{"id":220649,"date":"2025-09-12T10:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/220649\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T10:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:40:10","slug":"commentary-against-the-backdrop-of-the-hollywood-sign-the-border-patrol-takes-a-hellaweird-group-photo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/220649\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary: Against the backdrop of the Hollywood sign, the Border Patrol takes a hellaweird group photo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Hollywood sign has been blown up in movies, altered by pranksters to read \u201cHollyweed<\/a>,\u201d \u201cJollygood\u201d and \u201cHollyboob<\/a>\u201d and saw Tom Cruise staple some Olympic rings on it to promote the 2028 Games in Los Angeles<\/a>. Politicians have used it as a prop for commercials<\/a> and mailers the way they do kissing a baby or eating a taco. Out-of-town goobers<\/a> and locals alike hike up to various vantage points around it for a selfie or group shot.<\/p>\n

But the crown for the worst stunt involving the monument to everything dreamy and wonderful about L.A. now lies with the Border Patrol.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol sector chief in charge of Trump\u2019s long, hot deportation summer<\/a> in L.A., posted on social media a photo of him and dozens of his officers posing on a patch of dirt in what looks like Lake Hollywood Park. Behind them is the Hollywood sign.<\/p>\n

Arms are crossed. Hands are on belts. A few National Guard troops, one with a K9 unit, join in. None of the faces are masked for once<\/a>. That\u2019s because they didn\u2019t have to be: Almost every one of them is blurred out. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the team. They\u2019re the ones on the ground, making it happen,\u201d wrote Bovino, one of only two in the photo without a blurry face. \u201cThe mean green team is not going anywhere. We are here to stay.\u201d And just in case readers didn\u2019t get that la migra is hard, Bovino concluded his post with a fire emoji.<\/p>\n

The faces of these supposedly brave men are more fuzzed out than Bigfoot in that famous footage from 1967<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Jeff Zarrinnam, chairman of the nonprofit in charge of maintaining the Hollywood sign<\/a>, said \u201cwe have to stay neutral on these types of things,\u201d so he didn\u2019t offer his opinion on why a man who spent his summer terrorizing large swaths of the Southland<\/a> would want to pose there. He did say the Border Patrol didn\u2019t request special access to get closer to it as other politicians have in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was probably a team-building effort for them, or a lot of them probably hadn\u2019t seen it before,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a symbol of America. Maybe that\u2019s why they were standing up there. Who knows?\u201d<\/p>\n

L.A. Councilmember Nithya Raman, whose district is where the Hollywood sign stands, was not as charitable.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see an icon of this city used for an image designed to instill fear in Angelenos is chilling \u2014 particularly on the heels of Monday\u2019s Supreme Court ruling<\/a> which dealt a devastating blow to a city that has already faced so much hardship this year,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Bovino is expected to show up soon in Chicago to oversee the Border Patrol\u2019s invasion of the Windy Cindy<\/a>. His press team didn\u2019t return my request for an interview or my questions about whether the photo was digitally altered \u2014 other than the face blurring and the ultra-sharp focusing on Bovino \u2014 and what he hoped to accomplish with it. The sign itself looks shrouded in fog, but who knows? The whole photo has a weirdness about it. <\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Bovino\u2019s smirk in the group portrait says it all.<\/p>\n

\n

This is the team. They\u2019re the ones on the ground, making it happen. The ones not afraid to put in the work. Every person in this photo is part of our commitment to the mission. We don\u2019t stop. We don\u2019t slow down. We keep pressing forward.\ud83d\udcaa<\/p>\n

The mean green team is not going\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/hOZvSxSQr9<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Commander Op At Large CA Gregory K. Bovino (@CMDROpAtLargeCA) September 9, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a guy who came into town like so many newcomers before him wanting to make it big and willing to do whatever it took. Short, with a high fade haircut and nasal drawl, Bovino quickly became a constant on local news, selling himself as a mix of Andy Griffith (a fellow North Carolina native) and Lt. Col. Kilgore in \u201cApocalypse Now.\u201d <\/p>\n

He starred in slickly produced government-created videos portraying the Border Patrol as warriors on a divine mission to make the City of Angeles safe from immigrant infidels. He claimed local politicians were endangering residents with their sanctuary policies<\/a> and gleefully thumbed his nose<\/a> at a temporary restraining order barring indiscriminate raids like those, which the Supreme Court just ruled can start happening again<\/a>. He was there, a cameraman filming his every strut, when National Guard troops in armed Humvees parked along Whittier Boulevard in July all so Border Patrol agents on horseback could trot through an empty MacArthur Park<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Bovino cheered on via social media when his \u201cmean green team\u201d rented a Penske truck<\/a> to lure in day laborers at a Westlake Home Depot in August only to detain them. Even worse was Bovino showing up in front of the Japanese American National Museum<\/a> with a phalanx of migra while California\u2019s political class was inside decrying the gerrymandering push by President Trump. He pleaded ignorance on that last action when Gov. Gavin Newsom and others accused the sector chief of trying to intimidate them even as friendly media just happened to be there, just like they so happened to be embedded with immigration agents all summer as they chased after tamale ladies<\/a> and day laborers. <\/p>\n

Supporters played up his moves as if they were a master class in psyops, with grandiose codenames such as Operation Trojan Horse for the Penske truck raid and Operation Excalibur for the invasion of MacArthur Park. So Bovino and his janissaries posing in front of the Hollywood sign comes off like a hunter posing in front of his killed prey or a taunting postcard to L.A.: Thinking about you. See you soon.<\/p>\n

But all of Bovino\u2019s actions grabbed far more non-criminals<\/a> than actual bad hombres and did nothing to make Southern California safer. Locals have countered his attempt at a shock-and-awe campaign with lawsuits<\/a>, protests<\/a>, mutual aid and neighborhood watches<\/a> that won\u2019t end. That resistance forced la migra to cry to their daddy Trump for National Guard<\/a> and Marine<\/a> backup, with an occasional call to the LAPD<\/a> and L.A. Sheriff\u2019s Department<\/a> to keep away the boo birds who now track their every move.<\/p>\n

Greg: hope you enjoyed your stay in L.A. Congrats \u2014 you made it! You\u2019re the star of your own D-level Tinseltown production that no one except pendejos wants to see. You left L.A. as one of the most loathed outsiders since former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt<\/a>. Stay gone. Wish you weren\u2019t here.<\/p>\n

Insights <\/p>\n

L.A. Times Insights<\/a> delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles. <\/p>\n

Viewpoint This article generally aligns with a Left<\/b> point of view. Learn more about this AI-generated analysis<\/a> Perspectives <\/p>\n

The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.<\/p>\n

Ideas expressed in the piece<\/p>\n