Fire truck found in Southern California man’s home, police charge suspect for impersonating first responder
Steve Farzam has been charged for allegedly impersonating a firefighter after officials found a fire truck and other first responder gear in his home, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. KABC
(LOS ANGELES) — A Southern California man has been charged for allegedly impersonating a firefighter after officials found a fire truck and other first responder gear at his home, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office.
Steve Farzam, 47, was charged on Thursday with 28 criminal counts for a “string of alleged crimes that occurred between 2023 and May of this year, including impersonating a firefighter during the Palisades Fire, assaulting a first responder and discharging a laser at aircrafts,” the district attorney’s office said in a press release on Thursday.
“This defendant’s alleged actions reflect a disturbing pattern of lawlessness and disregard for public safety. If proven, this type of escalating conduct undermines the integrity of our emergency response systems and erodes public trust and we will use every single legal tool available to hold the defendant accountable,” Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement.
The investigation into Farzam began earlier this month when the Los Angeles Police Department started looking into cases “involving pilots being struck by a laser while piloting commercial aircraft and helicopters around West Los Angeles area,” according to a press release from the LAPD.
The incident occurred back on Feb. 21, when the suspect pointed a blue laser on law enforcement and commercial aircraft, according to ABC Los Angeles station KABC.
This investigation “led to an individual named Steven Farzam,” with police then filing 28 counts of felony and misdemeanor charges against him and securing a search warrant, police said.
On Wednesday, the suspect was taken into custody and officials served a “multi-location search warrant at Farzam’s residences in West Los Angeles,” police said.
During the search, police found two utility vehicles with California exempt license plates, police and fire light package equipment for vehicles, radios, first responder identifications, a Pierce Fire Engine, multiple rounds of ammunition, “various fraudulent documents relating to a fictitious Fire Department and other first responder paraphernalia,” officials said.
The fire truck that was discovered at his home had burn marks on the top of it and was registered to the Santa Muerte Fire Department, which does not exist, officials said.
Officials believe on Jan. 16, Farzam “posed as a firefighter during the Palisades Fire, gaining access to restricted emergency zones and interfering with emergency operations,” according to the district attorney’s office.
During Farzam’s arraignment on Thursday, Deputy District Attorney David Ayvazian said that during the Palisades Fire, the suspect “tried to badge his way into fire zones, which he successfully did at least three times — pretending to be an arson investigator,” according to KABC.
Farzam faces six counts of discharging a laser at an aircraft, three counts of assault with a deadly or dangerous weapon, four counts of assault upon a peace officer, one count of impersonation of a public officer, one count of carrying a loaded unregistered handgun in a vehicle, seven counts of perjury by declaration and one count of procuring and offering false or forged instrument, officials said. He also faces the two misdemeanor charges of impersonating a fire officer and trespassing on closed lands, the district attorney’s office said.
Farzam pleaded not guilty during his arraignment on Thursday and he is currently being held in custody without bail, the district attorney’s office said. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 28, officials said.
Farzam’s public defender said in court on Thursday that the suspect should be granted bail, according to KABC.
“There is not a substantial likelihood that his release would result in great bodily harm to anyone,” the public defender said.
(Photo by Francesco Sforza Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Robert Francis Prevost, the Chicago-born man who became Pope Leo XIV on Thursday, has Black family roots in New Orleans, Louisiana, records show.
ABC News has obtained several records, including U.S. Census records from the early 1900s, demonstrating that the first American pope’s family tree reflects the complex racial history of this country.
Both of Leo XIV’s maternal grandparents, Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquié, are described as Black or mulatto in several census documents.
On their 1887 marriage license, Martinez listed his birthplace as Haiti, and birth records show that he was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Chris Smothers, professional genealogist for 15 years and historian studying at Simmons University, told ABC News that these were the same territories at the time. Baquié’s birth records show she was born in New Orleans.
Despite Martinez being born abroad, his father — the pope’s great-grandfather — was found to be from Louisiana, Smothers said, emphasizing the pope’s ancestry in the American South.
“It’s clear that the Pope has centuries-long ties to free people of color in Louisiana,” Smothers told ABC News.
On the 1900 census, while his family lived in New Orleans, both Leo XIV’s maternal grandparents and his aunts — Irma and Margaret — were identified as Black. However, in 1920, after the family migrated to Chicago and had the pope’s mother Mildred, that decade’s census reflected their race as white.
Like so many families fleeing the South at that time, they could have shifted their racial identity. Smothers called this a common “survival strategy” at the time.
“In that intervening period, they not only migrated from New Orleans to Chicago in the period between 1910 and 1912 but they also changed their racial identifiers, which is very common,” Jari Honora, a genealogist and family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, told ABC News. “Many families did this as a question of their livelihoods as an economic decision, they passed for white.”
ABC News also obtained photos of those grandparents from the local genealogists working on uncovering this lineage. The pope’s brother, John Prevost, recognized the photos and confirmed to ABC News that they depict their grandparents.
While John Prevost knew about his grandparents’ connection to Haiti and the family’s time in New Orleans, he told ABC News that their family never discussed racial matters.
Creoles in New Orleans have been a part of Louisiana history for almost as long as it has been a state and have contributed enormously to the culture of Louisiana. The word Creole commonly describes mixed-race people of color.
“To be, you know, Creole in Louisiana, to be a free person of color in New Orleans in that time really indicates that there was at some point an enslaved person that had to fight for their freedom,” Smothers said, though genealogists have yet to find direct evidence linking the pope’s ancestry to any enslaved individual.
In a statement released Thursday night, New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell said “the City of New Orleans is a melting pot of different religions and beliefs. We are thrilled to welcome Pope Leo XIV, who embodies morality, unity, and inclusivity.”
Genealogists continue to dig into the pope’s records to find out more information about his ancestry. For now, it seems that Pope Leo is not only the first American pope, but he also represents the melting pot of backgrounds in the U.S.
“They were a Creole of color family — Creole indicating their cultural background that they are rooted in this place in Louisiana, which, of course, has its origins of the French and Spanish colony with a significant West African population. And of color indicating that they were a racial mix. They were a combination of all of those ethnic backgrounds,” Honora said.
Honora also pointed to the symbolic nature of the pope’s ancestry.
“The story, the trajectory does not surprise me. But the fact that a descendant of that family … is the pope, you know, really adds the element of surprise,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Tennessee is set to hear from federal prosecutors on Wednesday regarding their request that Kilmar Abrego Garcia be detained pending trial.
Last month, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ordered Abrego Garcia not to be detained pending trial and set conditions for his release. However, after the federal government requested a stay of the order, a district judge scheduled an evidentiary hearing to allow the government to argue their request for his detention.
Robert E. McGuire, the Acting United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, said in a filing that he could call on a Department of Homeland Security official to testify at the hearing about his review of body and camera footage from a 2022 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia by the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
In a separate filing on Tuesday, McGuire argued Abrego Garcia should be detained pending trial because “there is no combination of bail conditions that can reasonably assure either the safety of the community or the defendant’s appearance in future court proceedings.”
McGuire said that the evidence he presented during a detention hearing last month “was overwhelming, corroborated, and otherwise uncontradicted by anything else in the record.” He also argued the court cannot “be reasonably assured” Abrego Garcia will refrain from committing additional crimes and appear for court proceedings given the likelihood of deportation that he faces.
The government in both the criminal case and the Maryland case has said that Abrego Garcia will likely be deported to a third country if released from criminal custody.
An official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified last week in Maryland that Mexico and South Sudan were among a handful of countries where the U.S. has deported noncitizens who have asked not to be returned to their countries of origin out of fear of torture or persecution.
Abrego Garcia’s legal team in the Maryland case requested the court to order that he not be removed from the U.S. without at least 72 hours notice should he be released on bond from detention in Tennessee.
(LOS ANGELES) — President Donald Trump defended his decision to send the National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quash protests that turned violent, saying in a social media post on Sunday that “if we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.”
Trump alleged the nation’s second largest city, which covers more than 500 square miles, had been “invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals” and that he had directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi to coordinate with all relevant agencies to “take all such actions necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots.”
While Trump has painted Los Angeles as being under siege and out of control, most of the demonstrations this past weekend over his administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration has been concentrated in downtown Los Angeles near the federal building and federal detention center. Other protests have also occurred outside of the downtown area, one in the Los Angeles County city of Paramount, about 14 miles from downtown, and another in Compton, which is next to Paramount, and about 12 miles from downtown LA, according to local law enforcement.
Meanwhile the rest of Los Angeles appeared to go about life as normal over the weekend. The city’s annual Pride Parade even took place on Sunday without incident in Hollywood about 7 miles from downtown.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom have accused Trump of making sensational public claims about how widespread the violence has been, and both have said the Los Angeles police and sheriff’s departments could handle the unrest on their own.
“He flamed the fires and illegally acted” by mobilizing the National Guard to go to LA without the conscent of local and state officials, Newsom said of the president in a statement on Monday posted on social media. “The order he signed doesn’t just apply to CA. It will allow him to go into ANY STATE and do the same thing. We’re suing him.”
On Monday, a U.S. official confirmed that 700 Marines in California have been ordered to assist in Los Angeles and they’re expected to arrive over the next 24 hours, a U.S. official confirmed.
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell has decried the escalation of violence during the protests, saying officers had been targeted with Molotov cocktails, fireworks and rocks.
But he also said Monday that the arrival of the military troops in Los Angeles “presents a significant logistical and operation challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city.”
“The Los Angeles Police Department, alongside our mutual aid partners, has decades of experience managing large-scale public demonstrations, and we remain confident in our ability to do so professionally and effectively. That said, our top priority is the safety of both the public and the officers on the ground,” McDonnell said.
At a news conference Monday evening, as the protests entered their fourth night — with some tense confrontations between protesters and police leading to the firing of less lethal munitions by police — Bass insisted the city could handle the unrest on its own.
Asked about the deployment of the Marines, Bass responded incredulously.
“We didn’t need the National Guard,” she told reporters. “Why on earth — what are they going to do? Do you know what the National Guard is doing now? They are guarding two buildings. They’re guarding the federal building here in downtown and they’re guarding the federal building in Westwood. That’s what they’re doing. So they need Marines on top of it, I don’t understand that.”
Trump bypassed Newsom and activated 2,100 California National Guard troops, including 1,700 on the ground in Los Angeles as of Monday night and the remainder on standby to be sent there, the U.S. Northern Command said in a social media post late Monday night. It marks the first time a president has mobilized troops without a governor’s consent since President Lyndon B. Johnson did so in 1965, when he sent National Guard troops to Alabama to protect civil rights activists marching from Selma to Montgomery.
Protest erupts
The protests erupted on Friday in downtown Los Angeles after word filtered into the community that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were conducting raids on multiple locations in the downtown area without the consent of city officials, including a Home Depot in the Westlake neighborhood near downtown. The raids resulted in the arrests of 40 people, 35 of them Mexican citizens, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Sunday.
Dozens of protesters began gathering in the Fashion District of downtown, where one of the raids occurred at an apparel business, officials said. Around 3 p.m. local time on Friday, aerial footage taken by ABC Los Angeles station KABC, showed what appeared to be ICE agents loading two white vans with people in handcuffs. As the vans left the apparel business, protesters tried unsuccessfully to stop them, including one individual who was seen lying down the road in the path of one of the vans.
As the raids were unfolding on Friday, Mayor Bass, issued a post on X, condemning ICE’s actions, writing, “we will not stand for this.”
Around 6 p.m. on Friday, crowds gathered outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and the U.S. Courthouse downtown and began vandalizing the buildings, spay painting profanities directed at ICE on the facade and clashing with ICE agents. Federal authorities asked the LAPD to assist around 6:30 p.m., but it took city officers about an hour to arrive at the scene due to “significant traffic congestions, and the presence of demonstrators, and notably, by the fact that federal agents had deployed irritants into the crowd prior to LAPD’s arrival.”
The LAPD declared the protest an “unlawful assembly” soon after officers arrived on scene on Friday night, writing on social media that “officers are reporting that a small group of violent individuals are throwing large pieces of concrete” and warning protesters that “the use of less lethal munitions has been authorized by the Incident Commander” to disperse the crowd.
“Within 55 minutes of receiving the call, we began to disperse the hostile and riotous crowd,” the LAPD said.
Video showed police in riot gear confronting protesters with batons and firing what appeared to be tear gas canisters and flash bangs at the demonstators.
Around the same time, a protest broke out in neighboring Compton, where a vehicle was set ablaze in the street near the iconic Dale’s Donuts sign, according to video taken at the scene.
Demonstration moves to Paramount
On Saturday, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department received calls around 10:15 a.m. that a “significant” crowd was gathering in Paramount and obstructing traffic and that deputies observed the presence of federal agents in the area.
“As the situation escalated, the crowd of protesters became increasingly agitated, throwing objects and exhibiting violent behavior toward federal agents and deputy sheriffs,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement. “In response, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) requested additional resources countywide, deploying additional deputies to maintain order.”
The sheriff’s department said it responded to the scene to protect federal agents under attack, but emphasized, “This does not mean that we are assisting with their immigration actions or operations.”
Bass said that there were no ICE raids in Paramount or anywhere else in Los Angeles County on Saturday. She said the building that protesters gathered near was being used as a staging area for federal resources.
The LAPD said 29 people were arrested during Saturday’s protest, mostly for failing to disperse, but overall it said in a statement that demonstrations across the city of Los Angeles on Saturday “remained peaceful, and we commend all those who exercised their First Amendment rights responsibly.”
Trump deploys National Guard
On Saturday night, Trump signed a presidential memorandum authorizing the deployment of National Guard members to Los Angeles, saying it was necessary to “address the lawlessness” in Los Angeles.
Newsom called Trump’s move, “purposely inflammatory and will only escalate tensions.”
Bass agreed and issued a plea to the White House to reverse the decision.
“Deploying federalized troops on the heels of these raids is a chaotic escalation,” Bass said in a statement posted on social media on Saturday afternoon. “The fear people are feeling in our city right now is very real — it’s felt in our communities and within our families and it puts our neighborhoods at risk. This is the last thing that our city needs, and I urge protestors to remain peaceful.”
Newsom called the president’s decision “an alarming abuse of power.”
Around 2:18 a.m. local time time on Sunday, the LAPD issued a traffic advisory, reporting that demonstrators were approaching the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles and warned that the unlawful assembly order declared on Friday was still in effect. Around the same time, the LAPD said it received reports that demonstrators were jumping onto the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation tracks near the Little Tokyo Train Station downtown, causing all trains to be halted as officers reponded.
The National Guard began arriving in Los Angeles around 4 a.m. on Sunday, taking up a position outside the Roybal federal building.
Protesters who defied the order to stay away, assembled in front of the Roybal federal building and detention center, heckling National Guard members and police within earshot. Around 3:30 p.m., the LAPD issued another traffic advisory that a group of demonstrators was marching into the downtown area.
Later Sunday, demonstrators began approaching to 101 Freeway and eventually got onto the southbound lanes of the freeway, prompting authorities to close the freeway in both directions, police said.
The protest soon devolved into demonstrators standing on an overpass throwing concrete, bottles and other objects at officers attempting to remove demonstrators from the freeway.
As the protest grew more rowdy, several Waymo autonomous vehicles were set on fire in the downtown area, prompting the company to halt service to downtown LA. Police said protesters threw fireworks at officers during the standoff and police said stores were looted in the downtown area.
Officials said two LAPD officers were injured by motorcyclists attempting to breach a skirmish line police had established.
The LAPD said 21 people were arrested on Sunday on charges ranging from attempted murder with a Molotov cocktail to looting to failure to disperse. The California Highway Patrol said 19 people were arrested for disobeying orders to disperse from the 101 Freeway.
The LAPD announced on Monday that the police force was going on “Tactical Alert,” meaning all personnel are to remain on duty as the city braced for another evening of protests.
As protests in Los Angeles entered their fourth night, photos from the scene showed tense moments as demonstrators confronted authorities.
At one point, police said protesters near Temple Street and Los Angeles Street in downtown LA began throwing objects at police and police authorized the use of “less lethal munitions” in response.
