Federal agents arrested a convicted murderer and alleged active gang member who was being paid with Los Angeles city funds as a "Peace Ambassador" — a program designed to reduce violence. His street name is "Diablo." You cannot make this up.
The city of Los Angeles literally hired a guy called Diablo to be a peace ambassador. Somewhere, a satirist just quit his job because reality beat him to the punchline.
Michael Angel Alvarez, 41, was arrested on May 29 and charged with illegally possessing body armor as a violent felon. According to U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, Alvarez is "a convicted murderer, whom law enforcement believes is an active member of the 18th Street gang while being paid with City of Los Angeles funds." Two body armor plates were recovered during the arrest.
Let's walk through this man's résumé, shall we? Alvarez was convicted of first-degree murder in 2002 and sentenced to 50 years to life. He served 24 years in prison. Then in April 2025, he picked up another felony conviction — for being a prisoner in possession of a weapon. And somehow, after all of that, the city of LA thought: "This is exactly the kind of guy we need on the peace team."
Alvarez was employed by Healing Urban Barrios, a Lincoln Heights-based organization that operates the Peace Ambassador program in the MacArthur Park area of Council District 1. As reported by 100 Percent Fed Up, Healing Urban Barrios paid Alvarez a total of $58,156 in 2025 alone. Nearly sixty grand of taxpayer money to a convicted killer with an active gang affiliation and a street name that literally means "Devil."
The Peace Ambassadors needed their own parole officers.
This is Mayor Karen Bass's Los Angeles. A city where homelessness is a catastrophe, crime is rampant, and the solution to gang violence is apparently putting gang members on the municipal payroll. Spencer Pratt put it bluntly: "Karen Bass has turned LA City into a criminal cartel."
Think about what had to go wrong for this to happen. Someone at Healing Urban Barrios either didn't run a background check on a man convicted of murder — or they did and hired him anyway. Either way, the city kept writing checks. Fifty-eight thousand dollars of your money, flowing to a guy the feds believe was still running with the 18th Street gang while collecting a "peace" paycheck.
This is the logical endpoint of progressive criminal justice philosophy. Redemption is great. Second chances are fine. But when your anti-violence program is employing active gang members who are stockpiling body armor, you don't have a peace program — you have a payroll for criminals funded by the people they terrorize.