Welcome to L.A. TACO’s weekly Investigations Newsletter, I’m Lexis-Olivier Ray, the Head of Investigations for L.A. TACO.
Feds Did a Sweep
Last week, hundreds of federal police officers descended on MacArthur Park for the second time in less than a year. This time, they left the calvary at the stables and were joined by approximately 100 local officers from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
During the May 6 raid—dubbed “Operation Free MacArthur Park”—authorities arrested 18 people on drug charges, and six search warrants were served at store fronts along Alvarado Street, their owners accused of selling drugs. Seven other people remain fugitives.
I arrived at MacArthur Park at around 3 p.m. on Wednesday, about an hour after the raid started. When I got there, Alvarado Street between 6th Street and Wilshire Boulevard was blocked off with yellow police tape and there were hundreds of heavily-armed DEA agents and LAPD officers scattered around the crime scene.
Across from the Bonita Mall, the focal point of the raid, LAPD top brass smiled in photos with federal agents and First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli, one of the most prominent villains during the federal government's siege on Los Angeles last year.
Meanwhile, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the controversial TV doctor known for pushing unsubstantiated claims about vitamins and alternative medicine, mosied around with a videographer. In 2025, Dr. Oz was appointed as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (he has no official role with the DEA).
When it came time to address the media, representatives for the LAPD, DEA, United States Attorney’s Office, and Dr. Oz put on their serious faces and lined up in front of a large DEA command-post-style vehicle. They stood next to a foam board with bent edges that suggested it had been dropped a few times, with 25 mugshots and names displayed on it. Eighteen of the photos had a red line through them, signifying that the person had been taken into custody.
Speaking in front of news cameras, Essayli wasted no time taking the opportunity to drag local leaders.
“Look, we're here today because California policies have failed,” Essayli said with his back facing LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell. “The policies of California to just let people use drugs open (sic) and notoriously, with little to no criminal consequences is a failed experiment.”
“It does not work,” he added.
Later during the press conference, Dr. Oz claimed that part of the neighborhood was “owned by a foreign cartel effectively” and that local authorities do next to nothing to punish people who abuse drugs in public.
According to Dr. Oz, cities that have successfully eliminated “open-air drug markets” have done so by giving people two choices: treatment or jail.
“You either stop doing drugs, or you leave town,” Dr. Oz told reporters.
The physician argued that Los Angeles is “farming homelessness” in MacArthur Park.
“Imagine you’re a farmer, you know you plant the seeds, you grow them, you water them, that’s what you’re seeing out here,” he said.
“We’re making it easy to do drugs.”
Dr. Oz noted that the raid was delayed due to a fatal overdose. And during the raid, there was another overdose near the southeast corner of the park that was fortunately reversed, according to Dr. Oz.
Not long after the press conference ended, the feds climbed back into their armored vehicles, photographers snapped their final photos, and the LAPD removed the police tape blocking Alvarado Street.
By 4:20 PM, normal life returned to MacArthur Park.
After the raid, shop owners returned to their businesses to find products strewn all over the place, metal gates cut open, and a shattered glass display case.
“I found out on TV they were cutting up my store,” business owner Araceli Arrega told the L.A. Local. “ We don't sell drugs here. I sell creams and medicine. They didn’t find anything. I can’t open my store until I fix my door.”
Park View
MacArthur Park has played a central role in both my reporting and my art practice over the better part of the last decade.
It’s where I launched my career as an investigative reporter, back in 2020, when I began looking into portable toilets and sinks that the city rolled out to homeless encampments but failed to maintain during the pandemic.
In 2021, I self-published ‘Park View,’ a zine featuring 35mm photographs that I shot exclusively around MacArthur Park, mostly during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the city shut down, but Westlake (which is one of the most overcrowded neighborhoods in the country) still felt alive.
Coincidentally, the zine’s cover is an image of the storefronts that were raided last week. Historically, the building was called the Bonito Swap Meet. Over the years, the sign changed slightly and was regularly graffitied over. In 2017, a local artist restored the hand-painted sign as part of an art show that was exhibited in stalls throughout the swap meet.
Then sometime around March of 2022, the swap meet went quiet and the sign was painted over. At first, just partially. But by June of that year, the iconic sign had been completely reimagined.
What was once one of most eye-catching handpainted signs along the Alvarado Corridor, was turned into a sterile, three-tone-colored awning. And the name ‘Bonito Swap Meet’ was changed to the more gentrification-friendly, “Bonita Mall.”
Unfortunately, my ‘Park View’ zine sold out years ago. But I’ve been thinking about printing a new edition. Or maybe it’s time for a part two?
My goal with this project was always to show a different side to MacArthur Park than what is usually presented in the media. And that feels just as important now as it did five years ago.
With the World Cup next month, and the Olympics around the corner, will these federal raids on MacArthur Park happen more frequently? During last week’s press conference, Bill Essayli said that last week’s raid was not a “one and done” operation.
“We are here and we are not leaving,” Essayli told reporters. “We have 300 law enforcement personnel on this operation, and they're not going anywhere. And we've got bigger guns than the gangsters, so we're not going anywhere.”
Below are some photos from ‘Park View’ for you to chew on while I decide if I’m going to print a second edition. If you have any memories of the Bonito Swap Meet or MacArthur Park that you want to share, feel free to email me - lexis@lataco.com.
