Last week, Los Angeles hosted its first congressional field hearing on the impact of the Trump administration’s immigration raids. The hearing drew elected officials, experts, and residents who described months of fear as ICE agents detained immigrants and U.S. citizens across the region. But many attendees left saying the most distressing part of the day was not what they heard from Washington. It was what they continued to see from their own mayor.
Community members said Mayor Karen Bass failed to acknowledge the scale of harm caused by the raids, and left the room before survivors spoke. For many, it echoed what happened three weeks earlier at the November 3 virtual town hall, a meeting that residents fought for since June and that has now become a flash point for the mayor’s handling of the crisis.
On November 24, the evening of the town hall, Bass made a claim that shocked many of the 600 people watching. When a resident cited nearly $400 million in LAPD liability payouts reported by LA Public Press earlier that same day, Bass denied the number outright. She said that if the figure were true, “we would be bankrupt.” She also insisted that most of the liability costs came from “LAPD suing LAPD,” a statement that is contradicted by the city’s own data.
According to the controller’s publicly available dashboard, LAPD liability payouts since 2019 total $384 million, with almost half tied to civil rights violations, police shootings, excessive force, and illegal searches. Fewer than one hundred of nearly two thousand claims involve officers suing the department. Residents who attended the town hall said Bass’s denial was not just inaccurate but alarming at a moment when police violence, civil rights violations, and the raids themselves have become deeply intertwined.
That moment has become symbolic of a broader concern that many residents echo: the belief that City Hall is minimizing or ignoring both the actions of federal agents and the conduct of local law enforcement. Participants noted that Bass’s refusal to acknowledge the LAPD liability figure showed a mayor unwilling to confront police misconduct, even when presented with her own city’s records.
Residents also said the tone of the town hall was combative and dismissive. They described LAPD officials responding with irritation, showing little familiarity with the violence being described, and expressing disbelief when people spoke about officers firing flash bangs at close range, beating unarmed protesters, and threatening families during the raids. Organizers said the mayor’s office refused to publicize the event and has since declined to release the video, despite promising to make it publicly available. Multiple people suspect it will never be released because the footage shows how poorly the meeting went.
Gabe Dunn, one of the residents who helped organize the event, said the mayor’s dismissal of the liability data, combined with the city’s silence on the raids, left people feeling that Los Angeles leaders are not being honest about what is happening. Dunn said even a progressive City Councilmember’s aide told him they had never heard that the town hall had taken place, and the mayor’s office has not responded to repeated inquiries about the recording or follow-up questions.
These tensions shaped the reaction at the November 24 congressional hearing. Residents were grateful that members of Congress listened but troubled that Bass again appeared uninterested in hearing from those most affected. She spoke only briefly and then left before the public testimony that laid out the fear and trauma families are experiencing.
Several attendees said it was striking to see national elected officials take their stories more seriously than their own city government. Bass has not visited the places hit hardest by the raids or acknowledged the violence described in videos circulating for months. And despite paying lip service to resistance, she has not offered a clear plan to protect residents from federal operations.
This article was originally published by Mar Vista Voice on November 28, 2025.
