The Santa Ana Police Department’s response to last June’s downtown anti-ICE demonstrations, which has been criticized by advocates and several council members, was initiated only after the Department of Justice directly called city leadership to have local officers assist at the federal building, city officials said this week.
That revelation surfaced during the City Council’s discussion of an after-action report on SAPD’s response to the protests last year that was requested in late January amid continued public scrutiny and criticism. Councilmembers had asked for a rundown of the equipment used during the police response, the costs associated, what kind of injuries were reported, coordination with other agencies and the command decisions involved, among other questions.
City Attorney Sonia Carvalho told the council that a DOJ attorney contacted her at the start of the June 9 protests and warned that if SAPD could not secure the federal building, federal resources would be brought in.
“It wasn’t in a threatening manner,” Carvalho said, “but it was basically, if your department cannot provide the security that we need, then we’re gonna bring in federal resources, and we had a discussion about what that might look like in terms of safety for our community.”
Chief Robert Rodriguez said the department is obligated under state law to respond to mutual aid requests and told the council that forming police lines was intended to create distance between protesters and federal officers.
According to the report delivered to the council, Santa Ana police fired 215 40-millimeter less-lethal rounds, 59 12-gauge beanbag rounds, and deployed CS chemical agents 35 times between June 9 and June 14, where multiple protests took place around the federal building downtown. The operations resulted in four felony and 23 misdemeanor arrests, along with injuries to five people who were arrested, three Santa Ana officers, and seven officers from assisting agencies, officials said. Officers from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, the California Highway Patrol, Anaheim, Garden Grove, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Brea, Fullerton and others assisted Santa Ana with those protests.
Councilmember Benjamín Vásquez, who said he was present at the June 9 protest, described the crowd as largely peaceful until a single individual threw water bottles at the federal building. He said police tear-gassed the entire group, including himself, which he argued “set off the next three days.”
“It was new for Santa Ana,” said Vásquez, who told colleagues he has participated in protests for 25 years and in January asked for the city manager to provide the after-action report. He also said he will encourage the Police Oversight Commission to review which outside agencies the city calls for mutual aid, adding, “not everybody’s friendly to brown and black people.”
Councilmember Jessie Lopez questioned the rationale for inviting so many outside agencies if the goal was to protect constitutional rights.
“If you’re concerned about the First Amendment, the civil liberty, or the constitutional rights of Santa Ana residents, the question is, why would you invite other agencies to help suppress those constitutional rights?” Lopez asked.
The city attorney repeatedly intervened during the council’s discussion to caution that the city faces four pending tort claims and an active lawsuit, limiting what can be discussed publicly. She warned that releasing body-camera footage, command logs, or detailed injury assessments could compromise the city’s legal defense and potentially violate the Peace Officers’ Bill of Rights.
Councilmember Jonathan Hernandez, who said he also attended the protest, told the council he was struck by at least eight pepper-ball rounds and tear-gassed three times while attempting to de-escalate with others in the crowd. He said he observed elderly residents and a 14-year-old exposed to chemical agents, and noted that the department displayed footage of nonviolent infractions in their presentation, but did not present evidence of bricks or fireworks allegedly thrown at officers.
Following the more than hour-long discussion this week, the council did not take any official action regarding the report.
“Like every other incident, whether it’s a demonstration, a tragic incident, a fatality, or a use of force, we always evaluate them with every lens that we have through our laws, our best practices,” Rodriguez said. “We can always look at what we did good, what we could have done better, and what we did wrong, and what we evaluate once all these processes have been completed. I’m sure there’ll be some takeaways.”
Rodriguez said the department will conduct a full after-action review once civil litigation and internal processes conclude. City Mayor Valerie Amezcua also echoed Rodriguez’s argument that local control was preferable to federal intervention.
“When the federal government says, ‘If you don’t respond, we will send in resources’… that’s a scary comment to me,” said Amezcua. “I would not want a federal agency to come in and take over our city and take over from our leadership under the chief, the city manager, with all of you. Because it would be, and it would have been, very different.”