LOS ANGELES, CA — The FBI's pre-dawn arrest of an East Los Angeles activist who handed out face shields at a protest has become a rallying cry for the Trump administration, which framed it as a breakthrough against shadowy anti-ICE agitators, as well as for activists who say it’s the latest chapter in a long history of political repression targeting Chicano organizers.
Federal officials hailed the Thursday arrest of 29-year-old Alejandro Theodoro Orellana as a key move in unmasking the networks behind downtown L.A.'s protests. But Orellana’s ties are no secret: He’s a member of Centro CSO, a Boyle Heights group that traces its roots to the organization that trained César Chávez and Dolores Huerta. And court documents show he was already under surveillance before he ever showed up downtown.
"He's a longtime pro-immigrant rights activist," prominent Chicano leader Carlos Montes said at a Thursday afternoon news conference. "He's a former Marine born and raised in East L.A. He's done nothing wrong. These charges are ridiculous — it's theater."
Orellana has been charged with conspiracy to commit civil disorders, and aiding and abetting civil disorders. He remains in custody ahead of his scheduled Friday afternoon court appearance, an FBI spokesperson told media news.
Surveillance Photos, Protest Footage, and Fox News: How the Feds Built Their Case
On Friday, June 6, Orellana was captured by news cameras and social media video handing out face shields in downtown Los Angeles, hours after federal immigration authorities conducted the first in a series of raids around the Southland, according to an FBI agent's court affidavit obtained by media news.
But Orellana was apparently already being closely watched by law enforcement at least 30 minutes earlier in Boyle Heights.
Orellana was captured in surveillance photos parking his pickup truck at 1st Street near Boyle Avenue, where California Highway Patrol officers saw him and other unidentified people loading boxes into the truck, according to the criminal complaint.
After Orellana pulled away, 'some of these boxes were discarded in the street, and CHP officers walked by to get a closer look,' wrote the agent, whose name was redacted.
The boxes were for Uvex Bionic Shield face shields, the agent wrote. The shields feature a polycarbonate lens that completely covers the face and are marketed for agricultural and manufacturing use due to the protection against "falling or flying objects, impacts, chemical splashes and airborne debris," according to an Amazon listing, where the shields are priced at under $30 each.
"Based on this description, these face shields provide the necessary protection to weaken the effects of less-than-lethal law enforcement devices commonly deployed during unlawful violent assemblies, such as pepper spray and other aerosolized gases," the FBI agent wrote. "In other words, these face shields would be effective in aiding the obstruction, impediment, and interference with law enforcement officers’ execution of their lawful duties."
At around 4:53 p.m., Orellana stopped his truck on Los Angeles Street, near Temple Street, in front of the Federal Building that was an early flashpoint in the protests. An unidentified woman exited the truck and distributed the shields to protesters, the agent wrote. The whole thing was broadcast live by Fox News in what would serve as a kind of prologue to coverage of Orellana's arrest nearly a week later.
The FBI agent wrote that it was difficult to determine who took the shields from the back of the truck because many people were wearing masks or had their faces covered. However, the agent maintained that they were "dressed similarly to those involved in violence and/or vandalism who were later encountered by local law enforcement."
On Tuesday and Wednesday, FBI and IRS agents surveilled Orellana's house. On Wednesday, a judge issued a search warrant for his house and truck, and law enforcement executed the warrant on Thursday, as the agent wrote.
Among the items they found were "a notebook containing various notes, including violent language towards law enforcement such as '1312 blue lives murder 187,'" codes for "all cops are bastards" and "murder," respectively, the agent wrote.
They also seized a "wrist-rocket style slingshot and ammunition for the slingshot" — a kind of weapon that has been used at least once against police during the last week's protests — as well as a can of spray paint, plastic goggles, and multiple fabric and N95 masks, the agent wrote.
Fox News was on the scene, offering what reporter Matt Finn billed as exclusive access, which included an interview with U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.
"We have made it a huge priority to try to identify, locate, and arrest those who are involved in organizing, supporting, funding, or facilitating these riots that are going on. It appears they're well orchestrated, well coordinated, and well funded. We want to understand who these people are and where this organization is coming from. Today was one of those first arrests, key arrests, that we did," he said.
The broadcast, and Essayli's reposting of it, would balloon across the mediasphere, with The Daily Mail referring to Orellana as the mystery donor who distributed gas masks to protesters during wartime and conservative social media personality David Freeman, asking his 1.4 million followers: "Now, WHO FUNDED HIM?"
That question has ricocheted across right-wing media all week. It's been echoed by foreign state-run outlets and repeated from the White House podium.
“You will see boxes and boxes of very professionalized masks and rioting equipment being dropped off to these protesters,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “It’s a good question the president is raising … about who is funding these insurrectionists, and these rioters and these protesters and these illegal criminals.”
The notion that protests are driven by outside forces rather than local communities has a long history in the United States. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. criticized the use of the term "outside agitator," arguing that it was often used to dismiss the legitimate grievances of civil rights demonstrators.
In Los Angeles, many of the groups now facing scrutiny—including Centro CSO and Union del Barrio—have been active for decades. Law enforcement agencies have previously surveilled, infiltrated, and clashed with similar organizations dating back to the Chicano Moratorium.
“We look at the 1970s Chicano Moratorium... and it’s not lost upon us that our friend Alejandro was abducted by the FBI down the street from the historic events at (Ruben Salazar Park),” said Union del Barrio member Sammy Carrera, referring to the massive 1970 Chicano march, in which three people died in clashes between police and protesters. “This is the government’s attempt to quell democracy, to stop us from assembling, to stop us from organizing our communities in self-defense of what is ICE’s terrorism.”
The article LA Activist Arrested For Handing Out Protective Masks Was Being Surveilled By Police appeared first on Los Angeles media news .
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