DSA councilwoman accused of suddenly halting search for bodies in LA’s MacArthur Park lake

A high-tech search for bodies, guns and other grim evidence believed to be hidden beneath MacArthur Park Lake was suddenly halted Monday — apparently on the orders of a lefty Los Angeles pol, The California Post has learned.

Park rangers said they shut down the planned operation after intervention from LA City Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, who did not immediately return a request for comment.

The operation — months in the making — was designed to scan the bottom of the murky lake for human remains, weapons and other possible criminal evidence long rumored to be submerged there. 

A high-tech search for bodies, guns and other grim evidence believed to be hidden beneath MacArthur Park Lake was suddenly halted Monday. Ringo Chiu

Local businessman John Alle, who helped organize the effort and co-founded the Santa Monica Coalition to address homelessness, said it grew out of conversations with people whose loved ones disappeared after spending time in or around the decrepit park.

Alle hired sonar and remotely operated vehicle specialist Robert Fallon, whose work typically involves scanning oceans, harbors, shipwrecks and municipal infrastructure in zero-visibility, high-risk environments.

Alle said he reached out to city officials in advance and was told he did not need a special permit to proceed, because the operation posed no environmental disturbance. No one was set to enter the lake and nothing would be removed from it.

As recently as Sunday, Alle said, park rangers confirmed the crew had the green light.

That changed when Fallon’s team arrived Monday morning with their equipment staged and ready.

Alle said the lead park ranger told them the operation had to stop — first saying that Hernandez, a Democratic Socialists of America-backed lawmaker, had stepped in, then later saying her office had called.

Rangers threatened to arrest the crew if they didn’t halt the operation, Alle claimed, and ultimately issued the team a parking ticket as the project was shut down.

“People were bent over, shooting up, overdosing right next to us while we were being shut,” Alle told The Post. “I pointed it out and said, ‘Do you think that might be more important than what we’re trying to do?’ Because when they die, that’s going to be a bigger issue.”

The Post has spent more than a month reporting from MacArthur Park and has repeatedly witnessed the same bleak conditions described by Alle and Fallon: open drug use in broad daylight, people slumped unconscious on benches and grass, burned debris from overnight fires, needles scattered near walkways and playgrounds and trash piling up along the lake’s edge.

Alle said the motivation behind the operation wasn’t political — it was humanitarian.

“Forty thousand people live within one square mile here,” he said. “Families. Kids. This used to be one of the most beautiful parks in Los Angeles. Now people are scared to walk through it.

“We wanted to show the city what’s really happening,” Alle said. “Above the water and below it.”

Fallon said his team regularly works in environments where visibility is zero, using sonar to identify submerged objects without disturbing them.

Park rangers said they shut down the planned operation after intervention from LA City Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The same technology, he said, would have allowed crews to identify anything resting on the lake bottom — from wheelchairs and bikes to guns, knives or bodies — without putting a person in harm’s way.

Fallon said the conditions at MacArthur Park Lake made traditional diving unsafe.

“This is one of the dirtiest bodies of water I’ve ever seen,” Fallon said. “You’ve got layers of trash, debris, dead animals, human waste, needles — all of it. There’s constant dumping going on.

“Sonar would have picked up anything,” Fallon said. “Without putting a human being in that water.”

Alle also addressed the question many residents and investigators ask but rarely hear answered: how bodies could remain hidden in a shallow public lake for years.

“We kept asking one question — how are the bodies not surfacing?” Alle said. “And what we were told is they’re weighted down, tied to bicycles, wheelchairs, whatever they could find.”

During Monday’s visit, an ambulance arrived and transported a person who appeared to have overdosed while activity in the park continued around them.

The California Post reached out to Hernandez’s office for comment, including whether she or her staff directed park rangers to shut down the operation, but did not receive a response by publication time.

As of Monday afternoon, the sonar search had not been rescheduled.