We are a group of Fullerton parents who are deeply concerned about what occurred in our community this morning January 22, 2026. What it appeared to be—plainly and unmistakably—was the Fullerton Police Department assisting ICE, potentially in violation of California law, while failing to protect a neighborhood and its children from an armed individual.
According to the Fullerton Police Department, at approximately 6:44 am police communications received a call from a “reporting party” describing a man with a handgun jumping fences in the Woodcrest neighborhood, directly adjacent to Woodcrest Elementary School. Officers then state they were “flagged down” by an ICE agent, who claimed ICE was pursuing an armed suspect. Fullerton PD asserts it set up a perimeter while ICE searched the area and then cleared once additional federal resources arrived.
FPD’s account does not align with what the community witnessed, what video evidence documents, or what basic public-safety protocol requires.
And we want answers.
If there was truly an armed individual loose near an elementary school, Fullerton PD did not act as police typically do during an active gun threat. There were no bullhorn announcements instructing residents to shelter in place. There were no helicopters canvassing the area, no drones deployed. There were no emergency alerts issued to nearby residents. And most alarmingly, Woodcrest Elementary School and Fullerton Elementary School District were not notified, and the elementary school was not placed on lockdown.
This is profoundly concerning to us as parents with children in our elementary schools.
When a Woodcrest staff member approached officers to determine whether students arriving and those already on campus were at risk, they were allegedly told that police could not provide any information. They were not told there was a shooter at large. They were not instructed to initiate a lockdown. Children, families, and school staff were left exposed while critical safety information was withheld by FPD. This is unacceptable.
What is more, instead of the urgency that typically accompanies an active gunman, residents documented officers calmly facilitating an ICE operation: opening secured fire gates to allow ICE into a private apartment complex, establishing perimeters for federal agents, and standing by as ICE slowly walked the grounds. This is not what a response to an armed suspect looks like. This looks like FPD cooperating with ICE. That contradiction is at the center of our concern.
Fullerton PD’s own written statement raises further red flags.
The department statement describes a suspect in a white shirt, yet officers stopped and threatened to detain a young Latino man walking his dog because he was wearing a grey hoodie—explicitly stating they were searching for someone in a grey hoodie in contradiction to the description in their statement. The FPD statement also omits that officers opened secured gates to allow ICE into private property, raising serious questions about whether a valid judicial warrant was reviewed by FPD, as required under California law.
While FPD claims it cleared the scene, video shows Fullerton PD officers remaining present after ICE disengaged. Another curious fact is that ICE was removed from the complex by the apartment manager. Video shows ICE officers exiting without urgency—an odd behavior if there were truly an active shooter posing an immediate threat.
- If this were a real and immediate danger of a gunman, why wasn’t it treated like one?
- Why were school staff and the school district not informed?
- Why were NO OTHER schools notified that a gunman was on the loose in our city?
- Why were parents not notified?
- Why wasn’t Woodcrest locked down?
- Why was the public not warned—or later informed that the threat had been neutralized?
- If there was truly a gunman, why didn’t Fullerton PD act like it?
- And if there wasn’t, why was ICE allowed to operate under that pretext?
Just one day earlier, Fullerton High School went on lockdown due to a nonviolent concern involving an unhoused individual. Yet an alleged armed suspect near an elementary school triggered no comparable response. Not a peep. That disparity is indefensible. It doesn’t add up to us.
Fullerton PD asserted that assisting ICE was permissible due to an “immediate public-safety threat.” That justification collapses under scrutiny. You cannot claim exigent danger while failing to deploy the most basic tools to protect our community when a person with a gun is at large.
If the department’s account is accurate, then it represents a failure on the part of FPD to be transparent and to protect children and the surrounding community. Many of us are deeply unsettled by what could have happened in our schools and to our children if this threat were legitimate. Was it?
This moment requires leadership—not deference.
In a time when ICE is operating aggressively and testing the limits of local law, our Police Chief must be firm with ICE, not passive. If there is a genuine risk in our city and ICE is present, the Chief must demand full information. The department must be fully accountable and fully transparent. “We don’t know” and “we can’t disclose” are not acceptable responses when public safety, our children, and trust are at stake.
Local law enforcement answers to the people who live here—not to federal agencies operating without transparency. This is not about politics. It is about trust.
In immigrant communities, when police appear aligned with ICE, people stop calling for help. Crimes go unreported. Emergencies escalate. That erosion of trust makes every person in our city less safe and deepens harmful “us versus them” divisions.
If Fullerton PD violated state law and assisted ICE this morning, there is a formal accountability process—and the community will pursue it. But accountability should not require escalation. It should begin with honesty.
Fullerton deserves clear answers, firm leadership, and a police department that chooses the community—especially the safety of children—first.
—Concerned Parents of Fullerton
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Categories: Community Voices, Education, Local Government, Local News, Regional
Well written and timely. Thank you to the other concerned parents for getting this into the Observer so quickly. Too bad we have such an ineffectual City Council majority, or I’d expect immediate accountability.
This is appalling. I assumed the lockdown was connected to the individual with the gun. After watching the video of the incident, there was an ICE employee with what appeared to be a semi-automatic gun flashing a heart sign to a Fullerton citizen, which was unprofessional and antagonistic. You expect a higher standard of professionalism and character from law enforcement. Just this morning (1/22/26), there was a police community outreach driving slow around my neighborhood (by Acacia Elementary), which I’ve never seen before.
Why is Fullerton police department giving a contrasting version to what many people saw with their own eyes? What is going on here? We are not Minnesota! You cannot lie to us and say something else. This is California and you are dealing with our kids. Fullerton district, please take a stand.
Ocapica, it’s right out of Orwell’s “1984”:
“The people must be conditioned to distrust what their eyes tell them, and what their ears hear.”
Just look at The Orange Menace’s hour and a 45 minute word salad rantings and ravings at Davos: The man is clearly showing signals that would keep a convention of psychiatrists busy for a week; but no, don’t mind that. “Everything is fine.”
Three cheers for anyone who stands up publicly and denounces this administration, it’s Gestapo-like goons, and it’s bonkers leader; well done, everyone!
Don’t give up and don’t give in!
This is completely inexcusable behavior by the Fullerton police department if there was indeed an armed individual at large. Was the school district even notified?? This incident needs to be investigated further – our local police should not be cooperating with ICE, and all the evidence indicates that was exactly what happened and the local community was lied to. The community needs answers and the Fullerton PD has a duty to protect all Fullerton residents.
Just law enforcement doing their best to protect our citizens in Fullerton. Whether it’s FPD or ICE, you want the suspect apprehended and everyone to be safe. Imagining what FPD or ICE did with emotional and irrational statements isn’t helping anyone.
Federal law enforcement and ICE agents make us safer.
It is not making me feel safe. What I’m seeing in the national news is federal agents acting recklessly and with no restraint whatsoever. They aren’t going by the book. They seem to have thrown it out.
That’s a recipe for disaster.
john – sorry you’re not feeling safe. Unfortunately, the national news media sells fear and their biased opinions instead of whole picture. Just like when there’s a fire in one city in SoCal, residents in other states think all of California is on fire because of the way the national media portrays it.
The media you are watching want you to believe that all federal agents are acting recklessly, with absolutely no restraint and not following legal procedures. Don’t be fooled. Of course they make mistakes. You’re not seeing the media explain the negative impact of illegal criminal immigrants (e.g., theft, rape, murder) in our country. That’s what this federal law enforcement is doing to make us all safer.
Local politicians and law enforcement should turn over criminal illegal aliens to federal law enforcement but they don’t in California. Many states in the US do. Citizens who don’t like any of this are welcome to protest peacefully, not obstruct law enforcement.
That’s a recipe for success and safety.
I’m a pretty sophisticated consumer of news. I read a lot of sources and I read past the headlines into the facts. I have judgment and I use it. I can tell when something is opinion and when it is fact. I don’t respond to fear mongering or yellow journalism. The kind of yellow journalism that ginned up so much fear and disinformation around “illegal” immigrants and brought us to this horrific point.
What I see is that immigrants are a scapegoat as they are around the world and historically. Today is no different. I get that you feel that ice is just doing a necessary job and we should not expect perfection.
First I challenge that. Why are we engaged in a mass deportation campaign that is rounding up and deporting non criminal aliens? Administrations have discretion and they have limited budgets of tax dollars. Until we have deported every dangerous criminal alien we shouldn’t be wasting any tax dollars going house to house or trolling the walls with modern day brown bag test. It’s wrong, it’s wasteful, it’s abusive and it’s unnecessary.
Second the president is going out of his way to target blue states with massive federal agent presence. It is not proportional to even their states problem. Why are we surging agents into Minnesota? Maine? These aren’t border states except with Canada and they aren’t targeting Canadians. This isn’t about immigrants. It’s about politics. Trump is putting the hurt on blue states for performative political reasons. It’s a cold war game of provocations trying to excuse further militarization and a harder line against parts of the nation that did not vote for him
This is caustic and divisive and MAGA is loving it.
Third you’re not going to convince me that ice are doing their jobs properly and they are being properly managed and there are just some mistakes now and then. They are clearly, clearly improperly trained at best. In the case of the mom that was killed, DOJ policy says to place oneself in front of vehicles in part because this is a known abusive tactic of law enforcement which creates an excuse for excessive force. It’s a bad practice. Ross did that wrong, and he fled the scene. They did that wrong. They delayed medical care for Renee Good, they did that wrong. Ross used an epithet, recorded after killing her. Clearly he had no remorse about shooting her. That was wrong. He was on the street when he had been involved in another incident where he was dragged by a suspect. The vp even used that to excuse his conduct! Another indictment of his management at least.
And then the government immediately excused the behavior, said all agents have total immunity and the only law enforcement investigation we know about is to try to find some liberal conspiracy or to try to charge Good’s wife with something.
Is that supposed to make me feel safe? That a liberal opponent of this policy was killed on the street and there won’t be a fair investigation?
This is exactly as bad is it looks Ingrid.
So you’d like us to only listen to and watch the news media that supports the narrative that ICE’s actions are excusable.
You’d like us to ignore statistics that three quarters of ICE detainees have no criminal record.
You’d like us to ignore numerous firsthand accounts from detainees that they are denied medical care, access to lawyers, and humane conditions while in detention.
You’d like us to ignore reports from congressional representatives that ICE is denying them access to detention centers for inspection and communicating with their constituents being held there.
You’d like us to ignore the internal ICE memo that ICE is training its agents to violate victims’ constitutional rights by entering their homes without a warrant.
You’d like us to believe this somehow makes us safer, and ignore common sense that says that when masked thugs charge into communities and round up peaceful residents going about their daily lives, all of us are threatened.
You’d like us to believe there’s widespread public support for ICE actions, and that the thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of protesters just.. don’t exist.
You’d like us to believe your propaganda, rather than the facts being reported by firsthand sources.
Is it somehow possible that you are the one who is wrong?
ICE agents are domestic terrorists.
What happened RE the suspect? And where’s the video of this incident?
Brady – Police said they didn’t know what the outcome was of the search for the suspect. ICE did not tell them. That seems very odd to me – especially if there actually was a gunman on the loose. Did they find him? Is he still on the loose? With all that we do know about the incident it makes more sense to me – that there was no gunman on the loose and that our police department was actually helping ICE or at least being fooled by ICE to help them. I really hate to think that – and hope its not true. The video from a resident of the apartment building is really terrifying – and shows about 9 vested, masked men with guns drawn and a couple women agents casually walking out of the complex being yelled at by furious residents. I saw it on Instagram or maybe Reddit.
It appears here and elsewhere in the county that law enforcement agencies have come upon a loophole: ICE declares an imminent threat and local police suddenly help them. How do we get Radus to go before the City Council and residents and answer questions?
Brady, Chief Radus is listed on the Tuesday, February 3 council meeting agenda as giving a presentation at 5:30pm. I assume he will answer questions brought up by the community.
Fullerton Police Chief Radus will give a presentation on the incident at the Tuesday, February 3, 2026 Council meeting at 5:30pm where you can also make comments during the Public Comments section that follows.
If you can’t attend in person you can watch the meeting online by visiting the city of Fullerton website, hitting the “Meetings & Agendas” tab and then the video for the Feb 3 meeting. To make comments during the meeting over Zoom go to zoom.com/join or call 669-254-5252. Meeting ID: 160 256 5242 (To raise your hand to speak press *9 and when your phone number is called press *6)
• Also there will be a panel discussion and training on how to keep safe on Sunday February 22 sponsored by the UUFC at the First Christian Church, 109 E Wilshire (at Harbor) in Downtown Fullerton