Law enforcement

Five alleged drug dealers are facing felony charges for their involvement in the death of Leandro De Niro-Rodriguez, the grandson of acting legend Robert De Niro.

A federal grand jury in New York indicted the quintet on Tuesday, each on a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances resulting in death, according to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Prosecutors allege the men were “members of a criminal network that distributed thousands of counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl, among other drugs” to young adults and teenagers living in New York City.

The men arrested by New York officials this week — identified as Grant McIver, Bruce Epperson, Eddie Barreto, John Nicolas and Roy Nicolas — allegedly used social media to sell the drugs. Prosecutors underscored that the men’s “drug dealing had deadly consequences: over a three-month span in the summer of 2023,” alleging their drugs led to the deaths of three 19-year-olds.

Though the indictment did not disclose the victims’ identities, law enforcement confirmed the deaths include De Niro-Rodriguez’s in July 2023, according to several reports. At the time of her son’s death, actor-producer Drena De Niro — the Oscar winner’s eldest daughter with ex-wife Diahnne Abbott — said “someone sold [Leandro] fentanyl-laced pills that they knew were laced yet still sold them to him.”

A month after the young “A Star Is Born” actor’s death, the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed De Niro-Rodriguez died of an accidental drug overdose, noting he succumbed to the toxic effects of fentanyl, bromazolam, alprazolam, 7-aminoclonazepam, ketamine and cocaine.

Akira Stein, daughter of Blondie co-founder Chris Stein, was also an alleged victim. Stein announced his daughter’s death in July 2023, months after she died “at the end of May to an overdose.”

“The DEA and US Attorney folks from the NYC Southern District have been really very sympathetic and respectful all through this process and I can’t thank them enough for this hope of some justice for her,” Stein wrote in reaction to news of the arrests Thursday. “Please be careful.”

Shortly after De Niro-Rodriguez’s death, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York confirmed that law enforcement had arrested a woman, an alleged drug dealer known as the “Percocet Princess,” for her suspected connection with his death. She was arrested on charges of selling drugs to De Niro-Rodriguez.

In a July 2023 statement, “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Raging Bull” star De Niro said, “I’m deeply distressed by the passing of my beloved grandson Leo.”

“We’re greatly appreciative of the condolences from everyone,” he said. “We ask that we please be given privacy to grieve our loss of Leo.”

Federal prosecutors announced charges Wednesday against 12 people who allegedly engaged in violence during demonstrations against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

The charges, part of an effort dubbed “Operation Bridge Too Far” by federal authorities, largely centered on demonstrations that erupted on a freeway overpass near an immigration detention center in downtown Los Angeles on June 8, the first day the National Guard was deployed to the city.

What started as a small, peaceful protest on Alameda Street exploded into a series of tense clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement. After National Guard members and U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials used tear gas and smoke bombs to try and disperse a crowd outside the detention center, more protesters flooded the area.

A number of Waymo self-driving vehicles were set on fire near Olivera Street, and a group of California Highway Patrol officers on the 101 Freeway were pelted with items from protesters on the overpass above. At times, they returned fire with less-lethal rounds and tear gas. At least one protester had previously been charged in state court with throwing a flaming item at a CHP vehicle from the overpass.

Authorities announced that 10 defendants charged in connection with the incident were in federal custody this week. Another is in state custody and expected to be handed over to federal authorities, and one remains a fugitive.

Among those charged tied to the June 8 protest are Ronald Alexis Coreas, 23, of Westlake; Junior Roldan, 27, of Hollywood; Elmore Sylvester Cage, 34, of downtown Los Angeles; Balto Montion, 24, of Watsonville; Jesus Gonzalez Hernandez Jr., 22, of Las Vegas; Hector Daniel Ramos, 66, of Alhambra; Stefano Deong Green, 34, of Westmont; Yachua Mauricio Flores, 23, of Lincoln Heights; and Ismael Vega, 41, of Westlake.

Prosecutors also charged Virginia Reyes, 32, and Isai Carrillo, 31, who they say are members of “VC Defensa,” an immigrant rights group that has been documenting raids in the region.

Yovany Marcario Canil, 22, of Boyle Heights, was charged with assault on a federal officer for pepper-spraying members of an FBI S.W.A.T. team who were inside a government vehicle leaving the site of a raid in the downtown L.A. Fashion District on June 6.

A protester lobs a large rock at CHP officers stationed on the 101 Freeway below.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“Acts of violence against the brave law enforcement officers who protect us are an attack on civilized society itself,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a news release. “Anyone who engages in such disgusting conduct will face severe consequences from this Department of Justice.”

The FBI offered up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of 10 other unknown individuals accused of engaging in similar attacks from the overpass.

“A group of violent protesters threw rocks, pieces of concrete, electric scooters, and fireworks at officers and patrol cars” on the 101 Freeway, the FBI said.

Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor for the Central District of California, has aggressively pursued charges against those who clashed with law enforcement during protests against the Trump administration’s immigration raids over the last few months. On Wednesday, Essayli said that his office has charged 97 people with assaulting or impeding officers.

Of those, Essayli said, 18 have pleaded guilty and 44 are set to go to trial. His office has taken two defendants in misdemeanor assault cases to trial, but both ended in acquittals.

Earlier this year, a Times investigation found Essayli’s prosecutors have failed to convince grand juries to secure indictments in a number of protest-related cases.

Prosecutors face a much lower legal bar before a grand jury than they do in a criminal trial, and experts say it is rare for federal prosecutors to lose at that preliminary stage. Prosecutors in Chicago and Washington have faced similar struggles, court records show.

The defendants who have pleaded guilty in L.A. include a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant who hurled a molotov cocktail at L.A. County sheriff’s deputies during a June rally against immigration enforcement.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court rendered obsolete the 4th Amendment’s prohibition on suspicionless seizures by the police. When the court stayed the district court’s decision in Noem vs. Vasquez Perdomo, it green-lighted an era of policing in which people can be stopped and seized for little more than how they look, the job they work or the language they speak.

Because the decision was issued on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket,” the justices’ reasoning is unknown. All we have is Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s solo concurrence defending law enforcement’s use of race and ethnicity as a factor in deciding whom to police, while at the same time playing down the risk that comes with every stop — prolonged detention, wanton violence, wrongful deportation and sometimes even death. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her impassioned dissent (joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson): “We should not live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.” But now, we do.

The practical effect of this decision is enormous. It strips away what little remained of the guardrails that prevented police (including agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement) from indiscriminately seizing anyone with only a flimsy pretext.

Now there is no real limit on police seizures. History teaches us that people of color will bear the brunt of this policing regime, including the millions of immigrants who are already subject to police roundups, sweeps and raids.

This decision is no surprise for those of us who study the 4th Amendment. The police have long needed very little to justify a stop, and racial profiling is not new. Yet prior to the Vasquez Perdomo order in most instances, police had to at least articulate a non-race-based reason to stop someone — even if as minor as driving with a broken taillight, not stopping at a stop sign long enough, or walking away from the police too quickly.

Now, police no longer need race-neutral person-specific suspicion (pretextual or real) to seize someone. Appearing “Latino” — itself an indeterminate descriptor because it is an ethnicity, not defined by shared physical traits — along with speaking Spanish and appearing to work a low-wage job is enough, even if you have done nothing to raise suspicion.

Some might believe that if you have nothing to hide there is no reason to fear a police stop — that if you just show police your papers or offer an explanation you can go on your way. Even if that were the case, this sort of oppressive militarized police state — where anyone can be stopped for any reason — is exactly what the 4th Amendment rejected and was meant to prevent.

Moreover, ICE agents and police are not in the business of carefully examining documents (assuming people have the right ones on them) or listening to explanations. They stop, seize and detain — citizens and noncitizens alike. If lucky, some people are released, but many are not — including citizens suspected of being in the country illegally, or individuals whose only alleged crimes are often minor (and the product of poverty) or living peacefully (often for years) in the United States without legal status. And as evidenced by plaintiffs in this case, even if eventually released, a single stop can mean harassment, violence, detention or a life permanently upended.

Even if the 4th Amendment doesn’t prevent them, can’t race-based discrimination and police violence often be addressed through civil rights lawsuits? U.S. Code Section 1983 allows individuals to sue officials who violate their rights. But the reality plays out differently. In a recent decision, this Supreme Court dramatically limited class-action lawsuits, the primary vehicle that would allow widespread relief. The court has created a world in which law enforcement can largely act with impunity under the doctrine of qualified immunity. And there is likely no recourse if a federal official such as an ICE agent violates one’s constitutional rights, as the Supreme Court has sharply limited the ability to sue federal officials for money damages even if they commit a clear constitutional wrong.

The recent decision virtually declaring that the 4th Amendment allows police to engage in express racial profiling may not be the final word on the matter. We hope it isn’t. But longstanding court doctrine had already allowed racial profiling to flourish under the guise of seemingly neutral language of “reasonable suspicion” and “consent.” By allowing a further erosion of the limits on seizures, the Court entrenches a system in which the scope of one’s constitutional rights depends upon the color of one’s skin. If the 4th Amendment is to retain meaning, it must be interpreted to constrain — not enable — the racialized policing practices that have become routine in America.

Daniel Harawa and Kate Weisburd are law professors at NYU Law School and UC Law San Francisco, respectively.

In response to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration raids that have roiled Southern California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday signed a package of bills aimed at protecting immigrants in schools, hospitals and other areas targeted by federal agents.

Speaking at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex in Los Angeles, Newsom said President Trump had turned the country into a “dystopian sci-fi movie” with scenes of masked agents hustling immigrants without legal status into unmarked cars.

“We’re not North Korea,” Newsom said.

Newsom framed the pieces of legislation as pushback against what he called the “secret police” of Trump and Stephen Miller, the White House advisor who has driven the second Trump administration’s surge of immigration enforcement in Democrat-led cities.

SB 98, authored by Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra), will require school administrators to notify families and students if federal agents conduct immigration operations on a K-12 or college campus.

Assembly Bill 49, drafted by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates), will bar immigration agents from nonpublic areas of a school without a judicial warrant or court order. It will also prohibit school districts from providing information about pupils, their families, teachers and school employees to immigration authorities without a warrant.

Sen. Jesse Arreguín’s (D-Berkeley) Senate Bill 81 will prohibit healthcare officials from disclosing a patient’s immigration status or birthplace — or giving access to nonpublic spaces in hospitals and clinics — to immigration authorities without a search warrant or court order.

Senate Bill 627 by Sens. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley) targets masked federal immigration officers who began detaining migrants at Home Depots and car washes in California earlier this year.

Wiener has said the presence of anonymous, masked officers marks a turn toward authoritarianism and erodes trust between law enforcement and citizens. The law would apply to local and federal officers, but for reasons that Weiner hasn’t publicly explained, it would exempt state police such as California Highway Patrol officers.

Trump’s immigration leaders argue that masks are necessary to protect the identities and safety of immigration officers. The Department of Homeland Security on Monday called on Newsom to veto Wiener’s legislation, which will almost certainly be challenged by the federal government.

“Sen. Scott Wiener’s legislation banning our federal law enforcement from wearing masks and his rhetoric comparing them to ‘secret police’ — likening them to the gestapo — is despicable,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.

The package of bills has already caused friction between state and federal officials. Hours before signing the bills, Newsom’s office wrote on X that “Kristi Noem is going to have a bad day today. You’re welcome, America.”

Bill Essayli, the acting U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, fired back on X accusing the governor of threatening Noem.

“We have zero tolerance for direct or implicit threats against government officials,” Essayli wrote in response, adding he’d requested a “full threat assessment” by the U.S. Secret Service.

The supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution dictates that federal law takes precedence over state law, leading some legal experts to question whether California could enforce legislation aimed at federal immigration officials.

Essayli noted in another statement on X that California has no jurisdiction over the federal government and he’s directed federal agencies not to change their operations.

“If Newsom wants to regulate our agents, he must go through Congress,” he wrote.

California has failed to block federal officers from arresting immigrants based on their appearance, language and location. An appellate court paused the raids, which California officials alleged were clear examples of racial profiling, but the U.S. Supreme Court overrode the decision and allowed the detentions to resume.

During the news conference on Saturday, Newsom pointed to an arrest made last month when immigration officers appeared in Little Tokyo while the governor was announcing a campaign for new congressional districts. Masked agents showed up to intimidate people who attended the event, Newsom said, but they also arrested an undocumented man who happened to be delivering strawberries nearby.

“That’s Trump’s America,” Newsom said.

Other states are also looking at similar measures to unmask federal agents. Connecticut on Tuesday banned law enforcement officers from wearing masks inside state courthouses unless medically necessary, according to news reports.

Newsom on Saturday also signed Senate Bill 805, a measure by Pérez that targets immigration officers who are in plainclothes but don’t identify themselves.

The law requires law enforcement officers in plainclothes to display their agency, as well as either a badge number or name, with some exemptions.

“Ensuring that officers are clearly identified, while providing sensible exceptions, helps protect both the public and law enforcement personnel,” said Jason P. Houser, a former DHS official who supported the bills signed by Newsom.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s emergency order over the nation’s capital, which federalized its police force and launched a surge of law enforcement into the city, is set to expire overnight Wednesday after Congress failed to extend it.

But the clash between Republicans and the heavily Democratic district over its autonomy was only set to intensify, with a House committee beginning to debate 13 bills that would wrest away even more of the city’s control if approved.

Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office said the order expires at midnight. The National Guard and some other federal agencies will continue their deployment and it’s not clear when that might end.

Trump’s takeover of Washington’s policing and Wednesday’s discussions in the House underscore how interlinked the capital is with the federal government and how much the city’s capacity to govern is beholden to federal decisions.

Trump’s order federalized the local police force

For the last 30 days, the city’s local Metropolitan Police Department has been under the control of the president for use in what he described as a crime-fighting initiative.

Local police joined hundreds of federal law enforcement officers and agents on sweeps and roundups and other police operations. About 2,000 members of the National Guard from D.C. as well as seven states were also part of the surge of law enforcement.

Crime has dropped during the surge, according to figures from the White House and the local police department, but data also showed crime was falling in the lead up to the federal takeover.

Congress, satisfied by steps that Bowser has taken to ensure that the cooperation with the city will continue, decided not to extend the emergency, returning the police to district control.

But Bowser, who has walked a tightrope in collaborating with Trump in an effort to protect the city’s home rule, must now pivot to a Congress that has jurisdiction over the city. The next order of business is a series of proposals that will be debated Wednesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Some of the House bills focus on law enforcement

Thirteen of the bills call for repealing or changing D.C. laws. Some provisions in play would remove the district’s elected attorney general, who recently asked a judge to intervene in the takeover. Others would allow the president to appoint someone to the position.

There is also a move to lower the age of trying juveniles to 14 from 16 for certain crimes, and one to change the bail system and remove methods the council can use to extend emergency bills.

Even if the bills pass the committee and House, the question is whether they can get through the filibuster-proof Senate. D.C. activists have already begun lobbying Senate Democrats.

Bowser urged the leaders of the House Oversight Committee to reject those proposals.

She argued that a bill sponsored by Rep. Paul Gosar, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, would “make the District less efficient, competitive, and responsive.” She said she looks forward to working with the committee to build a “productive partnership” that “respects the will of D.C. residents and honors the principles of home rule.”

Republican Rep. Ron Estes and several Republican colleagues said they want their constituents to feel safe visiting the capital, and noted the recent murder of an intern who worked in Estes’ office. “We want to make sure that we have a capital that Americans are proud of,” Estes said.

Members of the Republican Study Committee in the House held a news conference Sept. 2 praising Trump’s intervention and supporting codifying his executive order.

“Congress has a clear constitutional authority over D.C., and we will use it without hesitation to continue making D.C. safe and great again,” said Rep. August Pfluger, chairman of that committee.

D.C. mayor says the bills challenge the city’s autonomy

Bowser said the bills are an affront to the city’s autonomy and said “laws affecting the district should be made by the district.”

The district is granted autonomy through a limited home rule agreement passed in 1973 but federal political leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including the approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C council.

Bowser has said repeatedly that statehood, a nonstarter for Republicans in Congress, is the only solution.

Fields and Askarinam write for the Associated Press. AP reporter Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.

Merrick Bobb, one of the godfathers of the modern police oversight movement in Los Angeles and beyond, has died. He was 79.

Bobb, whose health had deteriorated in recent years, died Thursday night at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in L.A., his two children, Matthew and Jonathan, confirmed Friday.

A Los Feliz resident for more than 40 years, Bobb had four grandchildren, was fluent in several languages and was respected as one of the earliest champions of civilian oversight of law enforcement.

He had a long career, shining a light on problems within major law enforcement agencies from L.A. to Seattle. And he accomplished his most significant work without the use of his hands or legs, which became effectively paralyzed after he contracted a rare and debilitating autoimmune condition called Guillain-Barré syndrome in 2003.

“He was always a person who was really engaged in the world,” Jonathan said in an interview with him and his brother. “I think that growing up in the 1950s and 1960s with the civil rights movement and other associated movements was very seminal for him in terms of instilling belief in justice [and] understanding the voices of traditionally underrepresented groups.”

For two decades beginning in 1993, Bobb served as special counsel to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. In that position, he delivered semiannual reports that detailed pervasive issues within the department, from widespread violence in the county’s jails to excessive force, driving a number of reforms in the department.

In 2014, the board created the Office of Inspector General and dismissed Bobb from his role with the county. That decision came in the wake of criticism that he and Michael Gennaco, the then-head of the Office of Independent Review, had not done enough to stop the problems in the jails, which had become a major scandal.

Two years earlier, a federal judge had appointed Bobb to serve as independent monitor of the Seattle Police Department’s consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice. He held that position until 2020, when he resigned in protest of the department’s use of force and “powerful and injurious” crowd control weapons against protesters in the months following George Floyd’s killing by a white Minneapolis police officer.

In 2001, he founded the Police Assessment Resource Center, a nonprofit that provides “independent, evidence-based counsel on effective, respectful, and publicly accountable policing,” the center’s then-vice president Matthew Barge wrote in 2015.

Before that, Bobb served as deputy general counsel for the Christopher Commission, which examined use of force within the Los Angeles Police Department in the wake of the 1991 beating of Rodney King. The commission published a sweeping report that year that called on then-LAPD Chief Daryl Gates to step down and found the department had a persistent and pervasive problem with excessive use of force.

Bobb graduated from Dartmouth College in 1968, then received his law degree three years later from UC Berkeley, according to his curriculum vitae. He worked for private law firms between 1973 and 1996. Bobb was named one of the top 50 lawyers in L.A. by the Los Angeles Business Journal that year, when he left a major law firm to focus on his law enforcement oversight work.

But for many people he met, according to his sons, it was Bobb’s kindness that made the strongest impression.

“No matter who it was in his life he was engaging with at that point, he focused in on them and developed a personal connection,” Matthew said. “You never knew if he was going to be having lunch with the former chief of police or his former handyman who came by once a week, and everyone in between.”

Bobb is survived by his children and grandchildren, his ex-wife Aviva Koenigsberg Bobb — a former judge with whom he remained close — his sister Gloria Kern and his longtime assistant and caretaker, Jeffrey Yanson.

Bobb’s funeral will take place at 10 a.m. Sept. 5 at Mount Sinai Hollywood Hills, 5950 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90068.

WASHINGTON — The State Department said Thursday that it’s reviewing the records of more than 55 million foreigners who hold valid U.S. visas for potential revocation or deportable violations of immigration rules.

In a written answer to a question posed by the Associated Press, the department said that all U.S. visa holders are subject to “continuous vetting” with an eye toward any indication that they could be ineligible for the document.

Should such information be found, the visa will be revoked and, if the visa holder is in the United States, he or she would be subject to deportation.

The department said it was looking for indicators of ineligibility, including visa overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization.

“We review all available information as part of our vetting, including law enforcement or immigration records or any other information that comes to light after visa issuance indicating a potential ineligibility,” the department said.

Since President Trump took office in January, his administration has thus far focused on deporting migrants illegally in the United States as well as holders of student and visitor exchange visas. The State Department’s new language suggests that the re-vetting process, which officials acknowledge is time-consuming, is far more widespread.

The administration has steadily imposed more and more restrictions and requirements on visa applicants, including requiring all visa seekers to submit to in-person interviews.

But the review of all visa holders appears to be a significant expansion of what had initially been a re-vetting process focused mainly on students who have been involved in pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel activity.

Officials say the reviews will include all the visa holders’ social media accounts, law enforcement and immigration records in their home countries, along with any actionable violations of U.S. law committed while they were in the United States.

“As part of the Trump Administration’s commitment to protect U.S. national security and public safety, since Inauguration Day the State Department has revoked more than twice as many visas, including nearly four times as many student visas, as during the same time period last year,” the department said.

Earlier this week, the department said that since Trump returned to the White House, it has revoked more than 6,000 student visas for overstays and violations of local, state and federal law, the vast majority of which were assault, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and support for terrorism.

It said that about 4,000 of those 6,000 were due to actual infractions of laws and that approximately 200–300 visas were revoked for terrorism-related issues, including providing support for designated terrorist organizations or state sponsors of terrorism.

Lee writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Federal authorities have used checkpoints around the nation’s capital to screen vehicles, sometimes asking people for their immigration status after stopping them, as President Trump’s crackdown reaches the two-week mark in Washington.

The use of checkpoints, which can be legally controversial, is the latest indication that the White House’s mass deportation agenda is central to its assertion of federal power in Washington. Federal agents and hundreds of National Guard troops have surged into Washington this month, putting some residents on edge and creating tense confrontations in the streets.

The city’s immigrant population, in particular, is rattled. A daycare was partially closed on Thursday when staff became afraid to go to work because they heard about federal agents nearby. An administrator asked parents to keep their children at home if possible.

Other day cares have stopped taking kids on daily walks because of fears about encountering law enforcement.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser acknowledged Thursday that the proliferation of traffic checkpoints are an inevitable aspect of the federal law enforcement operations.

“The surge of federal officers is allowing for different types of deployments, more frequent types of deployments, like checkpoints,” Bowser said.

Since Aug. 7, when Trump began surging federal agents into the city, there have been 630 arrests, including 251 people who are in the country illegally, according to the White House. Trump has been ratcheting up the pressure since then, seizing control of the D.C. police department Aug. 11 and deploying more National Guard troops, mostly from Republican-led states.

Soldiers have been largely stationed in downtown areas, such as monuments on the National Mall and transit stations.

However, federal agents are operating more widely through the city — and some may soon get a visit from the president himself.

Trump is expected to join a patrol in D.C. on Thursday night. He told his plans to Todd Starnes, a conservative commentator.

Not a normal traffic stop

On Thursday morning, as Martin Romero rode through Washington’s Rock Creek Park on his way to a construction job in Virginia, he saw police on the road up ahead. He figured it was a normal traffic stop, but it wasn’t.

Romero, 41, said that U.S. Park Police were telling pickup trucks with company logos to pull over, reminding them that commercial vehicles weren’t allowed on park roads. They checked for licenses and insurance information, and then U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents came over.

Romero said there were two agents on one side of his truck and three on the other. He started to get nervous as the agents asked where they were from and whether they were in the country illegally.

“We just came here to work,” Romero said afterward. “We aren’t doing anything bad.”

Two people in his truck were detained and the agents didn’t give a reason, he said. He also saw three other people taken from other vehicles.

“I feel really worried because they took two of our guys,” he said. “They wouldn’t say where they’re taking them or if they’ll be able to come back.”

Romero said he called his boss, who told him to just head home. They wouldn’t be working today.

Enrique Martinez, a supervisor at the construction company, came to the scene afterward. He pondered whether to call families of the detained men.

“This has never happened to our company before,” Martinez said. “I’m not really sure what to do.”

Checkpoints are legal, to a point

The Supreme Court has upheld the use of law enforcement and government checkpoints for specific purposes, such as for policing the border and for identifying suspected drunk drivers.

But there are restrictions on that authority, especially when it comes to general crime control. Jeffrey Bellin, a former prosecutor in Washington and professor at Vanderbilt Law School who specializes in criminal law and procedures, said the Constitution doesn’t allow “the government to be constantly checking us and stopping to see if we’re up to any criminal activity.”

He said checkpoints for a legally justifiable purpose — like checking for driver’s licenses and registrations — cannot be used as “subterfuge” or a pretext for stops that would otherwise not be allowed. And though the court has affirmed the use of checkpoints at the border, and even some distance away from it, to ask drivers about immigration status, Bellin said it was unlikely the authority would extend to Washington.

Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor at Georgia State College of Law, said the seemingly “arbitrary” and intrusive nature of the checkpoints in the capital could leave residents feeling aggrieved.

“Some of the things could be entirely constitutional and fine, but at the same time, the way that things are unfolding, people are suspicious — and I think for good reason,” he said.

From Los Angeles to D.C.

There are few places in the country that have been unaffected by Trump’s deportation drive, but his push into D.C. is shaping into something more sustained, similar to what has unfolded in the Los Angeles area since early June.

In Los Angeles, immigration officers — working with the Border Patrol and other federal agencies — have been a near-daily presence at Home Depots, car washes and other highly visible locations.

In a demonstration of how enforcement has affected routines, the bishop of San Bernardino formally excused parishioners of their weekly obligation to attend Mass after immigration agents detained people on two parish properties.

Immigration officials have been an unusually public presence, sending horse patrols to the city’s famed MacArthur Park and appearing outside California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s news conference last week on congressional redistricting. Authorities said an agent fired at a moving vehicle last week after the driver refused to roll down his window during an immigration stop.

The National Guard and Marines were previously in the city for weeks on an assignment to maintain order amid protests.

A federal judge blocked the administration from conducting indiscriminate immigration stops in Southern California but authorities have vowed to keep the pressure on.

Megerian and Martin write for the Associated Press. AP writers Eric Tucker and Ashraf Khalil in Washington and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

A popular YouTube streamer posted on social media that he “almost [died] today” after Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies drew their weapons on him and briefly detained him Sunday afternoon in what he said appears to be a swatting incident.

Rapper DDG posted on a YouTube video that he was at a paintball tournament in Castaic when police surrounded him and other participants.

“I turned around and there’s like six police cars and I’m like, ‘OK, what’s going to happen?’” he said in the post.

DDG said he expected law enforcement would inform him of what was happening. Instead, he said, he was detained without an explanation.

Video on social media shows DDG being searched and being walked to and placed inside a sheriff’s vehicle just before 6 p.m.

“Bro, he pulled up. Ain’t no ‘what’s up,’ ain’t no nothing, ain’t no, ‘dude, we got a call.’ Nothing,” DDG said.

He then mimicked the pointing of a gun and said police yelled at him, “Hands in the air!”

DDG said that he had “just got done smoking … so, you’ve got to think what’s going through my mental, bro.”

He didn’t elaborate on what he was smoking but added, “I’m thinking to myself the whole time, ‘is this real?”

Multiple calls to the Sheriff’s Department’s Santa Clarita station went unanswered. The department’s main media relations office said it had no information about the incident.

As he sat in the back of the sheriff’s vehicle, DDG said, he told deputies he believed he was being swatted, which occurs when a false report of a crime or emergency is made to provoke an aggressive law enforcement response.

The most extreme examples of swatting have involved responses from Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT, teams.

While sitting in the sheriff’s vehicle, DDG said, he read information about the potential swatting call on an open sheriff’s laptop. He believed someone provided the Sheriff’s Department with a description of the exact type of car he drove. He added that whoever called in the complaint said that the rapper was armed and was going to hurt himself and others.

DDG said he was held for 20 minutes before being released.

“Enjoy life, life life like there’s no tomorrow,” he said on his stream, “because you never know.”

The Trump administration petitioned the Supreme Court to free up its mass deportation efforts across Southern California Thursday, seeking to lift a ban on “roving patrols” implemented after a lower court found such tactics likely violate the 4th Amendment.

The restrictions, initially handed down in a July 11 order, bar masked and heavily armed agents from snatching people off the streets of Los Angeles and cities in seven other counties without first establishing reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.

Under the 4th Amendment, reasonable suspicion cannot be based solely on race, ethnicity, language, location or employment, either alone or in combination, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong of Los Angeles found in her original decision.

The Trump administration said in its appeal to the high court that Frimpong’s ruling, upheld last week by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California by hanging the prospect of contempt over every investigative stop.”

Lawyers behind the lawsuits challenging the immigration tactics immediately questioned the Trump administration’s arguments.

“This is unprecedented,” said Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel, part of the coalition of civil rights groups and individual attorneys challenging cases of three immigrants and two U.S. citizens swept up in chaotic arrests. “The brief is asking the Supreme Court to bless open season on anybody on Los Angeles who happens to be Latino.”

The move comes barely 24 hours after heavily-armed Border Patrol agents snared workers outside a Westlake Home Depot after popping out of the back of a Penske moving truck — actions some experts said appeared to violate the court’s order.

If the Supreme Court takes up the case, many now think similar aggressive and seemingly indiscriminate enforcement actions could once again become the norm.

“Anything having to do with law enforcement and immigration, the Supreme Court seems to be giving the president free reign,” said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law and a prominent scholar of the country’s highest court. “I think the court is going to side with the Trump administration.”

The Department of Justice has repeatedly argued that the temporary restraining order causes “manifest irreparable harm” to the government. Officials are especially eager to see it overturned because California’s Central District is the single most populous in the country, and home to a plurality of undocumented immigrants.

In its Supreme Court petition, the Justice Department alleged that roughly 10% of the region’s residents are in the U.S. illegally.

“According to estimates from Department of Homeland Security data, nearly 4 million illegal aliens are in California, and nearly 2 million are in the Central District of California. Los Angeles County alone had an estimated 951,000 illegal aliens as of 2019—by far the most of any county in the United States,” the petition said.

President Trump made mass deportations a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, and has poured billions in federal funding and untold political capital into the arrest, incarceration and removal of migrants. Though DOJ lawyers told the appellate court there was no policy or quota, administration officials and those involved in planing its deportation operations have repeatedly cited 3,000 arrests a day and a million deportations a year as objectives.

District and appellate courts have stalled, blocked, and sometimes reversed many of those efforts in recent weeks, forcing the return of a Maryland father mistakenly deported to Salvadoran prison, compelling the release of student protesters from ICE detention, preserving birthright citizenship for children of immigrant parents and stopping construction of Alligator Alcatraz.

But little of the President’s immigration agenda has so far been tested in the Supreme Court.

If the outcome is unfavorable for Trump, some observers wonder whether he will let the justices limit his agenda.

“Even if they were to lose in the Supreme Court, I have serious doubts they will stop,” Segall said.

WASHINGTON — The Senate on a party-line vote on Tuesday confirmed Emil J. Bove, President Trump’s defense lawyer and loyal ally atop the Justice Department, to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. The vote was 49 to 50.

Bove, 44, was a highly controversial judicial nominee, not because of his legal views, but because he led a purge of prosecutors and FBI agents who had worked on cases growing out of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Before this year, the Justice Department held to a tradition of keeping politics out of law enforcement. But Bove and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi saw their missions as carrying out the wishes of President Trump, including his plans for retribution against the prosecutors and investigators who brought charges against him or the 1,500 Trump allies who stormed the Capitol and fought with police.

In the first weeks of Trump’s second term, Bove served as the acting head of the Justice Department before Bondi was confirmed by the Senate.

Bove also ordered federal prosecutors in New York to drop bribery and corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams. The move prompted several of them to resign over what they saw as an unethical deal to win the mayor’s cooperation in the administration’s plan to round up immigrants who are in the country illegally.

Bove also played a key role in the new administration’s clash with a federal judge over deporting Venezuelans to a brutal prison in El Salvador. A former Justice Department attorney-turned-whistleblower said Bove told government lawyers they should ignore orders from the judge who sought to halt the deportations.

When Bove appeared before a Senate committee as a judicial nominee, he said he had been misunderstood and unfairly criticized.

“I am not an enforcer” or “anybody’s henchman,” he said.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche, who partnered with Bove in defending Trump last year, said he had been smeared by unfair criticism.

“Emil is the most capable and principled lawyer I have ever known,” he wrote in a Fox News opinion column.

Democrats said Bove did not deserve a promotion to the federal courts.

Sen. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) described Bove as a partisan loyalist who served Trump as “the instrument of his vengeance.”

“When Trump wanted to purge the department of prosecutors who had proved to juries beyond a reasonable doubt that the violent offenders who attacked police officers that day did so to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power, Emil Bove was there to punish not the criminals, but the prosecutors,” Schiff said in opposing the nomination.

On Tuesday, Bove was called a “diligent, capable and fair jurist” by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), according to the Associated Press.

Bove is not likely to have much influence on the 3rd Circuit Court. Its 14 judges hear appeals from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Bove has no experience as a judge and has not written on legal or constitutional issues.

However, if Justices Clarence Thomas or Samuel A. Alito were to retire in the next three years, Trump could nominate him to the Supreme Court.

His nomination drew unusually broad opposition from the legal community.

In a July 15 letter to the Senate, 80 former and retired judges said confirming Bove to a life-term judgeship undercuts the rule of law and respect for the federal courts. They said his “egregious record of mistreating law enforcement officers, abusing power and disregarding the law itself disqualifies him for this position.”

More than 900 former Justice Department attorneys signed a letter to the Senate saying “it is intolerable to us that anyone who disgraces the Justice Department would be promoted to one of the highest courts in the land.”

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, became the first Republican to declare her opposition to his nomination.

“We have to have judges who will adhere to the rule of law and the Constitution and do so regardless of what their personal views may be,” she said in a statement. “Mr. Bove’s political profile and some of the actions he has taken in his leadership roles at the Department of Justice cause me to conclude he would not serve as as impartial jurist.”

Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the only Republicans to vote against Bove.

NORFOLK, Va. — A Virginia man pleaded guilty Friday in a federal case that accused him of stockpiling the largest number of finished explosives in FBI history and of using then-President Biden’s photo for target practice.

Brad Spafford pleaded guilty in federal court in Norfolk to possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle and possession of an unregistered destructive device, according to court documents. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for December.

Federal authorities said they seized about 150 pipe bombs and other homemade devices last fall at Spafford’s home in Isle of Wight County, which is northwest of Norfolk.

The investigation into Spafford began in 2023 when an informant told authorities that Spafford was stockpiling weapons and ammunition, according to court documents. The informant, a friend and member of law enforcement, told authorities that Spafford was using pictures of then-President Biden for target practice and that “he believed political assassinations should be brought back,” prosecutors wrote.

Two weeks after the assassination attempt of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2024, Spafford told the informant, “bro I hope the shooter doesn’t miss Kamala,” according to court documents. Former Vice President Kamala Harris had recently announced she was running for president. On around the same day, Spafford told the informant that he was pursuing a sniper qualification at the local gun range, court records stated.

Numerous law enforcement officers and bomb technicians searched the property in December.

Spafford stored a highly unstable explosive material in a garage freezer next to “Hot Pockets and frozen corn on the cob,” according to court documents. Investigators also said they found explosive devices in an unsecured backpack labeled “#NoLivesMatter.”

Spafford has remained in jail since his arrest in December. U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen ruled against his release in January, writing that Spafford has “shown the capacity for extreme danger.” She also noted that Spafford lost three fingers in an accident involving homemade explosives in 2021.

Spafford had initially pleaded not guilty to the charges in January. Defense attorneys had argued at the time that Spafford, who is married and a father of two young daughters, works a steady job as a machinist and has no criminal record.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Swartz said at Spafford’s January detention hearing that investigators had gathered information on him since January 2023, during which Spafford never threatened anyone.

“And what has he done during those two years?” Swartz said. “He purchased a home. He’s raised his children. He’s in a great marriage. He has a fantastic job, and those things all still exist for him.”

Investigators, however, said they had limited knowledge of the homemade bombs until an informant visited Spafford’s home, federal prosecutors wrote in a filing.

“But once the defendant stated on a recorded wire that he had an unstable primary explosive in the freezer in October 2024, the government moved swiftly,” prosecutors wrote.

Finley writes for the Associated Press.

A cash fund for families financially reeling from ongoing federal immigration raids will be up and running within a month, according to Los Angeles County officials.

The Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 Tuesday to create the fund, fueled by philanthropy, focused on workers and their families in small L.A. County cities and unincorporated areas.

Details on the fund were sparse. It was not clear who will be eligible or how much a family could expect to collect.

For almost two months, the Trump administration’s sweeping raids have petrified residents across the region, with immigration agents snatching people from swap meets, car washes, Home Depot stores and street corners. Church pews, hospitals and whole neighborhoods have been emptier than usual. Many say they’re scared to go to work, as they weigh the necessity of collecting a paycheck against the risk that they might be arrested and deported.

“We are sending a clear message: Los Angeles County stands with our immigrant communities, and we will continue to fight to ensure that every resident, regardless of immigration status, has the dignity and support they need to survive and thrive,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis, who spearheaded the fund, in a statement.

The county also wants to expand a fund for small businesses who are affected financially by the raids, according to the motion approved by the supervisors.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger was absent from the vote, which comes on the heels of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ announcement last week that the city will provide cash to people affected by the sweeping immigration raids. Bass said the aid, also funded by philanthropy, will be distributed using cash cards with a “couple hundred” dollars on them.

The federal agents conducting the immigration raids are often in plainclothes, with their faces shielded by sunglasses and masks. Supervisor Janice Hahn said Tuesday that she plans to introduce an ordinance barring law enforcement from concealing their identities in unincorporated areas, where the county government is the local authority.

“Law enforcement officers should never wear personal disguises or conceal their identities while interacting with the public in the course of their duties,” said Hahn.

The county is also considering a program to safeguard belongings left behind in unincorporated areas by people detained by ICE agents, as well as starting a hotline for deported workers to retrieve unpaid wages.

Rampant immigration sweeps have left a trail of belongings — cars, lawn mowers, ice cream carts — across the region with no clear way to reunite the items with their owners.

“Most people don’t know how to get their last paycheck when they are deported, how to reconcile with their equipment or anything that relates to the life that they held here,” said Rosa Soto, head of the LA General Medical Center Foundation, at the meeting. “It is imperative we have the support they need.