After a mass shooting last week that left five bystanders injured, the City of Los Angeles has installed fencing that now continues to stretch across multiple city blocks along Alvarado Street and around the Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro station, displacing dozens of longstanding street vendors along the way.
At around 1 AM on January 22, Los Angeles police officers responded to a radio call of an assault with a deadly weapon in the 600 block of Alvarado Street, according to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
“A male suspect walked up to a group of individuals and opened fire with a handgun,” the LAPD alleged in a news release. “Five victims were struck by gunfire as a result,” in addition to the shooter being shot and injured.
LAPD detectives determined that there were an additional two shooters at the location and are asking the public to help locate them.
“It is unknown at this time if they were shooting at each other or the gunfire was directed only towards the victims,” the LAPD said.
On January 27, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office filed five counts of attempted murder against the suspect alleged to be one of the shooters.
A day after the MacArthur Park shooting, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell declared a “Zero Tolerance policy on crime” in the MacArthur Park area and promised to “surge resources” in the neighborhood.
“Today, the Mayor and I are surging resources to this area to enforce a Zero Tolerance policy on crime—if you break the law, you will be arrested,” said Chief McDonnell. “Please know that my top priority is keeping you safe, and I will continue to hold anyone who threatens your sense of security accountable.”
It’s unclear when the fencing went up or how a chain link fence could prevent another tragic mass shooting. However, what’s clear as day is that there are no more street vendors selling pupusas, champurrado, or other street foods along Alvarado Street or around the MacArthur Park Metro station. The fencing was set up in the spots where they previously set up to vend.
In a statement to L.A. TACO, a spokesperson for Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez confirmed that “the fencing was installed after last week’s multi-victim shooting.”
“Councilmember Hernandez is committed to advancing long-term solutions and ensuring that interventions do not come at the expense of vulnerable communities,” the spokesperson continued. “She is working with the Mayor to determine the timeline and next steps and looks forward to collaborating with the mayor to ensure that the long-term investments that are needed for this area are made.”
A Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass spokesperson did not respond to L.A. TACO despite multiple requests for comment via text message.
“The argument they are giving for closing is due to two things: because of the shooting that happened where there were multiple injuries, and the ‘illegal’ street vending and overall crime,” said Juan Rodriguez, a street vendor organizer and advocate, during an interview with L.A.TACO.
Rodriguez said that vendors are “very concerned” about the fencing.
“They had no idea what to do or where to go,” he explained.
“The problem is that the vendors in this area are primarily elderly people, single mothers, disabled vendors, and people who are retired or without a job and whose only way of surviving is by selling there,” Rodriguez said via phone as he drove to meet with Councilmember Hernandez.
“We’re on our way to meet with the council member, and our goal is to come to an understanding,” the organizer said. “We want to work with them. I also want to ensure that the vendors receive some type of support if they plan to keep this area closed for a long period of time.”
Vendors were already concerned about being displaced when Metro excluded some vendors from being able to sell food and products outside of its MacArthur Park train station, according to vendors interviewed by L.A. TACO multimedia reporter Janette Villafana in April of 2024.
“Here I am worried, distressed, scared that they want to throw us out, and that is not fair because we have fought for more than 8 years,” said Olivia, a street vendor who sells coffee. (We are withholding Olivia’s last name for safety reasons.)
“We are street vendors fighting for our families' livelihood,” she said in Spanish, her eyes filling with tears. “I can’t work cleaning houses anymore, my body aches. I’m old and I have two kids. Who is going to support them if I'm not working?”
The mass shooting earlier this month came after city officials vowed to reduce crime and homelessness in the neighborhood.
In August 2024, Norm Langer, the owner of Langer's Deli in MacArthur Park, threatened to close his 77-year-old restaurant if city officials didn't "clean up" the neighborhood, prompting the mayor to meet with Langer and promise that city would "respond urgently" to the issues that Langer raised.
The L.A. Times reported that a proposed cleanup operation that involved hundreds of police officers has been delayed twice, most recently due to the wildfires.
Rodriguez admits that there is “a lot of crime” happening in the area but he believes that the fencing will not have much of an impact on the issue.
“This feels like gentrification happening before us, and at the end of the day, the crime is still there, and the sale of illegal drugs is still there,” he said.
“Lo que si afecto, fue a la gente más pobre que al final del dia fue quien terminó pagando las consecuencias (What it did affect was the poorest people who, at the end of the day, were the ones who ended up paying the consequences),” Rodriguez said.
