The Feds Raid Macarthur Park

And we continue at two oh five in the afternoon on the John Phillip Show, Mister Randy Wings in Culver City, John.

I never thought we'd ever get a drop that would dethrone the greatest drop of all time. But people seem to be really enjoying broken Nithea. It's not so uh I that being said, even though it is fantastic, if there was a drop of the week, that might be a drop of the year.

It's why do you have to watch porn in the living room?

What are you gonna do when she doesn't win in June? Oh, she's gonna pop up somewhere else. Maybe she'll start at We're Getting Even podcast. She's like Jason with the hockey mask. She just won't ever die.

You can smell it right here.

And that is to say her career won't ever die. She just keeps running and running and running and running.

Sorry for the noise. I'm cutting carrots.

Maybe she'll end up on the Food Network.

I'm pulling in to the Bakery Well cooking show with Katie.

Yeah, she could take over for the Barefoot Contessa. Well, we know she's really enjoyed that peloton. Maybe she could be a guest instructor.

We could eight hundred two two two five two two two East telphone number one eight hundred two two two five two two two. Well. Arrest were made at MacArthur Park and that generated national news.

MacArthur Park, which has been ground zero for homelessness, open air drug markets, all kinds of crime, stolen social security numbers, was rated by LAPD and the DEA and other federal agencies. And John, you know, anytime we're talking about MacArthur Park, we need a little serenade.

First in the rain.

When people who don't live in Los Angeles hear about MacArthur Park, they think about the park from Mary Poppins, where it's gonna be Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke and those Banks kids just hopping around and dancing and singing and people drawing on the pavement and all of that. What In reality, it's a Dana crackheads.

Not only that, but much like the Mission in San Francisco, it's where all the criminals go to sell their stolen goods. So let's find out what happened with the big raid on MacArthur Park. Here's Fox eleven and our buddy Matthews sedar.

Investigators have targeted the Sineloa cartel as a suppliers for fetanyl and methodthetomy into the MacArthur Park area.

Oh wow, we had a cartel connection.

We do. So they are been put on notice.

MacArthur Park belongs to the people of Los Angles again.

For how long? That is going to be very very very temporary.

One hundreds of law enforcement swore MacArthur Park a mathive sweep, cracking down on what they call an open air drug market, with than a dozen people arrested so far, at least nineteen kilograms a feentanyl seized. That's enough, they say, Lethods is to kill one hundred and ninety thousand people. Welcome to the Fox eleven is at five, So I will cast on Fox eleven plus. I'm Christine Devine. That rate happened just hours ago Fox eleventh. Matthew Siedoff was there

Matthew.

Yeah, Christina, very intense afternoon, and you can tell us business as usual here at MacArthur Park, just kind of what you expect to see out here.

But the FEDS say, really focusing on these businesses.

This is war against crime, it's war against the game members.

We're about five or six minutes out from MacArthur Park.

We're following all the DEA agents over there, wights and sirens.

On and agreers.

He's five or six minutes away from MacArthur Park because it's not safe to broadcast from MacArthur Park.

No.

I love the fact that every live shot from the park has sirens going off and crazy people screaming at the top of their lungs, the soundtrack of chaos.

Following all the DEA agents over there, wights and sirens on a midday major raid in LA, Federal agents calling it Operation Free MacArthur Park.

This is the part of the park that's claimed by the eighteenth Street Game, but today it's our park.

We're taking it back.

It'll be back to theirs tomorrow.

Well, if you arrest them and you charge them in federal court, that means that the state of California doesn't have the ability to let them out. So maybe, just maybe we can put a dent in the problem.

Maybe Crowns moving out as DA federal agents storm in, commands half the park closed and nearby businesses surrounded.

Yeah, a lot of the storefronts in the MacArthur Park area were safe houses for all the drugs, because who in their right mind would actually lease office space down there.

No, the only legitimate businesses that are in that area are businesses who have been there a very long time before that area turned into the war zone that it's now. Places like Langers Deli.

And that yoshanoea beef ball that seems to defy odds and stay in business.

The place notoriously known for open illegal.

Drug use Ventanyl math drugs, there's criminal acts.

What about super math.

Drugs.

There's criminal activity going on here. They're doing it out in front.

It's happening every day, and we're here to tell them to stop.

The business where they're serving this warrant. Today's clothed, so right now they're busting through the door.

See you know it all sounds like it's in a war zone.

Well, MacArthur Park war zone. Potato Potato, there's.

Multiple locations on the street. It's not a specific target that we're looking for in the street. Is these are businesses that are complicit and assisting the drug sales that are going on.

Here in MacArthur Park.

So essentially, what you're saying that these businesses are stash houses.

I'm not saying that's what the judge said.

He's just quoting Judy.

The Fed's collecting buses and bags of evidence.

The tip of the spear on some of the massive moves you're making against corruption and fraud in America.

Nineteen kilos of fetanyl already discovered, including some in a toilet.

What's it doing there?

Well, I would imagine they were trying to flush it so there wouldn't be any evidence when this goes to trial. But I think they threw so much down there it clogged the toilet.

I wonder how long it'll be after they collect all the fetanyl and the meth and the super fetanyl and everything else, how long it'll be before Nitia Rahman goes The Feds are separating families.

It's not so.

I seventeen arrest made and more likely soon.

There you go.

That's what was going on at MacArthur Park, and notably LAPD Chief MacDonald was there and Karen Bess was not because she was busy doing debate prep.

Oh yeah, and she doesn't want to give Donald Trump or the federal government any credit for doing her job. Maybe MacArthur Park will change, but I think we're gonna need a lot more of these raids on a daily basis for a long time. And Randy, we also have an update on naked man in the Sanfornando Valley.

Naked Man, after three to four years of threatening and harassing his neighbors after they called the police over one hundred and fifty times on him, complain to the city about him, including to Nithia Rahman, has finally been arrested. Finally, Yes, and it only took two news reports. You can go through the proper channels. You can call the city and complain. You can use three to one one, you can call nine one one. If none of that works, you call NBC four or CBSLA or ABC seven, KTLA five or

Yelling nudity alleged threats.

Boy, that is quite a combo.

Platter, yelling, nudity, alleged threats, and now an arrest. We first told you about this case and this week.

You know, typically when you see somebody screaming at you, you can start to see the veins in their forehead. What do you think it's like when someone naked is screaming at you.

Probably the same look as if they're opening up a jarapickles.

You about this case and this weekend in a Resita neighborhood terrorized by a man despite hundreds of complaints, that man now arrested. Cbsla's Lauren Posen is live and Lauren neighbors are thankful but still worried.

It's a mix of emotions here, you know. Neighbors say they're definitely relieved after all these years and arrest finally has been made, but they're also really concerned what happens if and when this man returns.

Oh my god, they're taking him.

Yes, you know, when you get released from jail, one of the first things they do is they give you back your clothes. What happens if you're naked when you're arrested? Do they have some kind of jail issued burlap sack for you.

They take you to ross dress for less.

Maybe they give you clothes that's meant for the homeless, like, for example, memorabilia congratulating the team that didn't win the World Series and you get those T shirts.

Oh my god, they're taking him.

Yes, thank you boy.

Resita has come a long way.

And now, oh my god, they're taking him.

Yes.

I wonder if the ladies from Recita were aware of naked men. Thank you. He needs help.

After years of complaints, LAPD officers have arrested forty four year old Gregory William. This is a man neighbors say has been terrorizing their quiet cul de Sac with threats and disturbing behavior, from screaming outbursts like this, are your daughters?

Are your nieces?

Naked to the.

Just remember the city didn't act on this for three years.

Now do you think he did everything naked? Like for example, write above, because if he's an older man and you have the spokes and the chains, that could be hazardous. What about frying bacon? You think he did that in the nude?

That is back away from the stovetop as that starts crackling. Yeah, that guy might want to consider becoming a vegetarian.

To exposing himself in an upstairs window and laughing obscenities in the middle of the night.

He's the naked joker, he is.

Police booked William Tuesday on felony criminal threats charges. As officers led him away, William cried out and completed for help.

I Hel, wait, so now he's playing the victim, I throng, he me. He wasn't doing anything wrong. Oh yeah, he was just sticking his penis out the window because he wants to play ring toss with the niaghbor.

All right, you're on the line, sir hi o oh god hel.

The home at the center of the chaos now sits empty. Neighbors told CBSLA they've called LAPD hundreds of times over the past four years.

That is so embarrassing.

If you're the cop that arrested him, do you think you put some newspaper down on the backseat of your car before you put him in the back of the black and white.

I hate to be this callous about it, but is it all possible that the reason something was finally done was because the councilwoman and the mayor were going to be on the debate stage, and they were worried this question would come up.

Now, this guy is clearly suffering from some kind of mental health crisis, and the cops who finally arrested them him, I hope they took all of the care that would be required to deal with someone who's going through a crisis like this, and with that loving care. I hope when they arrested him and they are putting him in the back of that black and white, that they hit his head at the top of the black and white about five or six times before he finally made it to that back seat.

When you're a police officer and you have to take someone into custody and they're naked, does the department spring for a car wash afterwards?

I would hope so, not only a car wash, but they're going to need that baby powder freshener two.

You know, we could never do this because we're governed by the FCC. But if we weren't, we could take calls from an hour from current and former police officers and they would tell us the things that have been done in the back of their police cars.

Oh well, every time you arrest a homeless person, there's going to be all kinds of fluids back there.

They say officers would respect, but the problems never stopped. A neighbor who asked us not to show his identity hopes it's different this time around.

Especially to my wife, she feels like, Okay, hopefully it's.

For a while.

It's not like one or two days and come back and go back to the same thing again.

What he's doing is not acceptible. That's him.

He's not is not is not being a good neighbor.

He is definitely not being a good neighbor.

What does he state for him?

They're not being a good neighbor either. No, I hope you Oh boy, he cry laughs too. Typically, you're not supposed to make fun of the mentally ill, But because he's been openly threatening and flashing people, we're gonna have all the fun we want with this one.

No, I hope you.

Wait, we're not supposed to make fun of the mentally ill. What are you new here?

All right? So what happened?

If the ladies from Mecita happened to walk on to Garden Grove Boulevard when this guy was getting carried away.

That would be cut quite a scene. No, I hope you guys can get on the help he needs. Man, he really needs it.

William is being held at the Van Eys Jail on a seventy five thousand dollars bond. So far, no court date has been set yet, reporting live in Rosita, Lauren Posen CBSLA.

Lauren, thank you.

I love that they actually give that guy bail.

How is he not put in a nuthouse immediately?

Now?

If you're sitting there in an LA County jail in Van Eyes and they issue you your traditional prison garb or your jail garb, you're wearing the orange. What's to stop him from taking that off in the cell?

What you think he's going to nude up right there in the jail too.

He seems to have a problem with clothing, and I don't necessarily think that's going to change now that he's in jail.

You know, if they arrest him there and they take him to that holding cell, he's going to be in that holding cell with all the hardcore gang members that just got arrested at the park. How do you think they're going to react to him screaming and yelling in the middle of the night when they just want to sleep. I hope you. Let's go to Bill in Santa Rosia. Bill. Hello, Hi John, Randy.

You were just commenting earlier about what it was like with a parment a police officer vehicle dealing with let's say, unsanitary situations like with the naked man. I can put

Oh no, oh yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah, we were stepping in it. Oh it was a mess. But the seats in the back are fiberglass. They're like you'd see like in a food court or something like that. The very smooth, slick, almost like a bucket couple of bucket seats back there. And the horrible thing about it is the poor officer would have to drive the individual like across county to county jail or whatever with that situation. How horrible that must be having to smell all of that and deal with. Of course,

So what you're saying is it's like having a two year old back there without a diaper. Thank you for the call, Sir, eight hundred two two two five two two two. Easy telephone number one eight hundred two two two five two two two. If you'd like to email the show, you can do so at Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. That's Johnny don't like show at gmail dot com. And Randy. Now that we're twenty five minutes away from the show being over, if you want to continue listening to us after we sign.

Off with three, that's easy to do. I get it. I've heard other radio shows they're not like this. Search for the John Phillips Show. Wherever you get your podcast, whether it's the the Apple podcast app, iHeart, Spotify, Search for the John Phillips Show. Hit subscribe, you can download all the episodes. You can do a Google on the YouTube. You can get the KABC app and the KSFO app. How about the KMJ now app. Because we're on the

It's not so I.

Eight hundred two two two five two two two is the telephone number? What eight hundred two two two five two two two. Here with an update on the prostitution going on on Figueroa. Mister Randy Wing.

The LAPD has been cracking down on all the rampant prostitution that's been going on on the Blade on Figueroa because Karen Bass is running for reelection, but because they're not doing that citywide, all of the rampant prostitution has moved to the Western Corridor near k Town.

So wait, so they got a number of complaints about all the prostitutes and the Johns and the pims hanging out on Figaroa and let's just say calling Figaroa their home. So they figured that they would improve the situation by moving all of them to Koreatown.

That's what's happening. For more, here's ABC seven Eyewitness News.

Los Angeles continues to be one of the country's hubs for human trafficking and.

It's we're number one. We're number one.

And we're the city that wants to host the Olympics.

Trafficking and it's leading to blatant prostitution even in some residential neighborhoods. Homeowners in the Larchmont and Koreatown areas have been complaining about an uptick of John's on their Sorry about that.

Why do they have name of John's.

On their streets and around their schools?

So what is the LAPD doing?

Seven on your Side investigates got exclusive access with officers who are signed there.

Kevin Ozabek joins us now Live with more Kevin Well.

Marco Michelle. You may remember earlier this year we took you here to what's called the Figaroa Corridor.

It's a four mile.

Stretch in South LA that is just notorious for prostitution that is happening right out in the open. But as we showed you, the LAPD is cracking down there. Well, now it appears that's pushing some of that prostitution to what's called the Western Corridor, which is Western Avenue between Second and Melrose.

It goes all the way up to Melrose.

Oh boy, wait, I thought Barbara Ferrer said she was going to solve this problem by offering social services to all the pims.

Yeah, that didn't work out. Oh it's sweeps already.

Oh yeah, it's just after four am on a Friday morning. The Western Corridor is dark, but far from quiet.

It's time to go home, didn't I tell you already?

LAPD Senior Lead Officer Daniel Chaves sometimes drives these streets before the crack of dawn. His mission is to get these young women suspected of soliciting sex to head home before sunrise.

This girl, this girl's got glowing heels here. Hey, you gotta go home. I like the shoes, but you gotta go home.

Was she walking around in clear heels?

Oh? Let me tell you she sees a guy with the mustache coming up talking about her shoes, She's gonna want to close the deed.

I like the shoes, but you got to go home. Can I get complaints?

By the way, this is pretty much all that police can do after Scott Wiener decriminalized prostitution in the State Senate, telling the institutes go home because they're and and yes a lot of them are victims of human trafficking, but we cannot arrest anyone for soliciting, for being the person walking up and down the streets selling their bodies.

I like the shoes, but you got to go home. Can I get complaints constantly for my community that they're seeing these women, you know, claudly dressed out here when the kids are getting dropped off at school.

And if you watch the videos that ABC seven is put together of the incidents on Figaro or the incidents on Western, they have to blur out so many of the images that are captured in broad daylight.

They all look like Britney Spears when she was a teenager doing those music videos.

All you've been out.

Here on top of telling the women to get off Western Avenue, Officer Chaves checks cars parked on side streets where customers often take them.

You'll start to see, like the windows getting a little bit foggy and stuff.

Ah wait, they just do it in their car right there on the street.

Yes, you think they're taking them to the hotel motel?

How is that erotic?

Creepy dude's gonna do a creepy dude's gonna do.

Okay, but let's just say there's two people in the backseat of a car at some point, aren't you gonna get stabbed by the seatbelt?

They haven't thought this all the way through. We have a lack of impulse control going down on Western Avenue.

And he keeps his eyes on their suspected pimps.

And so you could see right this is a coin laundry. So this is where the pimps are hanging out these cars.

Do you think the pimps still dressed like they used to in the seventies.

With the cane and the pink cadillacs.

Oh yeah, like Joseph and the amazing technicolor dream.

Coat cars that are you know, backed in all blacked out tinted. They sit here all night and you know they wait for these girls to do their work. Ladies just tiding.

How much you make for daddy today? You better not be shorting me. You'll get hit.

The people that use the phrase daddy are pimps and jave aer Bisera.

Didn't he say dad yesterday?

He did? He's not too bright, you know.

They wait for these girls to do their work. Ladies are time to go home. Let's go.

When you ask them to go home, do they usually listen a lot of times they do, believe it or not, but not all follow orders. Some show no fear and argue back. One young woman even walked right behind our interview with Officer Chavez.

So the police officer is standing right there with the camera crew being interviewed on ABC seven for this story, and the woman decides next to them to solicit her body.

Boy, that's a woman who has zero fear of being arrested.

We decriminalized it, hey, We didn't legalize and regulate it like they did in other countries or Nevada. We just decriminalized it.

Thank you. Do you think they're on a quota on how many tricks they have to turn per night?

Yes they are, and if they don't, they get beat up. That's a real thing.

Oh my, ma'am, I asked you to go home already. Why are you still out here?

You were uber?

You told me your uber was coming forty five minutes ago.

Well, I don't think that car was an Uber that she was getting into.

The trip was real short. It was right around the corner. But she did get five stars.

No, that wasn't another girl.

That was you.

I've talked to you a few times already.

Today it's time to go home. Out in the open is this It's blatant.

It's like there's not a care in the world.

She walked right by you.

Yeah, and she knows there's a police car here. We're sitting here with the camera.

It was also blatant when we were out with the LAPD seventy seventh division as they look for underage prostitutes on the Figaroa corridor. But here on fig some fear must now be sinking in as police continue their crackdown on Elie's most infamous hub of prostitution.

As a result, I think we're seeing a lot more activity getting pushed down here north into our division, and we're seeing girls that we haven't seen before.

We're seeing girls more frequently.

We have historically seen prostitution related crimes in human trafficking along Western Corridor for decades.

I think, what boy, Western fig all the big thoroughfares, they've just got nothing but rampant prostitution.

Well, Korea Town, that's where all the karaoke bars are, many of the clubs, and they have some driving ranges down there too.

I think what we're seeing now is the blatant prostitution that is happening out there and the trafficking of young women, and that is bleeding onto our smaller streets.

That's even pushed some homeowners here to place these signs on their front yards warning John's and the women they hire they're being recorded and the video will be handed over to Officer Chopex and no.

You can't have a copy.

Can you imagine having to put a sign up in your very own front yard telling people that if they have sex on your property, you're going to tattle on them to the cops.

They want to be able to walk their dog in the morning without seeing condoms, without seeing half, you know, naked women on the streets.

Oh gosh, imagine living in that.

The Western Corridor sits inside Labed's Olympic Division, which is overseas. But Captain Rachel Rodriguez.

One of the things I promised are our neighborhoods in our community is we are going to make sure our kids have a safe passage to school.

You got Rent and Dove depit. You know it's dangerous though, right.

So that's Officer Chobs this motivation for these super early mornings. He doesn't want kids seeing this before their first bound.

Be a whole different kind of lesson plan.

Oh yeah, quite an education.

But it's impossible for him to get every one of the dozens of women off Western before daylight. So it's now six point thirty in the morning, the sun is up. This neighborhood is starting to come to life.

Guys, you might have mixed the music a little too loud.

Who is hiring a prostitute at six thirty in the morning.

Creepy guys gonna creepy guy.

But still even in daylight, these girls are still working these corners. They are still soliciting sex. Saint Brendan Elementary and Laust Charles H. Kim Elementary are right off of Western Avenue.

But it's just really uncomfortable, and then you have your kids asking like what's.

That or do you have they're learning don't look over there, look over here?

Or do you have the staffing to be able to overcome this problem?

And I wish I had more officers.

But even an understaffed LAPED seems to now be making progress on this Western Corridor too.

Homeowners sell us they're seeing some they're going to go into Normandy. It doesn't sound like they're ever solving the problem. They're just moving them from one part of town to another.

In six months, you're gonna be talking about the Highland Corridor then of the Onlabrea.

Homeowners sell us they're seeing less John's parking overnight on their side streets.

Hey stop, what are you guys doing out here?

You trying to get a girlfriend?

I don't think that's what he's looking for.

We have de fanged our police department to the point where the senior lead officer's job is to walk up and down this street saying knock it off.

And that's probably thanks to Officer chabs at his overnight patrol. Officer Chabez says most of those working the Western Corridor are between eighteen to twenty three years old, but police are also finding underage girls working this corridor just like they are on fig. The youngest girl the LAPD has rescued off that Western Corridor, MARKT. Michelle was only eleven years old.

Holy cow, there's a whole world exists out there that you'd rather not know about.

Well.

And one of the issues here, outside of Scott Wiener decriminalizing prostitution, is that even if the pimps get arrested, the prostitutes, the sex trafficking victims as they're referred to, are so afraid of retaliation because we're definitely not going to keep the pimps in prison for long that they refuse to testify against them. Oh yeah, Well, if you think Katie Porter has anger management issues, you should see

We shouldn't make this stuff up.

If we tried, I said.

Hell no, Verny boy, let me get up one out of here.

It's the California crime blodder and Randy.

Today's edition takes us to Hayward.

Where AT and T was just happened to repair some copper wire when they caught someone stealing some more copper wire.

For more, here's Cron four.

A top story this half hour a call all for AT and T crews responding to copper and fiber wire theft and Hayward turned into more than just a repair job. Crawford Sarah Stinson was on a plan right along with AT and T when an unexpectedly turned into a police investigation involving two people being detained.

AT and T.

Crews were responding to a copper wire theft here on Industrial Parkway in Hayward when they saw the potential thieves in action.

So all this is kind of remnants of our cable.

Bits of copper and fiber cables seem torn apart and burned along the railroad tracks off Industrial Parkway in Hayward.

We just cannot have nice things in this state.

Nope, not even a little bit.

AT and T crews say this was the aftermath of an early morning copper wire theft on Wednesday. When they arrived, they say the situation was still unfolding as.

We pulled up here.

Kind of scared off the homeless gentleman. He started walking down the path and we called the police. When the police arrived, we saw the home. This man throws some stuff either over the fence or in the bushes. The police at the time cannot identify that.

Police detained a man and woman, but without enough evidence, no rests were made.

Usually that happens in La County and Oakland.

Extremely troubling. You feel helpless. There's not a whole lot we could do. So as we could do right now is react and restore.

Walking the Path with AT and T s.

If you want to know why your cell phone bill is so expensive, it's because we have to constantly pay for this.

They woult to raise your taxes to pay for it.

Walking the Path with AT and T's Scott Gonzaga. He points out what crews found.

This appears to be a burn pit that they would use to burn off the plastic layering of the copper cable itself to expose the bare copper wire.

That doesn't sound like it's good for the environment.

No it doesn't. And what they end up with is just raw copper cable. And this is what they're taking into scrap yards and of.

Course for some reason we can't go after the scrappers.

Why can't we just pull all their business licenses?

Good question right around here.

This palette, let's just say, is probably around two to three hundred dollars.

Well.

Thieves target copper for quick cash. They also damage fiber cables with impacts felt across entire communities.

One hundred residents are out of service.

They're writing on the copper.

I'm not sure about the fiber. I know there's multiple businesses that were impacted, and I don't believe that they don't obviously care what damage they're doing or what impact it has on the public or their customers that are writing on the services.

Once crews got approval from the Union Pacific Railroad, they began repairs to restore service, a process they say is.

All to comment in the Bay Area, it's all day, every day.

Copper theft seems to be the prevaient.

If you want a job that's going to have some security for a while, get into copper wire and fiber optic cable repair.

You know, the more I think about it, if we involved Shirley Weber, the Secretary of State in this, to try to pull the business licenses of all of the places that accept the copper wire. That's not going to help us out any All she'd do is tell them you can be hospice care facilities too. It's the John Phillips Show.