Shoveling the Ocean

why trump can't be the mayor of los angeles

Wave rolls in, wave rolls out.

If you’ve been following the MacArthur Park saga:

1. Somewhere between Monday and Tuesday, Mayor of Symbol Performance Karen Bass puts up no feds allowed signs at this park and a bunch of others

2. Tuesday, Chris Bray walks around, finds the no feds allowed sign, sees a bunch of near-dead drug addicts and obvious drug dealers in close proximity to the sign that says Los Angeles won’t tolerate federal law enforcement in parks, while drug dealing in the park is running on the wide-open lemonade stand model of hi, do you want to buy some meth, we’re selling some very nice meth, come on over and buy some meth from us, you’ll really enjoy it

3. Wednesday, massive local-federal task force drug raid in the park behind the no feds allowed sign, with dozens of arrests

Now, Chapter Four:

I reached MacArthur Park on Wednesday as the DEA was leaving. I passed their armored vehicles on Alvarado. As I got to the park, the yellow tape was still up, but only a few LAPD cars were left.

I parked maybe three minutes after this, over on the west side of the park, as the yellow tape was coming down and the police were driving away. And then, instantly, as the last cops left:

Dude watched the back of the police uniforms recede, then started hitting that glass pipe again. Consider not watching this very short video if you have limited patience for degeneracy:

But, in fairness, I didn’t lift the blanket to see what that person was rhythmically stroking in the center area of his body, so maybe he was trying to pull the cord on some sort of small motor near his testicles.

Huge police raid, police leave, drugs and zombies and playground-adjacent masturbation. Instantly. Like the last cop footstep clearing the curb sounded a permission bell.

There was a huge media presence, by the way…

…but they stop at the edge of the park, and their reporting is mostly that they repeat what the police tell them. There are exceptions, people who keep looking.

What’s clear at this point is that all limited interventions fail. In January of 2025, the city put up fencing along Alvarado Blvd. to restrict the ease of foot traffic between the street and the park, cleverly making drug dealers walk all the way to the corner to cross at the light. The fences now look like this:

The whole length of the fencing is cut open every twenty feet or so. The fences remain, and are ugly, but are now functionally meaningless. Ditto the fencing to protect a playground on the north side of the park:

Huge drug raid, police leave, drugs everywhere. Thirty seconds, at most. You could predict it with a stopwatch. What’s the opposite of turning on a light and watching cockroaches scatter?

This will only work if they don’t leave. And that’s why federal raids, which keep happening, always grab a bunch of dealers and a bunch of drugs, over and over again, but don’t fix the park. The only entity that can make the park consistently clean and safe for families is the City of Los Angeles, and they can only do it with a sustained presence and regular daily attention. Foot patrols. LAPD officers who spend the day in the park. On Monday, and then again on Tuesday, and then again. Not one-and-done, not hit-it-and-quit-it, but regular, persistent focus.

So federal raids every couple of months will have to do for now.