If one is unfamiliar with California, the really old California city of Santa Ana is about 45 miles or so due south of the heart of Los Angeles (If you take the 5 north and then the 110 into Los Angeles, according to Google miles.).
We lived there for about 12 years in the early 80s to the 90s. It was the, um, colorful alternative to buying a house out in Riverside, like many of our fellow Marines did. It was nice because you owned something eventually. But most of them also had to put a kid in a car seat at four in the morning - with a juice box in one hand and a donut in the other - to try to beat the traffic back to either El Toro or Tustin to get to base by 0700.
Sometimes, nobody got back to their homes until 7 at night, thanks again to the hordes of cars on their way east at rush hour. Only no one was rushing anywhere in that vast parking lot of a freeway system.
Miss your window by five minutes and it could cost your commute an additional hour.
We didn't think that left much time for family anything, and with Ebola growing up with two active duty Marines for parents constantly coming and going, we wanted the time we had together spent being together, not sitting in a car on the 55 creeping along.
So we found a townhouse to rent and just sort of stayed there forever. The trade-off to being closer to both our bases was having to pay for Ebola's private schools once he grew out of the daycare stage.
We had what looked like the cutest little elementary school right across the street, but we lived in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. The school had only enough textbooks to distribute one for every three children. English was essentially a second language. Lessons had to be taught first in English, then retaught in Spanish during a single class period every time.
No one was learning anything.
Luckily, there was a terrific Catholic school down a few blocks over.
I won't say it wasn't exciting once in a while. Thanks to living on Fifth Street, I know what automatic gunfire sounds like. And the thunk of rounds hitting the roof as they dropped on New Year's Eve or some celebration.
Local flavor.
But even during the Rodney King riots, it was 'safe.' Everyone stayed in their lane.
The outskirts of Los Angeles could have been only a 40-minute drive away on a good traffic day, but it might as well have been light years. Santa Ana was so different. Mexican, yeah. But it had its charm.
So you could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw the headline on an Orange County Register email today (Yeah, still get them after all these years) about Santa Ana.
Holy frickin' smokes.
National Guard in downtown Santa Ana after protesters clashed with police over ICE raids
That couldn't be MY Santa Ana?!
National Guard units blocked off roadways in portions of the county Civic Center on Tuesday morning, a day after tensions over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations across Southern California spread to Orange County, resulting in clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Downtown Santa Ana.
As workers and visitors at nearby government buildings and downtown businesses carried on their normal routine, military-style vehicles and National Guards troops blocked a portion of 4th Street in front of the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse and a part of Santa Ana Boulevard in front of a federal building a couple blocks away.
Workers were actively removing graffiti — most of which condemned ICE in explicit language — from government and private buildings. Some early-morning downtown visitors stopped to take photos of the military vehicles and National Guard soldiers in the normally quiet downtown area.
A day earlier, reports of federal immigration authorities apparently targeting day laborers waiting for work outside local Home Depot locations sparked protests in Santa Ana. Crowds grew and eventually faced off with police.
But it was.
I guess they went to town yesterday. Alerted, of course, by the activist networks endangering federal law enforcement as they perform their immigration duties.
Clashes between protesters and law enforcement bled into Orange County on Monday, as an anti-immigration rally in Santa Ana grew heated in the evening after a day of reported U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations around the region.
Reports of ICE activity came in from across the city, including outside Home Depot locations, at a business park near Warner Avenue and Garnsey Street and at a commercial area around Broadway and Warner, according to the Orange County Rapid Response Network, a mutual aid group that keeps watch for ICE activity in local communities. In Fountain Valley, agents were reported near a car wash and a fast food restaurant off Magnolia Street and near Fountain Valley Regional Hospital. Additional activity was confirmed in Huntington Beach by the network.
According to network coordinator Sandra De Anda, at least a dozen people were detained outside of a Home Depot on Harbor Boulevard, and community dispatchers logged several others being detained throughout the day.
...Ricky Dominguez, 36, of Santa Ana, said he went to the protest near the civic center after work because he had been left “speechless” that ICE was seen detaining people in Santa Ana.
“I saw what was going on with ICE and felt I had to be here,” he said. “They’re here in my backyard.”
'Your backyard,' buddy?
YOUR BACKYARD is in the frickin' United States of America, pal.
And, according to what a furious Santa Ana mayor Xweeted afterwards, a riot broke out that was egged on and condoned by Santa Ana city council members.
Santa Ana Mayor calling out her city council and county supervisor Vicente Sarmiento for “condoning" the destruction in Santa Ana last night pic.twitter.com/uEa5HvDV8B
— James Klüg (@realJamesKlug) June 10, 2025
It got really ugly.
Anti-ICE rioters in Santa Ana, California, use their bodies to try to stop an ICE van from leaving.
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) June 10, 2025
Rioters are pushed to the side and sprayed in the eyes with pepper spray.
An elderly woman at the end, with anti-Trump stickers on, can be seen getting water poured on her eyes. pic.twitter.com/lKT2qXtYzG
I mean, holy crap - the whole place just exploded.
NOW: Fireworks continue to explode towards police in Santa Ana OC, as police fire tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper balls at protesters. pic.twitter.com/Z8Odbm2DPT
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) June 10, 2025
Now, these folks might be surprised, but the Orange County cops are not LAPD, and I don't believe Santa Ana PD is going to coddle them either.
Santa Ana, California — Open-border activists are rioting and throwing fireworks at police. "Peaceful protest," they chant.
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) June 10, 2025
Video by: @ScooterCasterNYpic.twitter.com/Qr8MIMpV86
The National Guard must have been pretty close because they were there in the darkness and setting up even as fireworks were still being thrown.
🚨BREAKING: National Guard is on the scene at the Santa Ana riots.
— Cam Higby | America First 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) June 10, 2025
I just arrived on scene, I can hear fireworks exploding. pic.twitter.com/HDb1aL5gUO
There are going to be more SAPD cops on the street tonight, and the Guard, as tasked, will be in front of the federal building protecting it.
This entire scene is just disgusting.
...Santa Ana officers will have an increased presence in the downtown area on Tuesday, Garcia said. The National Guard is expected to focus on protecting the federal building, not actively policing the larger downtown area, Garcia added.
“We support people’s First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble and protest, but if and when they escalate then it is no longer a peaceful assembly and we are going to do everything we can to restore order,” Garcia said. “We just ask everyone to come out in a peaceful manner.”
So far, all anyone is talking about is LA and Paramount, which is an LA suburb.
There hasn't been much of a peep about this extension of the interference with ICE raids, protests, and subsequent violence.
It's going to take an awful lot of National Guardsmen if this thing creeps outward night by night.
And I'm quite sure I'm not the first one who's thought of that.
This is not organic. Far-left extremists on Reddit have been urging people to bring or give out U.S. flags because they are concerned that the public seeing the reality of the insurrection being driven by violent loyalty to foreign nations is bad PR. https://t.co/5fM2ig53ix pic.twitter.com/DyqMpHXzeE
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) June 10, 2025
Jumping Jiminy.
You don’t understand. It’s “Make California Mexico Agin.” https://t.co/oPgpF3gqK3
— Stephen Green (@VodkaPundit) June 9, 2025
We can't clean these sumbi**hes out of here fast enough for me.
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