A youth gardening group was celebrating a new garden they’d built in South LA last month when a community member flicked on a camera drone and floated it 50 feet into the air to help a student adjust a garden border. 

Within an hour, police and federal agents descended on Greenhouse South LA’s June 14 celebration. FBI agents seized the drone. 

“It was a terrible feeling,” said Wendy Salvador, GreenHouse South LA co-founder. “Things could have really gotten out of control.” 

Bz Zhang, a project manager with LA Neighborhood Land Trust, said the drone pilot had made the flight before and didn’t fly more than a couple stories off the ground. 

But the garden, located at a shuttered oil drilling site on Jefferson Boulevard, is roughly a mile from the LA Memorial Coliseum, where FIFA was hosting a fan festival on June 14. Federal Aviation Administration officials had put in place a “no drone zone” within a mile radius of the stadium. 

Amid fears of drone attacks, federal officials have cracked down hard on even recreational drone flights during the World Cup, seizing drones, doling out fines and criminally charging four people in Texas for alleged drone flights around World Cup events in Houston.

The FBI’s visit to the community garden is an indicator of how easily mega-event security efforts — which will hit South LA again for the 2028 Olympics — can spill over into everyday life in neighborhoods around venues. 

“Everyone’s trying to get into the Coliseum. We’re trying to get out,” said Salvador. “We were nowhere near the watch party.”

Zhang said after the drone flight, a pair of LA police squad cars pulled into the lot within minutes and officers demanded the drone be grounded. 

The officers were followed by Department of Homeland Security agents, then two FBI agents, according to Zhang. LAPD squad cars, at first, blocked two exits but officers eventually moved their vehicles to allow people to leave.

Police made no arrests and handed the operator, who Zhang asked not be named for fear of retaliation, a citation with $130 worth of fees and fines. Zhang said the incident is still under investigation.

The intensity of the law enforcement response to a neighborhood event, Zhang and Salvador each worried, could have meant a worse outcome in a different scenario. The drone operator could have been alone, without the support of multiple community groups, or undocumented families could have had to navigate interactions with DHS agents

“How many times is this happening in someone’s backyard, to a teenager?” Zhang asked. “This is exactly the kind of policing that is the intention with the Olympics as well.”

Here’s why the FBI is on high alert for drones

One national security expert told The LA Local that the community garden drone flight would likely not have posed a problem at another time or in another place. 

But the World Cup is a global event, said Paul Goldenberg, chair for the public safety board of drone company Draganfly Inc. Goldenberg said federal officials are on high alert for drones because militaries, organized crime groups and others are increasingly using drones as weapons. 

“Heaven forbid something goes down at one of those events,” Goldenberg said. 

The FBI’s LA field office did not answer questions from The LA Local about its general drone operation and the specifics of the Jefferson Park incident. The LA Police Department did not immediately return an inquiry. 

Amir Ehsaei, special agent in charge of counterterrorism and crisis response at the FBI’s LA Field Office, told LAist drone detection teams are deployed at all SoFi games. The FAA’s “no drone zones” also include one in a 3-mile radius around SoFi Stadium for World Cup games.

“We have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to drones violating the temporary flight restrictions,” Ehsaei told LAist.

In a video posted to Facebook ahead of the tournament, Ehsaei said improper drone use can pose a physical hazard to other aircraft and to people on the ground. The onus to track flight restrictions is on pilots, who can check current restrictions via the FAA’s B4UFLY service.

Zhang said the operator of the drone at the Jefferson Park garden was not licensed and event organizers could have been more careful about checking flight regulations. The outcome, they said, could have been worse.

“The message, we understood, is that the burden is on regular civilians — neighbors who live here, to everyday wake up to see if there are temporary laws they are about to break,” Zhang said. 

Goldenberg, the national security expert, said he thought the law enforcement response was appropriate in the context of keeping a global event secure. 

Drone use has been rapidly changing around the world, and even recreational drones have been reportedly used as weapons, Goldenberg said. In the last few years, drones have been reported as weapons everywhere from cartel conflicts in Mexico to the war in Ukraine.

Just last month, federal officials announced that they disrupted alleged plans for an attack on a White House UFC cage-fighting show that could have involved explosive-laden drones.

“Drones were a big mystery. People weren’t thinking in the context of using them for nefarious reasons,” Goldenberg said. “One drone swarm will change people’s minds in a flash.”