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Episode transcript
GUSTAVO OTZOY
Why are you fucking arresting me? What am I doing wrong?
POLICE OFFICER
Can you guys back up a little bit, please?
HOST (ANDIE CROSSAN)
The voice you are hearing is Gustavo Otzoy.
He’s 57 years old.
And he’s shouting because there are three Los Angeles Police Department officers kneeling on top of him.
One on his arms, one on his legs, and one on his back.
POLICE OFFICER
[Muffled] Give me the other arm! Give me the other arm!
HOST
The officer presses Gustavo’s face into the concrete, and his arms are yanked back as they try to put him in handcuffs.
You can hear the click of the handcuffs closing.
GUSTAVO
What am I doing wrong?
HOST
Gustavo’s crime?
Putting up fliers denouncing the closure of the homeless encampment where he lived — that’s according to the activists who were with him that day.
Los Angeles is a city of polarities: home to some of the world’s wealthiest business leaders and Hollywood stars — and to sprawling homeless encampments.
And it’s also the site of the 2028 Summer Olympics… part of a larger vision to make it the sports capital of the world.
But at what cost to the city’s most vulnerable?
This is State of Play, the podcast where we investigate the ways sports mega-events like the Olympics change big cities.
I’m Andie Crossan.
Last episode we brought you the inside story of a community fighting eviction with the 2028 Games on the horizon.
PROTESTORS
No Olympics here, no Olympics anywhere! No Olympics here, no Olympics anywhere!
[Cheering]
HOST
We met Ines Alcazar who was organizing with her neighbors to protect their South Central LA homes.
INES ALCAZAR
So we’re not going to be evicted. We’re not going to permit people to come and evict us from our apartments.
HOST
In this episode, we’re gonna take a look at what it’s like for people who face eviction — not from their apartments — but from the city’s tent encampments.
Los Angeles has one of the largest unhoused populations in the United States.
Several times larger than Paris, per capita.
Gustavo Otzoy, like so many, became homeless for the first time in his life during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s when he found a community at Echo Park Lake.
GUSTAVO
There were a lot of tents there, a lot of tents. They thought that Echo Park was a good place to stay.
And like, I felt good about it, like this beautiful park, nice people. Even if we are homeless — good community, we help each other.
HOST
Echo Park Lake is an oasis in the middle of LA.
MELISSA PHILLIPS
It’s very green. It’s got a beautiful lake in the middle. There’s a fountain.
HOST
That’s Melissa Phillips, an LA-based filmmaker and friend of Gustavo’s.
MELISSA
It’s filled with plants and flowers and wildlife. It’s a gorgeous park.
So it became a place that I would go for a run, um, every day during the pandemic. And when I would go for runs, I would see the different, um, tents and different people spending time together.
HOST
For Gustavo it’s a sanctuary.
GUSTAVO
It’s beautiful for me. By just being around the lake, it is a therapy for me for the pain that I’m going through.
HOST
Gustavo becomes a leader in the encampment delivering food and clothing…
GUSTAVO
Quite a few times I hear people saying, I want to donate. So I decided to put a sign, like donation centre. People started donating there. Water, shoes, food, clothes, like, and little by little, more and more and more.
HOST
Here’s filmmaker Melissa Phillips:
MELISSA
There was a community kitchen, there was a donation centre. There were showers that were being built all because, um, the park itself had begun to turn off some of its facilities to the unhoused community there.
HOST
As the encampment at Echo Park Lake grew, so did opposition to it. Melissa says she watched and worried as public sentiment began to turn.
MELISSA
There were people who felt very strongly, uh, opposed to the encampment. And it was disappointing to see the city react that way in the middle of a pandemic.
HOST
Mitch O’Farrell, a city councillor at the time, pushed for the encampment to be cleared.
He described the park as dangerous, a violent place awash in drugs and sexual assaults.
MITCH O’FARRELL
Narcotics distribution central, is what it was…
HOST
Here he is on local TV news.
MITCH
It is one of the crown jewels of the Los Angeles Park System, and we’re going to return it to that standard.
HOST
Police made frequent visits, telling campers that they had to leave.
And it all reached a breaking point on March 24, 2021.
GUSTAVO
We started seeing police, like from everywhere. Like from every, every streets, like surrounding us.
MELISSA
There was a large protest that showed up. A lot of activists and people from the community who were there to protect the rights and safety of the unhoused community.
HOST
Melissa Phillips watched from her apartment as hundreds of police officers in riot gear closed streets near the park.
Helicopters circled overhead.
MELISSA
There was a, a huge police presence, they had barricaded a lot of the streets. Police descended on the park to evict roughly 200 unhoused people.
PROTESTORS
Why are you in riot gear, I don’t see no riot here! Why are you in riot gear, I don’t see no riot here! [Chanting continues]
HOST
Police clashed with protesters at the park for hours, late into the night.
In all, 182 people were arrested, including members of the media, on charges of ‘failing to disperse’ after police declared the protest an ‘unlawful assembly’.
The next morning, Gustavo heard the sound of hammers pounding just outside his tent.
City workers were building a fence around the park, with campers like him still inside.
GUSTAVO
That’s how I woke up. I felt like I was a prisoner.
HOST
Gustavo was one of the last campers to leave the park.
GUSTAVO
That’s how they felt surrounded by fences. And what, what, what was our crime? Our crime was not having a place where to stay.
That’s how I take it. It’s just discrimination. That’s how I take it.
MELISSA
It had felt like a community, but it felt like this community was being destroyed. And that was really sad, and it was scary.
It didn’t need to happen that way. There were so many other options. I understand that there was a lot of pressure on the city council from some people in the community who felt unsafe.
They weren’t used to seeing houselessness out in the open like that. And they didn’t understand who the people were, what they were doing, why they were there, and it was very scary for them. And they were pressuring city council to do something about the issue.
But that came at the expense of other people in our communities’ safety and wellbeing.
HOST
Housing advocates say that the displacement of the Echo Park Lake encampment is part of a city-wide effort to sweep unhoused people off the street and out of sight.
LA’s mayor Karen Bass has even said part of her goal is to clear the most visible encampments.
NEWSREADER
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass addressing Hollywood stakeholders about homelessness today.
KAREN BASS
Over the next month or so, you will see a lot of the bigger encampments in Hollywood go away.
HOST
After Echo Park Lake was cleared by riot police, it remained fenced off, preventing anyone else from setting up camp.
When COVID restrictions were lifted and stadiums filled with fans again, LA hosted the 2022 Super Bowl.
Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg brought down the house at the halftime show and the LA Rams won the day at SoFi stadium.
If you watched that Super Bowl Sunday, you might have seen the aerial shots of Echo Park Lake. The sun was setting over LA’s downtown skyline. And there was not a tent to be seen.
According to Cerianne Robertson, that’s not a coincidence. It’s part of a pattern as the city leans into a six-year spree of sports mega-events.
CERIANNE ROBERTSON
LA wants to be known and recognized as the sports capital of the world.
HOST
Cerianne is a PhD student at the University of Southern California, and she studies the impacts of events like the Olympics on cities like Los Angeles.
CERIANNE
I don’t think after the 2028 games, LA is going to take a break from hosting these big events.
It’s currently in the middle of this pretty extraordinary decade, the twenties where it’s had the Super Bowl, it might have FIFA World Cup games, it’s had WrestleMania of all things in SoFi Stadium, and of course, the Olympics is the biggest marquee event in that lineup.
HOST
Cerianne knows the Olympics in particular have a fraught history here.
In the run up to the 1984 Games, Angelenos saw police cracking down on unhoused communities.
Thousands were arrested in what critics called ‘blanket sweeps.’
RICH PERELMAN
My name is Rich, last name is Perelman, and in my past life I was vice president for press operations for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee.
HOST
Rich Perelman was on the organizing committee for the 1984 Olympics. He was also part of the team that put together the city’s failed bids in 2012 and 2016.
But looking back to those ’84 Games, he said blame for those mass arrests lies with the city, not the Olympics.
RICH
We didn’t ask for the streets to be cleaned. We didn’t ask for homeless people to be moved out. We didn’t ask for any of it, we were never involved!
This has nothing to do with the Olympic Games, nothing. It has to do with the governance of the city in which the games take place.
And we were totally private. We had nothing to do with it.
HOST
While gentrification, displacement, spiraling housing costs and worse might happen alongside an Olympic Games, Rich Perelman insists it’s unfair to blame the Games themselves.
RICH
The issue is with the local government or the regional government or the national government.
And if there was a problem because of what elected officials decided to do around the Olympic Games, there’s a process for that.
Defeat them at the, at the polls and elect somebody else. And say, well, that takes too long — [indistinct] impeach them! Recall them!
That’s what the democratic process allows you to do.
HOST
LA’s upcoming Summer Games are supposed to be a ‘no build’ Olympics, meaning the city will rely mostly on venues not built specifically for the Games.
But that doesn’t mean nothing is going to be built. For a city already studded with stadiums, LA seems to always need more.
Take SoFi, which opened its doors in 2020, and looks like a giant spaceship that’s landed in Inglewood.
It devastated local renters, sending property values soaring by up to 90%. And it will host the 2028 Olympic opening ceremony. And then of course…
NBA COMMISSIONER
It is my absolute privilege to announce the, the 2026 NBA All-Star Game will be held here in Inglewood at this brand new Intuit Dome! Congratulations everyone. [Crowd clapping]
HOST
The Intuit Dome, another multi-billion dollar stadium, is under construction right now less than a mile down the road from SoFi.
It will be the new home of the LA Clippers — and it’s also the venue for Olympic basketball.
RICH
We didn’t ask for it. We don’t have any money for it. We’re not going to build it and we’re not asking anybody to build it.
The Intuit Dome is there because of the Clippers! It’s not there because of the Olympic Games.
HOST
So what’s to be done? I asked Rich about this.
ANDIE
What about the argument that even if you say no build, it does not mean no displacement…?
RICH
Should we just put — tear it all down and, and, and, and uh level the ground and have no sport, no enjoyment, no entertainment, nothing?
The whole world has to stop and we have to shelter the homeless.
So let’s get rid of all the NHL, all the NBA, just get rid of all of it. Because sport is ridiculous. It’s a waste of time, it’s for the upper classes only, and therefore we cannot have it.
If that is your view, then you shouldn’t have the Olympics.
[Crowd clapping]
KAREN
Thank you, thank you everyone for being here today.
HOST
LA mayor Karen Bass might be wishing she could tear it all down, and stop the Olympics in its tracks.
KAREN
It will be like hosting seven Super Bowls a day for 17 straight days. Can you imagine that? That’s a little overwhelming to think about.
HOST
She didn’t choose the Games, but her government has to balance the responsibilities of a host city and the urgent needs of unhoused people.
KAREN
So what is the city that we will showcase to the world? It’s the new Los Angeles that we’re building together.
HOST
In her first day in office, Karen Bass declared a city-wide state of emergency on homelessness.
In her first week she launched a program called Inside Safe… to provide temporary housing in motels and hotels for people recently moved off the street, like the hundreds who were kicked out of Echo Park Lake.
KAREN
Inside Safe is our proactive rejection of a status quo that left unhoused Angelenos to wait and die outside in encampments until permanent housing was built.
HOST
For a city with more than 45,000 unhoused people, the challenge is monumental.
After more than a year, only about 500 people who participated in the program — that’s just around 20 per cent — have moved into permanent housing.
But the overly restrictive rules, such as curfews and guest restrictions, in the city’s temporary shelter system don’t work for a lot of unhoused people, including Gustavo.
GUSTAVO
It’s another way for being in prison. There’s no privacy at all. They can come to your room whenever they want to. So, like you are in jail.
HOST
After Echo Park Lake was cleared, Gustavo did his best to fight back.
GUSTAVO
[Muffled] You’re hurting me, motherfuckers!
HOST
That was what you heard at the beginning of this episode — Gustavo’s arrest while protesting the fence that was erected around the park to keep homeless people out.
POLICE OFFICER
Can you guys back up a little bit, please? [“Back it up!”]
GUSTAVO
Don’t do it!
Why are you fucking arresting me?
HOST
He became a frequent voice at housing protests.
Here’s Gustavo giving one of his fiery speeches.
GUSTAVO
We are the people. We are the community. We are justice. We are street watchers, and we will never rest until we get rid of those people that are running the city hall. [Cheering and clapping].
HOST
In December, hundreds of people took to the streets of LA to protest soaring rents across the city.
ANNIE POWERS
Hey everyone, um, we’re going to read, and then we’re going to ask everyone to stand together…
HOST
But Gustavo was not there.
ANNIE
Gustavo always had a warm smile, a welcoming ear, and a creative idea for an action or a banner.
HOST
Only days earlier, organizers learned Gustavo had died.
This is not just a protest. It’s a memorial.
ANNIE
But he never wanted to do anything alone. He always recruited others to help him.
He strongly believed in the importance of doing things together, and through that process, building new relationships of love, support, and family.
Yo soy Gustavo.
CROWD
Yo soy Gustavo!
ANNIE
Gustavo was attacked and harassed by the police over and over, but he was never afraid.
He was ready and willing to stand up and fight because he saw himself as part of a much larger movement, the tenant movement.
Gustavo never gave up his own struggle because he knew that it was connected deeply to the struggle of all the tenants, no matter where they live, whether they have a house or not.
Yo soy Gustavo.
CROWD
Yo soy Gustavo!
HOST
Gustavo Otzoy passed away in late November — he was alone in a tent. He was 57 years old.
PROTESTOR
We are gonna, we’re gonna listen to the band play in honour of Gustavo. Please take off your hats.
[Band playing music]
[Clapping]
HOST
Mayor Karen Bass’ office did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.
Next time on State of Play…
We meet a gold medalist who’s changing the game as an urban planner.
CHRISTINE NESBITT
I mean it’s quite visible these days, the dark underbelly of hosting the games…
HOST
And we ask experts, how do we fix it?
JULES BOYKOFF
A no brainer for me, is to have a public referendum for every single Olympic bid.
HOST
State of Play is brought to you by the Global Reporting Centre and PRX.
Hosted by me, Andie Crossan.
Produced by Sharon Nadeem and Katarina Sabados.
Our senior producers are Sarah Berman and Jesse Winter.
Audio post-production by Newfruit Media with sound editing and mixing by Daniel Murcia and Daniel Rinaldi.
Digital production by Andrew Munroe.
Archive by Bea Lehmann.
Fact checking by Juliana Konrad
Art by Will Brown.
Our executive producer is Britney Dennison.
Special thanks to Ian Midgley.
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