Los Angeles police defended the use of chemical agents against people protesting the federal immigration crackdown last year, the first time police had used the hazardous munitions since the 1970s.
Department administrators claimed at Tuesday’s Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners meeting that the agents were needed to control crowds and could be used again during major events in the future, such as the Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympics.
What LAPD said happened
Lieutenant Joseph Franzen and Commander Mario Mota discussed the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and other projectiles referenced in a 60-page LAPD report on the 2025 protests.
The report analyzed demonstrations, including ones at federal buildings in downtown LA, between June 6 and June 17, 2025, which the department estimated peaked at about 20,000 participants.
Franzen, one of its authors, said the report was intended to be a reflection on the department’s actions for future reference. The report does not detail injuries to members of the public and journalists, and does not include statements from them about what they experienced.
Commission President Rasha Gerges Shields asked the department to provide more information at a future meeting about injuries to members of the public and the amount and type of force used.
While the department said the chemical agents were needed to disperse crowds, their use has been the subject of ongoing debate. In January, a federal judge ordered the police department to stop using certain crowd-control weapons that posed risks to the public. Shields said that order should have been included in the report.
Franzen and Mota said officers used chemical agents on June 8 and June 14, respectively, in response to large crowds that had grown unruly. They reported that officers had various items thrown at them. Police Chief Jim McDonnell told the commissioners that most of the crowd exercised its First Amendment rights, but that a small portion of the crowd was “exceptionally violent”. He said he had never experienced that level of violence at a public gathering in his decades of police service.
Questions raised about the report
Several people at the Police Commission meeting contested the department’s account, saying chemical agents were used on journalists and members of the public who said they were peacefully protesting or doing their jobs, with little warning.
The League of Women Voters of Greater Los Angeles wrote a letter in advance of the meeting disagreeing with the characterization of the protests as riots in the report and urged better word choice. “‘Rioting’ connotes serious violence,” wrote Carolina Goodman on behalf of the organization.
During her first meeting as a police commissioner, Heather Aubry asked Mota to clarify that whatever violence did occur was not sanctioned by the organizers of the various protests that took place over the study period.
LA resident Kayla Esmond joined a preplanned march that included children, seniors and disabled people hoping to protest federal immigration enforcement. She told the commissioners that people began yelling amid the large crowd that police were preparing to use tear gas soon before canisters were fired.
“There was no dispersal order,” Esmond told The LA Local. “Someone yelled that there were children present. They fired the canisters without any response or warning that we could hear.”
Mayor Karen Bass eventually issued a curfew for downtown LA on June 10. Franzen and Mota reported that 435 people were arrested during the protests. Of those, 344 were arrested for unlawful assembly. It’s unclear how many were charged with a crime.
The department paid about $17.4 million for personnel during the protests, with about $12.2 million going toward overtime.
The LAPD’s actions during the federal immigration operations last year have been widely cited as a source of confusion for city residents who remain uncertain about what police were responsible for during the operations.
The ACLU and other advocacy groups previously reported to the commission on a federal raid at a garment warehouse last June where LAPD set a perimeter for federal agents while they detained workers there. During that presentation, they advised that police make it clear to the community in the future what they are there to do.
People echoed during public comment that the same confusion persists in the protest report, which describes the immigration raids and the public response to them as a “complex challenge” for local police. “The Department’s role was limited to providing public safety support when demonstrations escalated into violence or when federal personnel were at risk of being overwhelmed,” it reads.
For months, immigration advocates and other elected leaders called on McDonnell and Bass to provide more clarity on LAPD’s role in federal immigration sweeps. In February, Bass issued an executive directive explicitly limiting LAPD’s role during these operations and called for greater transparency about their interactions with federal agents.
LA Documenter Martin Romero contributed to this piece from the LAPD Board of Police Commission meeting. LA Documenters trains and pays LA residents to take notes at local government meetings around Los Angeles. You can find meeting notes and audio at losangeles.documenters.org
