Three Angles on a Walkout: How Los Angeles Failed The Youth on 02.04.2026
The LAPD meets teenagers with violence; an ICE agent dresses like a Boogaloo Boy; and Karen Bass ignores it all to celebrate AirBnB
Wednesday, February 4, 2026
1. LAPD vs. The Kids
Thousands of high school students walked out of Los Angeles area schools on Wednesday, meeting downtown for a rally at City Hall. They intended to march to a protest outside the Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda Street, but the LAPD blocked off that street with caution tape before the kids even arrived.
I walked up to a situation already in progress, as the march hit Alameda Street and kept on moving. Over the next few hours, the kids would repeatedly gather to protest and repeatedly be scared off by various LAPD tactics: less-lethal guns, the arrival of cops on motorcycles, surges of LAPD chasing teenagers around the streets, hitting protesters and journalists with batons, flying helicopters and drones overhead, and more.
All of these photos were taken between 12:38PM and 3:50PM in Downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday, February 4th, 2026.
They are not in chronological order.
2. The Boogaloo Boy, ICE, and the LAPD vs. a protester
While following the march looping around past the City Hall, I was sent video of an unfolding event back the MDC that is not mine to share. An ICE agent driving a car hit a veteran, knocking him to the ground. The ICE agent got out of the car, said something to him, then got back in the car. The veteran got back to his feet and whacked the car with his cane, breaking a panel.
The driver jumped back out of his car; a number of LAPD officers surrounded the man who’d been hit by the car, and walked him off.
I arrived back at the MDC within minutes, and this is what I saw.
I missed it in the moment; I was more interested in the fact that his mask said POLICE, considering LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell recently said they won’t enforce the state law against federal agents wearing a masks.
But as soon as I posted these to Reddit, the first few comments caught it right away.
That Hawaiian shirt has RPGs on it.
And Hawaiian shirts are the uniform of the Boogaloo Boys.
The boogaloo is a fragmented community that began as a firearms board on 4chan and then blossomed on Facebook. … More recently the term has been used to refer to anti-government sentiment, civil unrest and the desire for a second civil war.
The boogaloo community includes far-right, pro-gun, anti-government libertarians spanning a wide spectrum of ideologies including white supremacy, anarchy and a range of conspiracy theories. The boogaloo are, however, unified by violent militant attitudes and terrorist tendencies. They are also savvy when it comes to managing their public image and hiding their actions. // source - The Conversation
3. Mayor Karen Bass, City Council, and AirBnB vs. The Kids
After the first time the kids were chased away from Temple & Alameda, the march looped through Little Tokyo and went back past City Hall.
At the same time, on the front lawn of City Hall — as the kids marched down two of the four sides of that small block, in full view of the lawn — the new LA Jazz Festival held an event for the press, featuring a speech from LA Mayor Karen Bass. It was attended by several members of the City Council, including Traci Park and Heather Hutt — my council member.
Justin Wesson, AirBnB’s Senior Public Policy Manager for California — a lobbyist who back in 2025 seems to have astroturfed a “grassroots” campaign to loosen LA’s short-term rental laws, according to the LA Times — said AirBnB was happy to sponsor the festival, because this isn’t just a concert series; “it’s Los Angeles opening its doors and saying, ‘You are welcome here.’”
While thousands of kids were in the streets on that very block demanding action against ICE, and would face violence from LAPD within the hour.
For the record, AirBnB is the “Worldwide Unique Accommodations Partner” for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Immediately after witnessing the lobbyist from AirBnB on the lawn of City Hall claim that LA is saying “You are welcome here” through its AirBnB-sponsored Jazz Festival, I walked back over to the Metro Detention Center and witnessed the LAPD working with an ICE guy in a POLICE mask who was dressed like a Boogaloo Boy.
I emailed the offices of Mayor Karen Bass and Council Member Heather Hutt requesting comment on all of the above.
I was curious if they had anything to say about the apparent Boogaloo Boy ICE agent in a POLICE mask.
I was curious if they had any statement about the kids who faced violence from LAPD to prevent them from exercising their First Amendment rights.
I was curious if they were willing to admit that they saw the irony in sitting there listening to AirBnB say LA has opened its doors, while thousands of kids marched around them demanding action on ICE.
I didn’t hear back from either.
On Thursday, February 5th, the LAPD put out a statement about the previous day’s events.
Here’s some of the “thousands of dollars in vandalism damage” that apparently justified the above reaction from the LAPD.
I wonder what it cost Los Angeles to pay the LAPD to guard the federal building while the rest of this happened elsewhere in Little Tokyo?
