On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on a proposed law that will prohibit any law enforcement officer operating in the unincorporated areas from wearing a face mask.
L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn told KNX News’ Jon Baird that it’s important for the county to make it “very clear that we are opposed to a secret authoritarian police enforcement agency coming into our community.”
“Kidnapping people from their jobs, their schools, their homes, even churches, and these agents are hiding their faces,” she continued. “They refuse to wear badges, and they're pulling people into unmarked vans at gunpoint. “This is how an authoritarian secret police act, not legitimate law enforcement in a democracy.”
Hahn added that people have a right to know who they’re being arrested by.
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“These agents are coming into our communities, hiding their faces, and they have no visible identification of the agency,” she said. “Are they the sheriff's department? Are they LAPD? Are they the highway patrol, or are they Immigration and Customs Enforcement…We have documentation that [shows them’ driving around in unmarked vans, with some of them [having] no license plates.”
Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told KNX News that "this law would violate the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which makes it clear that Los Angeles does not control federal law enforcement."
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