Two code enforcement officers in the Inland Empire waged a years-long campaign of aggression against mostly immigrant street vendors, entering homes without warrants, engaging in fights and foot chases and improperly seizing people’s property, according to a bombshell report commissioned by the city of Riverside last year.
The report, obtained by The Times through the city’s public records portal, identified potential violations of state and local law by senior code enforcement officers Mark Ilagan and Mark Hernandez, including allegations of theft, robbery, kidnapping, unlawful entry, impersonating a peace officer and, in the case of Ilagan alone, battery. It’s unclear whether the city referred the allegations to prosecutors for possible criminal charges.
Of critical concern, according to the report, was that much of the “long-standing misconduct” appeared to have been directed at “individuals who are disproportionately Latino or Asian, who may be undocumented, who may not speak English as their primary language, and who, as a result, are particularly vulnerable and often reluctant to report mistreatment to authorities.”
The investigation also faulted the officers’ supervisors for failing to follow up on complaints from a subordinate about the two officers. The day after the subordinate filed an official complaint, she was escorted from City Hall in front of other workers, the report states.
The city hired the investigator to look into the worker’s complaint and produce the report.
The actions of the officers and their supervisors, Community and Economic Development Director Jennifer Lilley and her deputy Chris Christopoulos, “exposed the City of Riverside to extreme civil liability and an erosion of public trust through discriminatory practices,” the investigator wrote.
Those named in the investigation no longer work for the city of Riverside. Hernandez could not be reached for comment. Christopoulos, who is now special projects manager for the city of Anaheim, did not respond to a message seeking comment. Lilley told The Times via text message that the report contained inaccuracies and statements taken out of context. Multiple phone numbers listed for Hernandez in public records were disconnected, and messages left at other numbers went unreturned.
Ilagan, now code compliance inspector supervisor for the city of Chino, denied the allegations in the report.
Colleagues described Hernandez and Ilagan as close, telling the report’s investigator they’d often go out on calls as a pair.
“They want to play cops and robbers everyday together,” one person said, according to the report.
While code enforcement officers typically wear button-downs or polo shirts, Hernandez and Ilagan opted for load-bearing, tactical-style vests adorned with badges and insisted on sporting their own body-worn cameras, even after a manager issued a directive prohibiting their use, the report states.
Unlike sworn law enforcement, Riverside’s code enforcement officers don’t have the authority to detain or arrest people, carry firearms or seize property other than perishable food.
But the investigator found that Ilagan and Hernandez were chasing street vendors on foot and pinning in vehicles so they couldn’t drive away. Hernandez acknowledged to the investigator that he followed vendors into parking garages and post offices and coordinated with other officers to “cut off” those who attempted to leave, the report states.
“Evidence reflects a sustained pattern of improper behavior” that spanned approximately seven years in the case of Ilagan and “many years” in the case of Hernandez, the report says. Both officers also trained newer officers, “further perpetuating a culture of misconduct,” the investigator wrote.
The investigator described a “systematic pattern of unauthorized property seizure” in which the duo confiscated vendor equipment and merchandise — not food, as they’re allowed — and would not provide receipts, preventing the vendors from reclaiming their property. They also instructed subordinates to do so, several officers told the investigator.
The officers would store some of the seized items in an unlocked City Hall office nicknamed “the vault,” which became filled with light-up balloons, flowers, stuffed animals and beanies, according to the report.
As an aside, the report author noted that a video recovered from Hernandez’s city-owned laptop showed his toddler son playing in a room full of plush toys “which are of an exact nature that are sold by various unlicensed street vendors,” but did not conclude he had misappropriated seized property.
The report found multiple instances of physical confrontations and coercive behavior by the two officers, “however the total number of these improper and most likely illegal interactions is unknown,” the investigator wrote.
One such incident took place in 2023 at the Festival of Lights celebration, the report stated. There was a husband and wife couple selling lights and toys from a cart without a permit. When they stepped away from the cart for a moment to make a sale, Hernandez grabbed the cart and started to wheel it away, one of his coworkers told the investigator.
The couple returned and a physical struggle ensued, drawing a crowd who accused the officers of racial profiling and harassment, another co-worker said. Eventually, police arrived to break it up and Hernandez and Ilagan took the cart and the couple’s items, according to the report.
During another incident on the Fourth of July in 2024, when the code officers were assigned to fireworks suppression, Hernandez approached a taco vendor with whom he had a contentious history, an officer told the investigator. According to the officer’s account, Ilagan put the vendor in some sort of “wrist lock” when he and Hernandez scuffled over a cutting board and police had to once again intervene. Ultimately, another code enforcement officer returned the vendor’s items from the back of the officers’ vehicle, the report said.
Colleagues also told the investigator that Ilagan had displayed a mannequin head in his cubicle that they presumed was taken during a vendor sweep, with one co-worker saying it was “kinda like slapping [vendors] in the face.”
Though code enforcement officers respond to vacant and blighted properties, they usually let the legal system work — providing notice to landlords and giving them time to fix violations. If they don’t, officers can obtain a warrant to enter.
But Hernandez and Ilagan didn’t always follow these rules, the report states.
In one instance, when Hernandez suspected homeless people were inside a supposedly unoccupied home, he called police and had them force entry with a battering ram, a code officer told the investigator. The property was already going through probate and eviction proceedings, which would typically prompt code officers to hold off on enforcement efforts, the officer said. He felt the move was not legal, and he was so uncomfortable that he left the scene, he told the investigator.
During another incident, Hernandez and Ilagan went to a home to post a code notice, according to the report. Multiple police officers also responded to assist them.
Surveillance video later captured Ilagan in the backyard, where two of the police officers snapped a skateboard in half and were charged with vandalism after the footage went viral.
Once the incident received media attention, Ilagan went back into an internal system used to document code officers’ work and uploaded additional information, as if he was seeking to “cover himself” and justify his presence in the yard, according to the complainant, who provided audit trail evidence to the investigator.
Another officer told the investigator that Hernandez and Ilagan had people removed from homes by telling police that buildings were red-tagged or condemned when, in fact, they were not.
The investigator described the tactics as part of a pattern in which Hernandez and Ilagan sought to invoke the authority of sworn law enforcement. They pushed for the code enforcement division to equip its officers with radios on the police department’s operating frequency, IDs that mirrored those issued to sworn officers and “more paramilitary-style uniforms,” according to the report.
Some officers expressed concerns that such changes would escalate tensions with the community and put code officers in danger.
“This push to ‘appear’ police-like presents a critical and severe threat to Code Enforcement personnel, who lack the authority and training and therefore, the ability to defend themselves in any encounters in which it would be required,” the investigator wrote. “The crippling liability to the city, in this regard, is high.”
The investigation also found that the officers created or contributed to a hostile workplace environment, citing an inappropriate YouTube video about gay cowboys they’d play in front of colleagues.
A code enforcement officer who worked under Ilagan raised concerns about his and Hernandez’s behavior beginning in August 2024, saying she witnessed them taking things from vendors and threatening them with jail, which she described as illegal.
“People that do that lack integrity and as a public servant, as a code enforcement officer, integrity is everything,” she said in an interview with The Times. She asked to remain anonymous due to fears of retaliation.
After running her complaints up the chain of command, the whistleblower outlined her concerns in two meetings with Lilley and Christopoulos, in September 2024 and January 2025, but no action was taken, she said. If anything, the men’s behavior grew more egregious, she said. At the second meeting, during which she also alleged the men were entering homes without warrants, Lilley told the officer that human resources had concluded nothing about the officers’ conduct was “actionable,” she said.
“I told her, ‘You can’t tell me it’s not actionable, because right is right and wrong is wrong,’ and what they were doing was beyond wrong,” she said.
Weeks later, the supervisors arranged a meeting between the men and the whistleblower, revealing her as the source of the complaints, she said. The report characterized that meeting as retaliatory.
The woman had already put in her two-week notice after securing a job elsewhere. Two days before her last day, she was escorted from City Hall, supposedly for making a statement about “blowing the place up” in front of a colleague a month or two prior, she said.
“What I had stated was that I would watch the flames in my rearview mirror, because there was a large group of us in that department [who] called our place of employment a dumpster fire,” she said. “We literally had dumpster fire stickers on our desk because that’s what our department had become.”
She believes her superiors sought to make an example out of her so others would fall in line, a finding echoed by the report. “This action sends a chilling message to other employees about the consequences of reporting Misconduct,” the investigator wrote.
The investigation sustained findings against Lilley and Christopoulos of creating a hostile work environment, failing to investigate complaints and failing to secure or review footage from the officers’ body-worn cameras after becoming aware of their use. The report also concluded that Lilley had demonstrated a pattern of deceit and dishonesty by claiming that she’d made human resources aware of the allegations, which those employees denied to the investigator.
It’s unclear what steps city officials took after receiving the investigative report, which was submitted to the city on Aug. 29, 2025. Neither the mayor, the city manager, nor any member of the City Council would speak to The Times for this story. Some cited confidentiality limitations on discussing personnel issues.
Ilagan said he resigned last May. He recently sent a demand letter to Riverside’s mayor, city manager, City Council and other officials in which he wrote that his current employer has received multiple anonymous emails alleging he was being investigated for criminal activity and fled Riverside before he could be terminated, which he denied. The emails contained confidential personnel information, suggesting the investigation was not impartial and may have been compromised from the outset, he wrote.
“Due to the apparent harassment, false statements, and release of confidential information during an open investigation, I will have no choice but to escalate this matter further, including possible attorney involvement,” he wrote.
Christopoulos left the city in July 2025 and Hernandez in April, according to a city spokesperson. It’s unclear what circumstances led to their departures.
Lilley previously said the city terminated her contract in March.
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