Today’s Operation Free MacArthur Park dismantled a massive fentanyl ring feeding LA’s most notorious open-air drug market.

Agents raided an alleged fortified South LA stash house, and a Calabasas mansion, seizing nearly 65 pounds in total of the deadliest street poison in America.

This was no minor bust. It was a direct strike against the cartel pipeline terrorizing MacArthur Park’s Alvarado Street corridor.

Less than a year ago, when federal agents, including ICE, targeted the same park’s MS-13 gangbangers and open-air markets, Mayor Karen Bass rushed to the scene to condemn the operation in the most inflammatory terms imaginable.

She called it “outrageous and un-American,” a “military-style operation designed to strike fear in the heart of our city.” She described the scene as “a city under siege, under armed occupation” and declared, “It’s the way a city looks before a coup.” Bass demanded agents “leave right now because this is unacceptable,” framing law enforcement as political theater meant to provoke chaos.

Her rhetoric was not just overheated, it was unconscionable. By rushing to shield the very turf where fentanyl dealers operate openly, Bass has effectively defended illegal dealing activity. She prioritized sanctuary-city optics and anti-Trump posturing over the lives of her constituents.

While she decried “armed vehicles in our parks when nothing is going on,” something catastrophic was, and is, going on: A nonstop flood of cartel poison killing Angelenos daily.

Bass’s words of outrage didn’t protect children or families; they emboldened the alleged narco-queen and gang affiliates now in custody.

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It was bad leadership dressed up as compassion.

Every ounce of seized fentanyl that reached the streets would have meant more grieving parents, more overdoses in the park, and more bodies in morgues.

Cartels thrive on weak local resistance and political hesitation. We see this in Los Angeles, in San Francsico, in Oakland, San Diego and elsewhere.

Every raid starves the beast, saves countless lives, and deters the gangsters. More raids. More arrests. More pounds of poison off the streets.

Only relentless pressure will truly free MacArthur Park.

Too often, politicians side with chaos over safety, and the body count rises.

Thankfully, law enforcement took action. And it did so because the Trump administration, through First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, is taking on the cartels and the gangs.

It’s a timely reminder that elections have consequences. And we need to elect leaders who will stand up to crime.

Richie Greenberg is a political commentator based in San Francisco.