The Broken City: Los Angeles in June 2025 - A Journalistic Reconstruction after Weeks of Investigation

The morning of June 6, 2025, broke over Los Angeles like so many others before - golden and deceptively peaceful. But in the warehouses of Ambiance Apparel in the Fashion District, a tragedy would unfold within hours that would throw the city into a state of emergency for weeks. Masked federal agents in tactical gear stormed the buildings, arrested over forty workers, and set off a wave of resistance that swept through the city’s streets like wildfire.

What began as a targeted raid against undocumented immigrants quickly turned into a brutal clash between the state apparatus and those who dared to raise their voices. The images that have come down from those June days tell a story of courage and despair, of violence and resistance - a story that has burned itself into the collective memory of the city like the tear gas clouds into the lungs of the demonstrators.

The spark that ignited the fire

The Trump administration had ordered a drastic increase in daily arrests of undocumented immigrants. Heavily armed federal agents combed the city like an occupying army - they stormed businesses, warehouses, hotels, restaurants, farms, car washes, even the modest taco stands that form the culinary heart of the city. Anyone suspected of being undocumented was arrested and prepared for deportation.

When news of the raids at Ambiance Apparel spread, people from all parts of the city rushed in. Family members of those arrested, neighbors, labor rights activists - they all gathered in front of the buildings to show their solidarity. David Huerta, president of the service workers’ union SEIU-USWW, stood bravely at the gate until federal agents knocked him to the ground and arrested him. It was the first act in a drama that would escalate further and further over the days to come.

The response of the authorities was disproportionate from the very beginning. FBI agents in riot gear struck the crowd with batons and shields to clear the way for the ICE transporters. As the vans with their human cargo drove away, some demonstrators threw plastic bottles - the response was flash-bang grenades fired into the crowd.

The escalation in Paramount

The following day, June 7, the events shifted to Paramount, a southern suburb of Los Angeles. Federal agents in full tactical gear had positioned themselves in front of a business park across from a Home Depot store. The news spread like wildfire through social media, and soon people were pouring in from all over the city.

What followed resembled a war zone more than a protest in an American city. From late morning into the evening the agents fired tear gas, pepper balls and foam rounds incessantly at the crowd, which mostly remained across the street. People took cover behind trees as the projectiles rained around them.

An immigrant rights activist recalls the moment when he tried to move a tear gas canister away from protesting families. Equipped with a gas mask, he was the only one who could approach the biting cloud. As he turned to return, at least four 40mm foam rounds hit him - in the back, the thighs, behind the knee. “My back was on fire,” he describes the effect of the pepper balls that were also fired at him. Ryanne Mena

Ryanne Mena, a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News, was struck in the head by a projectile. The experienced journalist, who had already been exposed to tear gas several times, described this day as unprecedented: “I have asthma, and it was really hard for me to breathe or see. My colleague had to lead me around the corner, away from this massive cloud of tear gas. We were just coughing, struggling for air.” The diagnosis: concussion.

But the most shocking story of the day is that of Nick Stern, a British photojournalist. At about 8:50 p.m. he was standing about 45 meters from the police line, his press card clearly visible, professional camera in hand. Around him people waved flags peacefully. Then, without warning, “I felt this excruciating pain in my right thigh. Instinctively I reached down and felt something solid protruding from my leg.”

A flash-bang shell had lodged deeply in his flesh. Demonstrators carried the half-conscious photographer to the side of the street, where a volunteer medic cut open his pants and tried to stop the bleeding. Stern spent three nights in the hospital, an operation was necessary to remove the 7.5-centimeter-long plastic projectile.

The battle for downtown

When those arrested on June 6 were taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center, the area around the federal prison became the epicenter of resistance. Day after day, from June 6 to June 14, demonstrators gathered in front of the gray concrete complex. The protests ebbed and swelled like the tide, but reached their peak on June 8 and June 14.

June 8 became the day of burning cars and flying stones. Thousands had gathered downtown when the National Guard fired tear gas into the crowd. A reporter from the Los Angeles Times who was on site described the protest as peaceful - until the guards stormed the crowd. What followed was chaos. Some demonstrators set five empty Waymo vehicles on fire, others threw objects from overpasses onto police cars on the freeway. But these acts of violence were the exception, not the rule, and came only after the police had used massive force against the mostly peaceful crowd.

A street medic who treated dozens of injured that day became a victim of police violence herself. Around 6 p.m., as she sat in her car near the Federal Building, a projectile struck her head. For days she suffered from headaches, nausea, blurred vision and difficulty concentrating. Her husband was shot in the foot, the pain lasted for weeks.

On June 9, the police escalated their tactic of targeted close-range shots. Jeremy Lindenfeld, a reporter with a clearly visible press helmet and ID, filmed as police officers wrestled a demonstrator to the ground. Seconds after the arrest was completed, an officer raised his foam round launcher and fired at Lindenfeld from just a few meters away without warning.

Even more disturbing was the behavior of a police officer in front of police headquarters. Three well-known activists for police reform were walking past the building when the officer pointed his weapon at them. “Are you going to shoot us now?” they asked in disbelief. Within a minute he had shot all three - one in the stomach, one in the leg, and when the third asked for his badge number, the officer said: “I am going to shoot you because you are distracting me” - and shot him in the genitals at point-blank range.

Black Saturday

June 14 would go down in history as “Black Saturday.” Tens of thousands had gathered for the national “No Kings” demonstration to protest both the Trump administration and the ICE raids. What began as a festive gathering turned into a battlefield after 3:30 p.m.

Without any apparent reason, without an audible dispersal order, mounted police stormed into the cheering, singing crowd. Horses nearly trampled people as officers fired tear gas and foam rounds into the fleeing mass. A demonstrator recalls the “joyful atmosphere” before the police “seemingly randomly” attacked. As he fled, a projectile struck his head - “it felt like being hit with a baseball bat.” The diagnosis: concussion with extensive brain bruising.

Sergio Espejo, a 28-year-old data engineer and artist, waved an American flag and shouted “Peaceful protest” when a flash-bang exploded in his hand. “As soon as I was hit, I fell to the ground and was immediately doused with tear gas. I could not breathe.” The explosion cost him the top five centimeters of his left index finger. As a left-hander, his ability to work and create art is permanently impaired.

Christopher Fernandez, an intensive care nurse who came to the protest with a cart full of medical equipment, treated between 20 and 30 people between 4 and 8 p.m. A dozen had injuries from kinetic projectiles, five of them head injuries, including a pregnant woman. One man had lost his hearing from a flash-bang explosion and was bleeding from his right ear. Fernandez improvised a splint from a flagpole for a man with a broken leg.

In the middle of his aid efforts he himself was struck in the thigh by a 40mm foam round. It left a gaping wound five by eight centimeters deep, down to the muscle. “It was like a war movie,” he describes the scene. “The chaos. The volume of everything. I went from person to person shouting ‘Medic, medic!’ one after another, for hours… People were bleeding from head or face, and they needed someone to tell them if they had to go to the hospital.”

The failure of democracy

What happened in those June days in Los Angeles was more than just excessive police violence - it was a fundamental attack on the foundations of American democracy. The right to peaceful protest, enshrined in the Constitution and sanctified as a cornerstone of the republic, was trampled underfoot. Journalists clearly identified as such were deliberately shot at. Medics treating the wounded became victims themselves.

The numbers speak for themselves: Human Rights Watch documented 65 cases of people injured by police violence, including 39 journalists. The actual number is likely much higher - in the three weeks after June 6 alone, the ACLU of Southern California received over 280 reports of injuries. The injuries ranged from severe bruises and cuts to broken bones and concussions to severed fingers and permanent eye damage. Particularly alarming was the systematic disregard of basic police protocols. Time and again officers fired their “less lethal” weapons directly at demonstrators, often at close range, frequently aimed at head and torso - a clear violation of their own operational rules. Dispersal orders, if given at all, were inaudible. People who tried to flee were driven from one police line to the next, sometimes trapped in “kettles” with no escape.

The irony is bitter: President Trump had described the protests as “a form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States” and mobilized the National Guard as well as 700 active Marines. But the true rebellion against democratic principles came from those who had sworn to protect them.

The scars remain

Months later many still carry the physical and psychological scars of those days. Nick Stern struggles with the aftermath of his injury. Sergio Espejo learns to live and work with nine fingers. Christopher Fernandez could not return to his work as an intensive care nurse for weeks - a bitter irony for someone who had come to help others.

The city itself is scarred. Trust between citizens and the state, already fragile in a city with a long history of police violence, lies in ruins. Lawsuits against city, county and federal authorities are piling up. Past settlements for police misconduct have already cost taxpayers millions without anything fundamentally changing.

What remains is the memory of those June days when Los Angeles burned - not only from the torched Waymo vehicles, but from the collapse of the social contract between state and citizens. The images of tear gas clouds over downtown, of bleeding journalists and desperate medics, of mounted police charging into peaceful crowds - they have burned themselves into the collective consciousness. Police Chief Jim McDonnell promised a “comprehensive review of every use of force.” But for many such words sound hollow in the face of the systematic brutality they experienced. The demand of Human Rights Watch is clear: all law enforcement agencies involved must respect the right to peaceful protest, protect journalists and ensure that those responsible for abuses are held accountable. Until that happens, the wounds remain open - not only the physical scars on the bodies of the injured, but also the deep fractures in the fabric of the city itself. Los Angeles, the City of Angels, has lost its innocence. What remains is the hope that from the ruins of those June days something better can emerge - a city where the right to protest is not answered with rubber bullets and tear gas, but respected for what it is: the centerpiece of a living democracy.

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