Hynes personally pioneered a number of "anti-subversive" propaganda techniques and became a nationally recognized expert on anti-communism with a side hustle as a regional strikebreaker.

In 1938, when a new reform-minded chief of police came to power, Hynes was demoted from acting captain back to patrolman and spent the remaining years of his LAPD career as a local beat cop.

Red Hynes, who worked for the LAPD under Chief James Davis and Mayor Frank Shaw, was "notorious for his sometimes violent, legally questionable pursuit of suspected Communists, and he was believed sympathetic toward far-right extremists.

These duties included raids on 'radical' headquarters, prevention of open discussion in public parks and streets (violation of city ordinance), denial of permits for protest marches, and any other activities which would help to disrupt communists.

[8] Davis' key enforcers included Hynes, Luke Lane, and Max Berenzweig, a vice squad commander who was never able to pass the civil service exam.

[13] Hynes made a name for himself testifying before various government subcommittees about alleged communist infiltration of American institutions, presenting the materials accumulated by the Red Squad intelligence network as evidence.

"[16] The LAPD Red Squad made arrests on criminal syndicalism charges in some cases but also found that "simple intimidation or a good beating could get the job done just as effectively.

"[18] Hynes' Red Squad had separate offices in the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce building, and he had a side hustle consulting for private companies on effective labor suppression.

"[21] They also spied on "Industrial Workers of the World; Italian anarchists; Mexican Obreros Libres (Free Workers); ACLU members; pacifists; radical intellectuals; the local branch of the Universal Negro Improvement Association; radical churches and women's clubs; and a veritable host of trade and labor union locals, including carpenters, painters, butchers, and bakers.

[23] In 1939 Marxist muckraker John L. Spivak alleged that both the Italian and Japanese intelligence services had paid Hynes for reports on assorted California communists and trade-unionists.

"[27] The LAPD Red Squad was finally shut down following the conviction of Earl Kynette for conspiring to plant a bomb in the car of a civil reform advocate,[28] and more broadly "by World War II, the scattered, sometimes competing, sometimes amateurish anticommunist efforts of the American Legion, red squads, the National Guard, MID, and INS during the 1930s had all largely given way to the programs of the FBI-which were typically more centralized, better funded, and often more professional.

[42] According to Sight & Sound magazine, in the "stripped-down, essayistic" film Wilkerson characterizes Hynes' organization (and the 1920s–30s LAPD generally) as a "paid political militia, systematically breaking up left-wing meetings".

[42] Manohla Dargis described it as a "restrained if outraged" examination of how "explores how business interests and the police wielded power like a cudgel to prevent ordinary working people from congregating, organizing and speaking up".