Trump Accuses 'Paid Insurrectionists' of Orchestrating DTLA Mayhem
Questions are being raised about the violent "agitators," many of whom are traveling to Los Angeles from other cities, Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell says, with the sole mission of unleashing havoc in DTLA. "The people who are out there doing the violence...they have a hoodie on, they have a a face mask on...these are people who do this all the time," McDonnell said of the most violent protestors, who said "many come in from other places just to hurt people and cause havoc." President Donald Trump told reporters he believes the protests that have left large swaths of downtown Los Angeles, including cultural landmarks in Little Tokyo, are being fueled "by instigators and often paid troublemakers." Since protests began exploding in DTLA after immigration raids began in Los Angeles last Friday, law enforcement officials have noted some agitators aimed and released "commercial grade fireworks" at cops, others have hurled concrete blocks hammered from government buildings. Leaf blowers were used to redistribute tear gas. "We have seen it before. The paid, professional protester who uses unrest as a cover for anarchy," retired NYPD cop Tom Smith told Los Angeles. On Monday, the actions of Alejandro Theodoro Orellana, a U.S. Marine and Teamsters shop steward for UPS workers, raised alarms after he was captured on surveillance videos and by witnesses pulling his pickup into DTLA near 1st Street and Boyle Avenue around 4:30 p.m. with the the bed of his truck filled with boxes of riot-level Uvex Bionic Shield face masks, according to a FBI affidavit, that were then distributed. A federal agent notes in the affidavit that the masks are the "kind of item used by violent agitators to enable them to resist law enforcement and to engage in violence and/or vandalism during a civil disorder."
Earlier in the day, labor activists and other protestors gathered in Grand Park to march to the federal courthouse where SEIU-United Service Workers West President David Huerta faced a judge in connection with his arrest days earlier outside a clothing factory that had just been raided. Huerta, a lifelong Angeleno and longtime labor leader, was injured during his arrest, which initiated outrage among union members who held a peaceful rally to protest his arrest and the treatment of immigrants by federal agents who conducted a series of clandestine actions in Los Angeles. Later that afternoon, the demonstrations, federal prosecutors say in court records, "continued to devolve from peaceful during the day to progressively more violent in the afternoon into the evening." Which is when Orellana arrived, the FBI says. Orellana was arrested Thursday morning in a raid at his parents' home in East Los Angeles, court records say. Among the items seized at his home, prosecutors say, was a notebook "containing various notes," including violent language towards law enforcement such as '1312 blue lives murder 187.' The number 1312 is often used as code for "all cops are bastards," and 187 is common slang spawned by California Penal Code 187, which addresses murder.
Federal officials also recovered what they describe as "powerful wrist-rocket style slingshot and ammunition for the slingshot, including a small bag of rocks and containers of metal bee bees." Orellana is charged with two federal counts of Conspiracy to Commit Civil Disorders and Aiding and Abetting Civil Disorders. On Friday, Mayor Karen Bass announced that the curfew in the one-mile area hardest hit in DTLA will remain in place for at least another day, as she attended an interfaith vigil with Angelenos and announced resources for businesses who are suffering because of the chaos via webinars that will begin Friday afternoon. 'For a week now, our city has been dealing with the fallout driven by reckless raids of Home Depot parking lots and the activation of federalized troops,' Bass said. 'It's clear that they have no policy or plan but to create chaos in our city. In contrast, the city is prepared to deliver for Downtown businesses who have been impacted.'
This story was originally reported by L.A. Mag on Jun 13, 2025, where it first appeared.
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