by Nik Roybal

More than 100,000 people will fill Santa Monica Boulevard between Doheny Drive and La Cienega Boulevard Saturday night for West Hollywood’s Halloween Carnaval, in a city that calls itself a sanctuary.

Records show that West Hollywood’s Flock automatic license plate reader network is shared with the California Highway Patrol, whose accounts have run searches labeled “ICE case.” This week, when asked which agencies will have access to the cameras, drones and data watching the Carnaval crowd, the City declined to answer.

For most of October, federal immigration agents have been sweeping through Southern California. Advocates describe a 45-day statewide crackdown that began early this month, which they call “Operation Safe California.” In the Northeast San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles City Councilmember Imelda Padilla has described agents “crashing into cars, blocking roads and causing chaos.” Immigrant rights groups say the raids are timed to keep voters from the polls on Nov. 3. 

A federal judge in California on Oct. 21 barred Homeland Security Investigations from field operations aimed at suspected noncitizen voters in nine states, California among them, through election night, finding that the government relied on “flawed” data and that its efforts likely violated the Voting Rights Act.

The raids have come within a few miles of West Hollywood. Izzy Ramirez, a Los Angeles journalist who compiles daily community reports in his SoCal ICE Tracker, logged an ICE sighting at Santa Monica Boulevard and Western Avenue in East Hollywood on the morning of Oct. 14, and a detention at El Centro Avenue and Afton Place in Hollywood that same morning. Ramirez photographed ICE agents outside Twin Towers, the Los Angeles County jail the Sheriff’s Department runs downtown, on Oct. 26. The next day, a food vendor was taken on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park. By Ramirez’s count, that was day 509 of what he calls the “ICE siege” of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles County Board Chair Hilda L. Solis said Wednesday that reports that immigration agents were operating in the parking lot of the East Los Angeles Sheriff’s Station “raised serious concerns,” citing County policy that bars county property from being used as a “staging area for immigration enforcement.” The Sheriff’s Department is the same agency that operates West Hollywood’s surveillance cameras.

West Hollywood has not been untouched. Federal agents raided Santa Palm Car Wash on Santa Monica Boulevard, the street Carnaval fills, on July 4, 2025, and detained workers. Silvestre Jiménez Gómez, 65, who had worked in the community for more than three decades, was deported to Mexico. Alberto Cabral, 73, a gardener with heart disease and diabetes who had tended West Hollywood properties for years, chose to self-deport rather than remain in detention. ICE detained Alex Pereira-Alves, a longtime West Hollywood resident living here legally under a judge’s order, in August, when he reported for what he was told was a routine check-in downtown.

Twelve questions, no answers

The City’s Oct. 22 Carnaval notice lists street closures, shuttle routes, bag rules and a ban on attendee drones. It says nothing about the surveillance systems the City pays for and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s West Hollywood Station operates: 39 Flock Safety license plate reader cameras; 54 Flock Condor pan-tilt-zoom cameras that stream and record live video and zoom 25 times; a Flock Mobile Security Trailer with two more Condor cameras, a 360-degree camera, an audio talk-down speaker and a blue deterrence light; a Real-Time Watch Center that integrates those feeds; and a City-funded drone program whose target launch date was Oct. 31, the night of Carnaval; a City official said Monday the program is not active.

I sent the City’s public information officer, Sheri A. Lunn, 12 questions on Oct. 24: nine about this year’s Carnaval and three about last year’s. I asked which systems would be operating along the route, whether the Watch Center would be activated, whether drones would fly over the crowd, how long footage and plate reads would be kept, and whether any agency besides the West Hollywood Station, “including mutual-aid, state or federal personnel, or a fusion center,” would have access to the feeds or the City’s Flock data that night.

Lunn replied Oct. 28. “As you know from your past reporting about the City of West Hollywood, public safety is the City’s highest priority,” she wrote. “As a matter of public safety and operational security, the City and its public safety partners do not disclose specific tactical or deployment information when doing so could negatively affect the security environment for an event.”

“For that reason, the City will not provide event-specific operational details in response to these questions, nor does the City publish a detailed inventory of security measures that will be in place during the event,” she wrote. “This approach is not intended to limit transparency regarding the City’s public safety programs.”

Lunn wrote that “many” of the questions sought details that could compromise operations. The City answered none of them, including questions about standing policy, such as how long data is kept and whether it is shared, and all three questions about the 2025 Carnaval, an event that ended a year ago.

The City has used that reasoning before. In July, I asked the City under the California Public Records Act for the locations of its Flock cameras, their installation dates and its data-sharing logs. Community Safety Director Danny Rivas told the Council on Aug. 17 that the locations were being withheld “for the safety of the cameras themselves.” The next day, the City denied the request in writing, citing exemptions for security and law enforcement records.

The Sheriff’s Department and Flock were sent questions Oct. 29 with a deadline of noon Oct. 30. This story will be updated with their responses.

“Other public safety agencies and partners”

Lunn’s reply confirmed one thing. Planning and operations for Carnaval, she wrote, “involve coordination among the City, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and other public safety agencies and partners.” She did not name them.

The City has answered part of that question in public. At the Oct. 26 Public Safety Commission meeting, during commissioner remarks about two hours and 20 minutes in, Chair Brandon Blau asked Public Safety Manager Anita Shandi whether the West Hollywood Station’s drone would be deployed for Carnaval. “For event-specific drone usage, it’s different than what the city uses to respond to emergency calls,” Shandi said. “So the drone as a first responder program is not active. But in terms of drones being used for Halloween, sometimes our fire department will deploy, use things just specific to the event if there’s an incident.” Blau asked whether “the Special Enforcement Bureau or something will have their drone, potentially.” “Yeah, correct,” Shandi said. The Special Enforcement Bureau is the Sheriff’s Department’s tactical unit. Shandi also said that before the City’s drone program launches, the City will roll out a public dashboard, is working with its communications staff, and will show the public how the program works. She gave no launch date.

The Sheriff’s Department’s own drone policy states that “a LASD station must implement a community outreach plan before using UAS,” according to the 2025–26 Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury. I asked whether the West Hollywood Station has one. The City did not say.

What the cameras can do

Flock told the City its Condor cameras zoom 25 times and can read a license plate from 585 feet. In a Sept. 8, 2026 letter to Sen. Josh Hawley, Flock stated that its cameras, other than plate readers, can be searched for people by visible traits, such as shirt color or glasses. I asked whether operators would search Carnaval footage for people by appearance, zoom in to identify individuals, or use the trailer’s speaker on the crowd, and whether each use would be logged. The City did not answer.

The network may reach beyond the City’s own cameras. Flock’s 2024 sole-source letter, which the City produced in response to my records request, lists among Flock’s proprietary features access to “cameras purchased by Flock’s HOA and private business partners.” The City’s executed contract describes Flock’s software as a “single-pane real-time crime center” and its Wing Livestream product as integrating “publicly or privately owned livestream security cameras.” The Sheriff’s Department’s own Watch Center at Lost Hills requires a camera owner’s explicit written permission before the Department connects a private camera, according to the Civil Grand Jury. The City has not said whether privately owned cameras, including those of homeowners associations and businesses, feed West Hollywood’s Watch Center, or what rules govern them.

The City’s notice says Security Ambassadors “will be present and available to ensure a safe event.” The program is run by Allied Universal, whose subsidiary G4S has provided vehicles and armed guards to ICE, according to The Lever. At a Sept. 22 Council meeting, Councilmember John Erickson asked whether Allied Universal holds Homeland Security or ICE contracts; the question went unanswered. I asked whether Ambassadors would have access to the Watch Center, camera feeds or Flock alerts during Carnaval. The City did not say.

The routes to federal agencies

Who can reach West Hollywood’s data matters because of how the Flock system is built. According to the City’s March 16, 2026 staff report, one Flock account covers all Sheriff’s stations and contract cities. Decisions about who sees West Hollywood’s data appear to be made in an account that spans dozens of cities.

The records appear to show two accounts. Flock sharing records released by the California Highway Patrol and the City of Santa Ana list a network labeled “City of West Hollywood (LASD).” Santa Ana’s records also list a separate, department-wide account in the Sheriff’s Department’s own name, “Los Angeles County CA SD.” When I reviewed Santa Ana’s Flock transparency portal on Oct. 21, it listed the two as separate entries among the organizations with access to its data. Santa Ana’s May 4 export shows the department-wide account sharing the Paramount, La Cañada Flintridge and Pico Rivera networks, each marked “(LASD),” with Santa Ana, and CHP’s records list West Hollywood’s network among those the Department’s account shares with CHP. The City’s staff report describes one account. It does not say which of the two decides who can search West Hollywood’s cameras.

The Sheriff’s Department’s own oversight does not appear to reach either one. Its written license plate reader privacy policy, two-year retention rule, and semiannual audits were built for the Motorola Vigilant system the Department owns. Its Sept. 23, 2026 audit reviewed 300 of 77,562 queries, all from Vigilant, and does not mention Flock. At a Civilian Oversight Commission forum on May 6, a Sheriff’s commander said the Department contracts only with Vigilant and that Flock cameras may exist where cities contracted directly, LAist reported. That statement does not account for the department-wide Flock account that carries the Department’s name. West Hollywood’s Flock system is one of them, and the West Hollywood Station operates it.

Records from other agencies show where that account connects.

The Highway Patrol. Flock sharing settings released by the California Highway Patrol through a public records request list the “City of West Hollywood (LASD)” network among the networks the Sheriff’s Department account shares with CHP. Eighteen Sheriff’s contract-city networks appear on CHP’s sharing lists. The reach of CHP’s searches grew over the year: the median search reached about 630 networks in December 2024 and about 1,950 by November 2025. CHP’s search audits from December 2024 through November 2025 record 473,263 searches. A CHP account ran two lookups of one license plate at 8:47 p.m. on April 22, 2025, with the stated reason “ICE case” and no case number. One reached 845 networks. Other searches cited “Border Patrol info” and “hsi escape,” a reference to Homeland Security Investigations. The audits show how many networks each search reached, not which ones, so they do not show whether West Hollywood’s cameras were among them. The labels alone do not establish that any search was unlawful.

Fusion centers. Santa Ana’s Flock records, released under the California Public Records Act, show that a California fusion center, the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, ran more than 27,000 searches reaching Santa Ana’s network in six months, at least 80 of them for the U.S. Department of Justice and its components, including the FBI, ATF, DEA and U.S. Marshals, according to reporting by Inadvertent. Every organization Santa Ana shared its network with was a California agency. A California agency on the list ran the searches for federal ones. San Francisco police cut off the fusion center’s access in June after finding hundreds of searches run for federal and out-of-state agencies. Santa Ana’s Flock transparency portal lists “City of West Hollywood CA (LASD)” among the organizations granted access to Santa Ana’s data. The records do not show whether West Hollywood’s cameras can be searched from Santa Ana.

Flock’s federal pilots. In August 2025, 404 Media reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had access to more than 80,000 Flock cameras nationwide and could run lookups itself. Flock’s CEO confirmed the company had run “limited pilots” with CBP and Homeland Security Investigations and said they had been paused. The City’s own audit window, December 2023 to February 2026, covers that period. Its March staff report does not say whether either agency could reach the account holding West Hollywood’s cameras.

Sharing already found. In June 2025, CalMatters reported that records showed California agencies searching plate-reader data on behalf of ICE in violation of state law, including six agencies in Los Angeles County. It named the Los Angeles Police Department and found the Orange County and San Diego County Sheriff’s departments had run searches for Border Patrol. It did not name the other Los Angeles County agencies.

ICE as a buyer. ICE signed a blanket purchase agreement with Thomson Reuters Special Services on Sept. 17, 2026, with a $125 million ceiling running through 2031, for monitoring that includes “geolocation and license plate recognition data.”

California law bars sharing plate-reader data with federal and out-of-state agencies, and the Attorney General’s guidance says that bar extends to vendor databases. The records above show how data can travel anyway: through a California agency that searches on a federal agency’s behalf.

What the City has said

The City has made its own disclosures. Its March 16 staff report found that 14 out-of-state agencies had accessed West Hollywood’s Flock data without the City being notified. One was federal: the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. The report said staff found “no evidence City data was shared directly with ICE.” In a February 2026 email to the City’s Community Safety Director, a Flock executive described a company statement outlining “the fact that we do not work with ICE.” In July, the City amended its Condor contract to exclude ICE and CBP from data sharing, “absent a court order.” That phrase does not match the Sheriff’s Department’s own policy, which bars disclosure for civil immigration enforcement except under a “judicial warrant” or where State or County law expressly requires it. The City has not said which standard controls West Hollywood’s data.

None of those statements address the indirect routes. Sharing through the Highway Patrol, a fusion center, or a nationwide lookup is exactly the kind of access a “direct” search would not catch.

An ordinance that stops at the parking lot

The East Los Angeles report Solis described this week is the kind of activity Los Angeles County wrote an ordinance to prevent. Solis co-authored the Board of Supervisors’ “ICE Free Zones” motion, and County Counsel drafted Chapter 13.02 to bar unauthorized use of County property as an immigration staging area.

West Hollywood copied it. The City Council took up Item D.1 on Oct. 19, adding Chapter 9.10 to the Municipal Code, “Preserving City Property for City Purposes.” It bars law enforcement from using City property as a staging area, processing location or operations base without City authorization.

Every use the ordinance covers is physical. Under its text, an immigration agent cannot park a van in a City lot without permission. It says nothing about the license plate readers, the Condor cameras, the trailer, the drones, the Watch Center, or the data they collect.

A comparison of the two texts shows that Chapter 9.10 is, nearly word for word, County Counsel’s February draft with the County’s name replaced by the City’s, and that the substitution dropped several of the County’s safeguards: a business-hours limit on approved uses, a cutoff date for existing agreements, an express civil enforcement action, and a severability clause. The County’s required sign names “civil immigration enforcement.” West Hollywood’s sign never mentions immigration.

I raised those gaps in a written public comment before the meeting and asked the Council to extend the ordinance to the City’s surveillance data, barring its use for civil immigration enforcement and requiring a judicial warrant for any federal access.

The Council moved the item to its consent calendar and approved it unanimously on first reading, without discussion. Both of the City’s Flock contracts were approved the same way.

The only explanation on the record came after the vote. According to the Oct. 19 minutes, Mayor Heilman asked the City Attorney to clarify the ordinance the Council had just approved. City Attorney Lauren Langer said it addressed “large-scale staging operations” and was not intended to interfere with “immediate law enforcement needs.” Neither phrase appears in the ordinance.

The ordinance returns for second reading Nov. 2, two days after Carnaval, as Ordinance 26-12. Its text is identical to what the Council approved on Oct. 19. It still says nothing about the cameras or their data.

A question from 2023

West Hollywood’s first sanctuary promise was about information. Resolution No. 129, adopted Nov. 25, 1985, states the Council’s desire “not to expend city resources or taxpayer dollars, beyond the requirements of federal law, in voluntarily assisting or cooperating with investigations of alleged violations of immigration law by Salvadoran, Guatemalan or other refugees, or in gathering or disseminating information on the citizenship status of those residing in the City of West Hollywood.”

In December 2016, the City declared it would “not participate in any effort to deport immigrants” and announced it was directing the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station “not to provide assistance to federal agencies who are attempting to harass, arrest, or deport undocumented workers or immigrants.”

At an Aug. 14, 2023 joint meeting of the City Council and Public Safety Commission on the surveillance program, then-Mayor Sepi Shyne said that “as a sanctuary City she required reassurance that outside agencies would not use data collected by this pilot program,” according to the minutes. She “requested a report back on whether stored data would have to be surrendered to out-of-state agencies.” The Station’s captain “affirmed he would report back.” I have found no record that he did.

The staff report for that meeting recommended Flock’s platform as “the single centralized platform that houses all drone, fixed camera, gunshot audio detection, and ALPR camera data,” and stated that “City staff will not have access to any of the software/video components and all public records act requests will be managed by the LASD.” It did not mention sanctuary status, immigration, or sharing with outside agencies. Shyne had asked for policies that “enable the City to have full control.”

In 2016, the Sheriff’s Department publicly disclosed that a helicopter with a video downlink would monitor Carnaval and that cameras had been added in the event area. The City’s 2025 and 2026 Carnaval notices mentioned no surveillance systems at all, and the City will not say what was used last year.

Three years after a mayor asked who could reach this data, the people on Santa Monica Boulevard Saturday night still cannot get an answer.

Nik Roybal is a freelance investigative journalist, writer, and fourth-generation Angeleno based in West Hollywood, who has investigated the City’s surveillance program since July 2026. Their work has appeared in the Los Angeles Blade, LA Taco, WeHo Times, and Q Voice News. Nik holds an MFA in writing from CalArts.