Local Law Enforcement Worked With The DEA During George Floyd Protests
We're still learning more about the tactics that law enforcement used against protesters during the George Floyd uprisings last year.
New Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) records obtained by CREW—a nonpartisan, non-profit watchdog that uses aggressive legal tactics and investigations to hold government officials accountable—confirm that local law enforcement agencies in the Los Angeles area worked with the DEA to conduct surveillance operations during the civil unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd last year.
Obtained through an ongoing lawsuit, the records show that while departments like the Los Angeles Police (LAPD), Long Beach Police (LBPD), and Baldwin Park Police (BPPD) requested resources from the DEA specifically to target “agitators” and “looters,” the Santa Monica Police Department (SMPD) sought DEA resources to support “undercover surveillance operations.”
Additionally, the LBPD requested “air assistance” to augment surveillance.
The requests were approved between June 1 and June 3 of last year, during the peak of the summer uprisings, when at times, tens of thousands of people were regularly showing up to demonstrations.
In response to a request for comment, Rudy Flores, a spokesperson for the SMPD, stressed that the department has “maintained long-lasting professional relationships with various law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels,” including the DEA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). According to Flores, on or around June 1 of last year, a representative from the DEA met with members of the SMPD. “After about one hour, the DEA representative realized their services were better suited at another event occurring in Los Angeles, and no action was taken in Santa Monica,” Flores said via email.
Flores declined to specify what event in Los Angeles those resources were redirected to and referred us to the DEA.
Richard Mejia, a spokesperson for the LBPD, told L.A. TACO: “DEA personnel provided support in a patrol capacity during the overnight and early morning hours, where they were to identify criminal behavior—particularly looting and arson, and relay it back to LBPD personnel for enforcement.” Mejia added that air assistance was on standby, and the department never utilized it. Minutes after sending a request for comment to the LAPD, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore responded, saying, “The DEA support was not used to surveil peaceful protestors.” When asked how the department was able to limit the scope of surveillance, Moore said that “the requested resources’ focus was on pharmacy break-ins.”
In their “after-action report” on the protests, the LAPD estimates that more than half a million doses of controlled substances were unaccounted for or stolen from pharmacies during last year’s civil unrest.
However, that same report found that the majority of demonstrations that the department responded to were peaceful. The LAPD estimates that between six to seven percent of protests resulted in violence or serious use of force, “The majority of our protests and demonstrations have been peaceful,” Moore said during a Police Commission meeting in October of last year.
Mark your calendars, I’m in a group show called ‘On The Ground LA’ that opens next month! The show features a bunch of the homies (Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin, Samanta Helou-Hernandez, Brian Feinzimer, Kemal Cilengir) so I’m really excited for this one! I’ll be showing ‘Dead 2 Me’ publicly for the first time as well as some new work. Hope to see you there!
Nov 6 (5 - 8 PM) @ Art Share LA (801 E 4th Pl, Los Angeles, CA 90013)
Please consider supporting my work by purchasing prints from my online store, sending me $$$ for tacos via Venmo or signing up for a L.A. TACO membership!