Here are the morning’s top stories on Tuesday, September 16, 2025…
- In the wake of George Floyd’s death and the protests that followed, California passed a law limiting the use of force against people exercising their First Amendment rights. An LAist investigation found that even when police departments appear to be breaking that law, the state doesn’t have a mechanism to actually enforce it.
- Two companies with thousands of permits to drill oil wells in California merged on Monday, just two days after state lawmakers loosened environmental reviews for permits in Kern County.
- UC Merced students are speaking out after several campus leaders in charge of diversity, equity and inclusion programs were laid off.
Conflicting Reports Over Santa Ana Police Response To Anti-ICE Protests
The protest on Monday, June 9, started small. Nathan Tran, a Garden Grove native and community organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, joined a few dozen people outside the federal building in Santa Ana, a local epicenter for immigration enforcement actions that were ramping up across Southern California.
Despite the small crowd, Tran said he saw federal agents wearing riot gear, standing at the ready. He said they were armed with crowd control weapons and rifles with live ammunition.
By the evening, the crowd had swelled to around 500 people and the protest had moved to the downtown Santa Ana area. Officers with the Santa Ana Police Department formed a skirmish line. Tran watched from Sasscer Park, around 30 feet away from the main crowd, as tensions rose. Police suddenly cleared the crowd with “barrages of rubber bullets, pepper balls, flash bangs, tear gas,” Tran said, without warning or apparent provocation. He said people in the crowd responded by hurling back water bottles and fireworks…