Jessica Juarez was walking along Alondora Boulevard in garbage bags full of used gas cans.
The volunteers were Paramount’s parents and neighbors, armed with plastic bags, latex gloves and face masks.
The smell of infection lingered in the air the day after law enforcement fired gas cans and flash bang grapes at protesters on Alondra Boulevard.
“I’m proud of our community, the strength we’ve shown,” said Juarez, 40. “It’s like they put so much fear on Paramount, and for what? These guys didn’t even clean themselves.”
Paramount was thrown into the national spotlight over the weekend as the Trump administration said it would send 2,000 National Guard to Los Angeles after the second day when protesters stood up to immigration agents during a local business raid.
Tensions rose again on Sunday in the Los Angeles area as they faced off against federal and local governments in downtown Los Angeles
Paramount, a small city of 54,000 people in southeastern Los Angeles County, is known for how residents and government officials worked in the 1980s to turn their hometowns from a devastated “rust belt” community into a nationally award-winning community.
The city’s website says crime in Paramount, where over 80% of residents are Latino, has fallen to an all-time low.
Residents say the chaotic clash between federal immigration authorities and protesters on Saturday rocked them.
The focus at the intersection outside the Home Depot at the Alondra Boulevard Show, where Flash Bang Grenades left, is focused.
Several police agencies responded to the city over the weekend. By Sunday morning, a group of camouflaged National Guard forces was stationed at the business park along with armored vehicles with the Department of Homeland Security.
Union organizers and local residents Ardelia Aldridge and Alejandro Maldonado helped organize cleaning efforts in the neighborhood.
“Sunday is solidarity,” Aldridge said.
Smoke-covered and caught between police by police on a riot device, the image of Paramount is far from the close-knit community once dubbed “National City” and received a special recognition from the LA County Board of Supervisors for its conversion.
“The whole community is just praying that things remain in peace and that the community moves forward,” Mayor Peggy Lemons said in an interview Sunday.
“Paramount was about a community of blue-collar workers who are doing their best to get their every day,” Lemons said.
“There are people who are angry that the federal government comes to their cities today,” she said. “It comes from fear.”
On Saturday, federal officials fired a canister of smoke at protesters near the business park, and the rotten green smoke fell into the nearby residential community.
“What else do you call, attacks on Paramount and the people who live here?” Maldonado said. “People in the community were facing unfair immigration policies.”
In many respects, Paramount was the starting point for the federal government’s escalation that brought the National Guard.
“It seems like they want to choose a fight with a little guy,” Aldridge said.
There was obvious fear in the community, and the Rev. Brian Worth of the Chapel of Change said the band played a bright song during Sunday service.
He saw police fire tear gas on Saturday afternoon and headed out Sunday morning to help clean Alondra Boulevard. He understands that some people may have been out of control during the protest, but he believes that those outside the business park simply wanted the answer.
“And we still don’t know what will happen next,” he said.
“I am delighted and shocked to meet the people here today,” he said of the Sunday service. “I really have feelings of not knowing. God is good. Paramount is good.”
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