And yet, in a contra-constitutional way, he has sent the National Guard into California,' Pelosi said on June 10. 'Something is very wrong with this picture." On June 13, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily halted a federal judge's order blocking Trump's Guard mobilization in Los Angeles. Supporters of Trump's National Guard call-out in California point to a different set of disturbances to justify his actions. Town, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2017 to a 2020 and a former Marine, described a more complex set of circumstances than Pelosi. He cited statements by Steven Sund, the U.S. Capitol Police chief at the time, that he begged for National Guard assistance on Jan. 6 but that it was congressional officials who reported to Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who delayed approval. More: Amid LA deployment, Hegseth falsely attacks Tim Walz over 2020 George Floyd riots Town said the appropriate comparison isn't with Jan. 6, but the National Guard deployments in 2020 during riots following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. 'What we learned in 2020, as a guy who was in office then, is that you've got to put out small fires before they turn into forest fires,' Town told USA TODAY. "President Trump is not going to let what happened under the failed local and state leadership in Minneapolis and Seattle and so many other places happen again.' On June 17, as he returned to Washington from the Group of Seven summit in Canada, Trump wrote on Truth Social: "If I didn't put the National Guard into Los Angeles, the place would be burned down to the ground right now." On his first day back in office in 2025, Trump pardoned all but 14 of the approximately 1,270 convicted Jan. 6 rioters. He and Cabinet members including Attorney General Pam Bondi say they will prosecute anyone who even touches a law enforcement official in Los Angeles to the fullest extent of the law. Asked if that was hypocritical in light of Trump's Jan. 6 pardons, Bondi said, "Well, this is very different." "These are people out there hurting people in California right now,' Bondi said in an on-camera gaggle with reporters at the White House. 'This is ongoing." Newsom, who is suing Trump over the Marines and Guardsmen in Los Angeles, disagreed. "Trump, he's not opposed to lawlessness and violence, as long as it serves him,' Newsom said. 'What more evidence do we need than Jan. 6?" This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump's LA National Guard orders draw comparisons to Jan. 6
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11 hours ago
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Karen Bass in hot seat as Trump targets Los Angeles – but it's not her first crisis
In the mid-1990s, Karen Bass was in the streets of Los Angeles, protesting alongside Latino activists against new laws that targeted undocumented immigrants and were expected to land more young men of color in prison. These days, Bass is monitoring the status of protests against US immigration agents from a helicopter, as the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles. Bass, a 71-year-old former community organizer, is leading the city's response to an extraordinary confrontation staged by the federal government, as federal agents have raided workplaces and parking lots, arresting immigrant workers in ways family members have compared to 'kidnappings', and Donald Trump sent in the national guard and hundreds of US marines in response to local demonstrations. As Trump and other Republicans have tried to paint Bass as the negligent guardian of a city full of wild criminal behavior, Bass has pushed back hard. The political career of Los Angeles' first Black female mayor was forged during the chaos and violence of the 1992 LA uprising, which left more than 50 people dead, and in the long struggle afterwards to rebuild a more equal city. When the Trump administration tried to depict a few protests in downtown Los Angeles as rioting equivalent to the aftermath of the Rodney King trial in 1992, Bass scoffed: 'There is zero comparison,' noting that, as a Black community leader in South Central Los Angeles, 'I was at the epicenter when it was occurring.' Bass has earned widespread praise within California for her forceful denunciation of Trump's immigration raids, and her focus on the safety of LA's immigrant residents, and the terror the raids have caused. She has repeatedly described immigrants as central to the city's identity. 'We are a city of immigrants, and we have always embraced that,' Bass said. She has also made clear that what's happening in Los Angeles has wider importance, and that the tactics the administration is testing out in one Democratic-majority city are likely to be used elsewhere. 'I don't think our city should be used as an experiment,' she said last week. As city leadership, she's been holding it down Eunisses Hernandez, LA city council Bass, a force in California state politics before she spent a decade in Congress, built her reputation on consensus-building and pragmatism, not political grandstanding. Once a favorite of congressional Republicans for her willingness to work across the aisle, she is now denouncing Trump administration officials for the 'outright lie' of their characterization of Los Angeles as a war zone, and saying bluntly that 'this is chaos that was started in Washington DC.' 'As city leadership, she's been holding it down,' said Eunisses Hernandez, a progressive Los Angeles city council member who represents a majority-Latino district north of downtown. 'All of our leaders are navigating unprecedented waters.' In the short time Bass has been mayor – she was inaugurated in December 2022 – she has been faced with a series of escalating post-Covid crises, starting with the city's long-running struggle with homelessness and rising housing costs, then a historic double Hollywood strike in 2023, followed by ongoing economic problems in the city's crucial film and TV business. As multiple wildfires raged across the city this January, she was slammed for having left the city for Ghana during a time of high wildfire risk and dodging questions about her absence. Her leadership during the wildfires left her political future in question, with half the city's voters viewing her unfavorably, according to a May poll. The challenges Bass faces in leading Los Angeles through this new crisis are also only beginning, even as the first wave of Los Angeles' anti-immigration raid protests have quieted in the wake of Saturday's large nationwide demonstrations against the Trump administration. 'Our city is under siege,' said Roland Palencia, an organizational consultant and longtime local activist. 'The plan here is basically, strangle the city: economically, politically, every which way.' At least 2,000 members of the national guard and hundreds of US marines are still staged in downtown Los Angeles. A legal battle over whether Trump illegally deployed the national guard over the protests of California's governor is still playing out: after a Tuesday hearing, a federal appeals court seemed likely to keep the national guard under Trump's control as the litigation continues. I do not believe that individuals that commit vandalism and violence in our city really are in support of immigrants Karen Bass While denouncing the Trump administration for causing chaos in Los Angeles, Bass has also had to confront some of those taking to the streets, demanding that protests be 'peaceful' and responding sharply to anti-Ice graffiti on downtown buildings and businesses, noting that the city was supposed to host the Fifa World Cup in 2026. 'I do not believe that individuals that commit vandalism and violence in our city really are in support of immigrants, they have another agenda,' she said on 10 June. 'The violence and the damage is unacceptable, it is not going to be tolerated, and individuals will be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.' Meanwhile, federal agents are still conducting unpredictable immigration raids across the Los Angeles area, detaining people at work, in parking lots, and even at a weekend swap meet. Family members have been left without any information about their loved ones' whereabouts for days: lawyers and elected officials have described horrific conditions in the facilities where suddenly detained immigrants are being held. On Tuesday, Bass lifted the evening curfew that she had set for a swath of downtown Los Angeles a week before, one that major Los Angeles restaurants had complained had cost them tens of thousands of dollars. But the economic shock waves of the immigration raids are still rippling through the city, with many immigrants, even those with legal status to work in the US, afraid of going to work, or even leaving the house. The message Angelenos have taken from the federal raids so far, Hernandez said, was 'It doesn't matter whether you're documented or not: if you look brown, if you look Latino, if you look like an immigrant, we're going to stop you.' A third of Los Angeles county's roughly 10 million residents were born outside the United States. Half are Latino. An estimated 1 million people here are undocumented. Since the federal government stepped up the raids, swaths of the city once bustling with immigrant businesses and immigrant customers are unusually quiet, community members and local politicians say. 'It is pretty profound to walk up and down the streets and to see the empty streets, it reminded me of Covid,' Bass told the Los Angeles Times during a Father's Day visit to Boyle Heights, a historic Latino neighborhood. Bass has urged Angelenos to help local businesses harmed by the Trump administration's targeting. 'Now is the time to support your local small business and show that LA stands strong and united,' she posted on X on Tuesday. But Hernandez, the city council member, warned that the economic pain of the raids could escalate even further, particularly as immigrant families afraid to send breadwinners to work over the past two weeks faced the threat of being evicted from their homes. 'We cannot afford to have more people fall into the eviction to homelessness pipeline,' she said. When small businesses lost money, Hernandez added, the city's revenue was hurt, as well: 'Our budget – a significant portion of it is made from locally generated tax dollars,' she said. 'That revenue is drying up.' And the city government, already struggling with a huge budget deficit after the wildfires this January, also faced new crisis-related costs, Hernandez said: 'We're spending millions upon millions in police overtime.' She noted that the police department had estimated Ice-raid-related overtime costs at $12m within the first two weeks. Many journalists and activists have criticized the Los Angeles police department's own response to the protests of the past two weeks as violent and heavy-handed. The city of Los Angeles is currently facing a lawsuit from press freedom organizations over the police department's use of force against journalists. Palencia, the longtime activist and organizational consultant, said Bass's commitment to Los Angeles' immigrant community, and to Latinos in particular, was not in doubt. Bass's connection to the Latino community is deep, Palencia said, forged both through her early political activism as the founder of the Community Coalition, a non-profit which built ties between Black and Latino communities in order to jointly confront the challenges of the crack epidemic in the 1990s, and through her own family. Bass's ex-husband was Latino, and she remains very close to her four Mexican American stepchildren and their children. But, Palencia argued, leaders like Bass and the California governor, Gavin Newsom, will need a long-term leadership plan, one that gives more guidance to all the state's residents on how to respond to a new and dangerous situation. Even though Los Angeles had had a quieter week, the feeling that the city was 'under siege' continued, Palencia said. 'It's kind of like a cat-and-mouse situation,' he said. 'It's very fluid – and it can blow up any time.'
