The FBI arrested a California man early Thursday morning for allegedly handing out police-style face masks to a crowd of Los Angeles protesters earlier in the week.
Alejandro Theodoro Orellana is accused of conspiracy to commit civil disorder, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced on X.
“We are moving quickly to identify and arrest those involved in organizing and/or supporting civil disorder in Los Angeles.” Essayli wrote.
Orellana’s arrest comes as federal law enforcement has faced continued criticism for its use of face masks during immigration arrests.
Federal officials say Fox 11 news footage from Tuesday shows Orellana handing out the face masks.
The video appears to show a masked man in the driver’s seat of a black pickup truck parked in a crowd of demonstrators, while another individual in the bed of the vehicle appears to hand out water bottles. Boxes of riot police-style face shield masks sit nearby.
Orellana, who is 29, according to public records, has not yet appeared in federal court or jail records, and it is unclear if he has legal representation or how he plans to plead to the allegations.
A neighbor told KTLA that agents arrived in the early morning and arrested Orellana at his home, after deploying flash bang grenades and telling residents to stay indoors. They said they hadn’t heard anything negative about the 29-year-old before the arrest.
“No, nothing of the sort. Nothing at all. No one in this block have I heard any, you know, bad news from or any gossip,” the resident said.
Trump administration officials have continued to suggest the Los Angeles civil unrest was centrally coordinated and featured paid rioters, though they have not provided evidence for that claim.
“We have made it a huge priority to try and identify, locate, and arrest those who are involved in organizing, supporting, funding or facilitating these riots that are going on,” Assayli told Fox News in an interview after the arrest. “It appears they’re well-orchestrated, they’re coordinated and well-funded, so we want to understand who these people are and where this organization is coming from. Today was one of those first key arrests that we did.”
Wearing a mask to a protest isn’t illegal, but President Trump has continued to demand that law enforcement arrest masked people.
“ARREST THE PEOPLE IN FACE MASKS, NOW!” he wrote in a June 8 Truth Social post.
Democrats have compared masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents making arrests to Communist-era secret police, while Republicans and Trump administration figures have defended the practice, arguing the masks are needed to protect ICE agents from a 413 percent spike in assaults against officers.
Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican of Tennessee, has introduced legislation that would make doxxing law enforcement illegal.
In the wake of campus pro-Palestine protests, many universities moved to ban face masks during demonstrations.
