A team of Fontana police officers ventured somewhat afield of their normal bailiwick and found themselves way out of their depth and outmaneuvered by the gang capos they had come to arrest.
Most of the officers were out of uniform and in plainclothes as part of what was a hybrid undercover operation/raid, although some members of the team who were supposed to come in for back-up as the program progressed were at the far periphery of the scene were outfitted with tactical gear and flak vests with the logo “Police” emblazoned on their backs.
Those at the top of the criminal organization the police officers from San Bernardino County had crossed into neighboring Los Angeles County to take down, consisting of individuals associated with the Florencia 13, Cudahy S/S C13, Cudahy Familia, Walnut Street and Diablos gangs, immediately recognized what was in the offing when they were alerted to the presence of a number of obviously armed individuals who were not native to the area by their own street assets, those being individuals on the ground in the northern Cudahy district.
Utilizing a protocol that had been worked out in advance for use during such circumstances, multiple calls or text messages were placed or relayed to the Panic Button, Alert Button, ICEBlock, People Over Papers and ResistMap apps, reporting the presence of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the are of Florence and Wilcox avenues in Cudahy.
Panic Button, Alert Button, ICEBlock, People Over Papers and ResistMap apps manifested in the late spring of 2025 as social media platforms that exist as a means for illegal aliens to resist federal immigration enforcement action. Utilizing encrypted messaging that coordinate with those having access to media sites, the Panic Button, Alert Button, ICEBlock, People Over Papers and ResistMap webmasters provide on-line maps tracking the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department task forces’ locations. Moreover, they can send out hundreds, indeed thousands of text messages instantaneously informing recipients of the exact locations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department raids and operations. In response, protesters can in a short span of time swarm into the area. Large numbers of bystanders and spectators can inhibit the federal agents actions.
That is what occurred on October 30, 2026, when plainclothes Fontana narcotics conducting what they thought was a narcotics investigation in Cudahy first encountered a handful of people arriving by car and then more and more people, virtually all of whom were Hispanic, joining an expanding crowd which was hostile toward their presence.
In fact, most, or all, of those arriving were under the mistaken impression that the undercover officers were federal immigration authorities, either with the Border Patrol or the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Fontana Police Department’s on-the-ground operation commanders had been outfoxed by a rare show of cooperation by the capos of Florencia 13, Cudahy S/S C13 and Cudahy Familia, who normally are in competition with one another over both turf and the influx of drug-purchasing customers from outside the area.
In addition to those responding to the Panic Button, Alert Button, ICEBlock, People Over Papers and ResistMap calls-to-action at the location on Live Oak Street, near the intersection of Florence Avenue and Wilcox Avenue, where the officers were about to pounce on what their intelligence officers told them were some drug-pushing ringleaders were a good number, reportedly as many as 100, of local residents, some of whom were vocal about what these strangers were doing in their neighborhood. The plainclothes officers at first tried to carry on as if nothing was out of the ordinary, but some members of the crowd grew unruly, as they were intent on confronting federal immigration officers. After seeking for a time to maintain the fiction that they were simply bystanders in an effort to maintain the integrity of the undercover narcotics squad operation, the police officers, fearing for their own safety in the face of the growingly hostile crowd, declared they were “not with ICE” but were in fact on a narcotics stake-out, blowing their own cover.
The crowd, which according to a report filed by the police department later was “becoming increasingly disruptive.” wasn’t buying it.
At that point, the Fontana police on hand made a call to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles Police Department for assistance.
The arrival of deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department did not chasten or reduce the collective anger of the crowd, which by that point had accurately identified the vehicles the Fontana Police Department had driven to the location. Those cars were pelted with rocks, bottles and other objects. Some members of the crowd produced knives and began slashing the cars’ tires.
The Fontana police officers sought to effectuate the arrest of some of those they had intended to target in the raid. Meanwhile, two of the Florencia 13 gang leaders the Fontana Police had come to arrest were on a rooftop a block and a half away, having eluded arrest, and observing the chaos.
Several of the Fontana police cars were disabled and had to be towed the 55 miles back to Fontana.
The Fontana police officers involved in the operation avoided sustaining any serious injuries. Still, they were forced to admit that in terms of what they had set out to accomplish, they had humiliated themselves by having their asses handed to them by those they were targeting and had to find out the hard way that police work should not consist of hustling to bust people strange to you even if you come in armed with warrants issued by a judge who doesn’t know or know of those people either and you have a hefty set of customized arms and armament with which to do the job.
-Mark Gutglueck