ReportWire

Tag: hernandez

  • ‘We just want our lives back.’ Maduro’s gone, but what’s next for 8 million Venezuelans who fled?

    [ad_1]

    MEXICO CITY — Andrea Paola Hernández has one sister in Ecuador and another in London. She has cousins in Colombia, Chile, Argentina and the United States.

    All fled poverty and political repression in Venezuela. Hernández, a human rights activist and outspoken critic of the country’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, eventually left, too.

    Since 2022 she has lived in Mexico City, working odd jobs for under-the-table pay because she lacks legal status. She cries most days, and dreams of reuniting with her far-flung relatives and friends. “We just want our lives back,” she said.

    One of Maduro’s darkest legacies was the exodus of 8 million Venezuelans during his 13-year rule, one of the largest mass migrations in modern history. The flight of a third of the country’s population ripped apart families and has shaped the cultural and political landscape in the dozens of nations where Venezuelans have settled.

    The surprise U.S. operation to capture Maduro this month has prompted mixed feelings among the diaspora. Relief, but also apprehension.

    From Europe to Latin America to the U.S., those who left are asking whether they finally can go home. And if they do, what would they return to?

    ‘An ounce of justice’

    Hernández was distressed by the U.S. attack, which killed dozens of people and is widely seen as illegal under international law. Still, she celebrated Maduro’s arrest as “an ounce of justice after decades of injustice.”

    Andrea Paola Hernández, 30, an Afro-Indigenous, queer, feminist activist and writer from Maracaibo, Venezuela, stands for a portrait on the roof of her building on Friday in Mexico City. Hernández left Caracas in 2022.

    (Alejandra Rajal / For The Times)

    She is wary of what is to come.

    President Trump has repeatedly touted Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, saying little about restoring democracy to the country. He says the U.S. will work with Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who has been sworn in as Venezuela’s interim leader.

    Hernández doesn’t trust Rodríguez, whom she believes is as responsible as anyone else for Venezuela’s misery: the eight-hour lines for food and medicine, the violent repression of street protests and the 2024 election that Maduro is widely believed to have rigged to stay in power.

    Hernández blames the regime for personal pain, too. For the death of an aunt during the pandemic because there was no electricity to power ventilators; for the widespread hunger that caused her mother to tell her children: “We can have dinner or breakfast, but not both.”

    Hernández, who believes she was being surveilled by Maduro’s government, says she will return to Venezuela only after elections have been held. “I’m not going back until I know that I’m not going to be killed or put in jail.”

    ‘Our identity was shattered’

    Many in the diaspora are trying to reconcile conflicting emotions.

    Damián Suárez, 37, an artist who left Venezuela for Chile in 2011 and who now lives in Mexico, said he was surprised to find himself defending the actions of Trump, a leader whose politics he otherwise disdains.

    “We were fragmented and demoralized, and then someone came along and imprisoned the person responsible for all of that,” Suárez said. “When you’re drowning, you’re going to thank the person rescuing you, no matter who it is.”

    A man in black clothing stands in an art gallery.

    Damián Suárez at his studio in the Condesa neighborhood on Friday in Mexico City. He arrived from Venezuela in 2011 and works as an artist and curator.

    (Alejandra Rajal / For The Times)

    Many countries have denounced the attack on Caracas and Trump’s vow to “run” the country in the short term as an unacceptable violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty.

    For Suárez, those arguments ring hollow. For years, he said, the international community did little to mitigate the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.

    “A cry for help from millions of people went unanswered,” Suárez said. “The only thing worse than intervention is indifference.”

    A work of embroidery art.

    One of the first embroidery art works made by Damián Suárez as a child on display in his studio, in la Condesa in Mexico City. To this day, he uses string as his primary material, a form of resistance and defiance rooted in the hand-labor traditions of the community he comes from.

    (Alejandra Rajal / For The Times)

    Suárez, who is organizing an art show about Venezuela, blames Maduro for what he sees as a “spiritual void” among migrants who lost not just their physical home but also the people who gave meaning to their lives.

    “Our identity was shattered,” he said, comparing migrants with “plants ripped from their soil.”

    And though Maduro now sits in a jail in Brooklyn facing drug trafficking charges, Suárez said he will not go back to Venezuela.

    He has a Mexican passport now and helped his family migrate to Mexico City. After years of feeling stateless, he’s finally planted roots.

    Building lives in new countries

    Tomás Paez, a Venezuelan sociologist living in Spain who studies the diaspora, says that surveys over the years show that only about 20% of immigrants say they would return permanently to Venezuela. Many have built lives in their new countries, he said.

    Paez, who left Venezuela several years ago as inflation spiraled and crime spiked, has grandchildren in Spain and said he would be loath to leave them.

    “There isn’t a family in Venezuela that doesn’t have a son, a brother, an uncle, or a nephew living elsewhere,” he said, adding that 50% of households in Venezuela depend on remittances from abroad. “Migration has broadened Venezuela’s borders. We’re talking about a whole new geography.”

    Migrants left Venezuela under diverse circumstances. Earlier waves left on flights with immigration documents. More recent departees often take clandestine overland routes into Colombia or Brazil or risked the dangerous journey across the Darien Gap into Central America on their way north.

    The restriction of immigration law across Latin America has made it harder and harder for migrants to find refuge. One fourth of Venezuelan migrants globally lack legal immigration status, Paez said. And a majority don’t have Venezuelan passports, which are difficult to acquire or renew from abroad.

    ‘So tired of politics’

    Throughout the Western Hemisphere, enclaves of Venezuelans have sprouted up, such as one in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, a Mexican town near the border with Guatemala.

    Richard Osorio ended up there with his husband after a stint living in Texas. Osorio’s husband was deported from the U.S. in August as part of Trump’s crackdown on Venezuelan migrants. Osorio joined him in Mexico after a lawyer told him that U.S. immigration agents might target him, too, because he has tattoos, even though they are of birds and flowers.

    The pair are undocumented in Mexico and work for cash at one of the Venezuelan restaurants that have sprung up in recent months.

    On the day of the U.S. operation that resulted in Maduro’s arrest, hundreds of Venezuelans cheered the news in a local square. Osorio was working a 14-hour shift and missed the party. It was fine. He didn’t have the energy to celebrate.

    “I’m so tired of politics, of these ups and downs that we’ve experienced for years,” Osorio said. “At every turn, there’s been suffering.”

    Richard Osorio poses for a portrait in Juarez, Mexico.

    Richard Osorio poses for a portrait in Juarez, Mexico, in July.

    (Alejandro Cegarra / For The Times)

    He had a hard time conjuring warm feelings for Trump given the U.S. president’s war on immigrants, including the deportation of more than 200 Venezuelans that he claimed were gang members to an infamous prison in El Salvador.

    Maduro and Trump, he said, are more alike than many people admit. Neither cares for human rights or democracy. “We felt the same way in the U.S. as we did in Venezuela,” Osorio said.

    He said he wouldn’t return to Venezuela until there were decent jobs and protections for the LGBTQ+ community. Life in southern Mexico was dangerous, he said, and he wasn’t earning enough to send money to relatives back home.

    But returning to Venezuela didn’t feel like an option yet.

    Daring to dream

    Hernández, the writer and activist, said many in the diaspora are too traumatized to imagine a future in Venezuela. “We’ve all been deprived of so much,” she said.

    But when she dares to dream, she pictures a Venezuela with free elections, functioning schools, hospitals and a vibrant cultural scene. She sees members of the diaspora returning, and improving the country with the skills they’ve learned abroad.

    “We all want to go back and build,” she said. The question now is when.

    [ad_2]

    Kate Linthicum

    Source link

  • Pilgrims flock to celebrate Virgin of Guadalupe — the ‘mother of Mexico’

    [ad_1]

    MEXICO CITY — Edivaldo Hernández Villar crawled on his knees toward the Basilica of Guadalupe, wincing and whispering prayers.

    It was the final stretch of a punishing four-day pilgrimage to Mexico’s most venerated shrine, where Catholics believe the Virgin Mary miraculously appeared nearly 500 years ago.

    Hernández, his wife and their teen son had trekked 100 miles from their rural village to the nation’s capital, walking with heavy backpacks all day and sleeping under the stars at night. As with an estimated 10 million other Mexicans who will make their way to the basilica this month, their journey had been an act of faith, of penitence, and of thanks.

    “You endure cold, you endure hunger, you cross mountains,” said Hernández, a 34-year-old farmer. “All for her.”

    There is no figure more central to Mexican religious, cultural and national identity than the Virgin of Guadalupe.

    Her serene gaze is ubiquitous, adorning T-shirts, trucks and the walls of most homes. People name their children after her and tattoo their skin with her likeness: a queenly woman surrounded by sunbeams, her head bowed in prayer.

    Ada Carrillo, one of the devout who crowded the basilica this week, said she unites all of Mexico, transcending political, geographic and class divides. Even President Claudia Sheinbaum, who is Jewish, has worn clothes emblazoned with the image of Guadalupe.

    The Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City fills with pilgrims during the week of her feast day, which was celebrated Friday.

    A few days before the Virgin’s feast day on Friday, Carrillo looked around the vast plaza outside the grand church, where Indigenous dancers from southern states mingled with cowboys from the north and cosmopolitan types from Mexico City. Competing bands played booming, brass-heavy songs. Teenagers and street dogs dozed in the sun. A priest gave nonstop blessings, flinging holy water from a pink plastic bucket.

    “Here there are no colors, no classes,” Carrillo said. “Just faith.”

    It was in the winter of 1531, a few years after the Spanish conquest, when the virgin was said to have miraculously appeared at the base of Tepeyac Hill, a site where the Aztecs had worshiped the goddess Tonantzin. An Indigenous man named Juan Diego said she spoke to him in his native Nahuatl, and asked him to build a church in her honor.

    A skeptical Catholic bishop disregarded Juan Diego’s story at first. To help Juan Diego, who was later named a saint, prove his story, the Virgin is said to have imprinted her image on his cloak. That was on Dec. 12, a date celebrated by Mexicans ever since.

    People sing in front of an altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe, while pilgrims stop to speak to her and ask for favors

    People sing in front of an altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe, while pilgrims stop to speak to her and ask for favors. .

    1

    A man holds the cross he wears alongside a pendant of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

    2

    Alison Juarez, 14, an from Santiago Tepepa, Hidalgo, poses in her traditional attire

    1. A man holds the cross he wears alongside a pendant of the Virgin of Guadalupe. 2. Alison Juárez, 14, from Santiago Tepepa in Hidalgo state, wore traditional attire to perform with a group in a procession at the Basilica of Guadalupe.

    Now, millions come to the basilica, where the cloak is displayed, each December, with most arriving in the days leading up to Dec. 12. At midnight on that day, devotees famously sing Las Mañanitas, the traditional birthday song, for the Virgin, and set off fireworks.

    Pilgrims come from across Mexico, arriving on foot, motorcycle, bicycle, bus and even wheelchair. Many, like Hernández, knee-walk across the stones of the vast plaza to the basilica’s doors.

    The working class La Villa neighborhood of Mexico City where the basilica is located fills with trucks festooned with with wreaths and Christmas lights and hordes of pilgrims camping in the streets.

    People come bearing roses to ask for help — with matters of health, of heart, of business. They come to pray for peace for relatives who have passed.

    Others come to express gratitude for miracles that they credit to the Virgin.

    Carrillo, 46, had been told by doctors years ago that she was infertile. She had traveled to the basilica from her home in Tabasco state to beg Guadalupe to bestow on her at least one child.

    This week, Carrillo walked the steps to the basilica with her daughter, Ximena, a busy high school school student who just celebrated her 15th birthday.

    As Carrillo lighted a candle for Guadalupe, tears welled. She pulled her daughter close and murmured a small prayer. “Thank you for the blessing,” she said.

    Each December about 10 million people will visit the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

    Each December about 10 million people will visit the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

    The basilica is one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in the world, and on this afternoon drew tour groups from Vietnam, China and the United States. Inside the cavernous church, priests celebrated Mass hourly, and an electronic walkway kept visitors from lingering in front of Juan Diego’s famous cape.

    Religious scholars say the tradition of Guadalupe, which mixes Indigenous beliefs with Christian ones, helped solidify Catholicism’s dominance in Mexico. It has also helped prevent the encroachment of evangelical Christianity seen in many other parts of Latin America, with few here willing to give up their devotion to the “Virgencita,” as Guadalupe is widely known.

    Significantly, Mexico’s Virgin has brown skin, a detail not lost on the Indigenous population, today or centuries ago. Today some Mexicans refer to her as Guadalupe Tonantzin.

    Theresa Sanchez, 66, a retiree from Mexico City who arrived with the help of a cane, said she sees Guadalupe as a connection to Mexico’s Indigenous past and views her pilgrimage to the basilica as a way to “thank Mother Earth for all that she had given us.”

    She views the cult of Guadalupe as both an effort by the Spanish to promote the adoption of Catholicism in the New World and an opportunity for native Mexicans to who “couldn’t maintain their beliefs in an open way” to preserve traditions.

    Pilgrims pass by a blessing station, where a priest sprinkles believers with holy water, at the Basilica of Guadalupe.

    Pilgrims pass by a blessing station where they are sprayed with holy water inside the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

    Many pilgrims arrived at the basilica with artifacts of devotion — mostly statues of Guadalupe from their local churches. Safely bringing the blessed objects home was an important part of the journey. Many pilgrims take turns running hundreds of miles back to their pueblos, carrying a torch lighted at the foot of Tepeyac.

    Antonio and Jesús Zamora, brothers from Michoacán state, were preparing to run 260 miles back to their hometown. Antonio, 70, had recently been declared free of prostate cancer, and said that with every step he would be thanking Guadalupe for his quick recovery. She was, he said, the “mother of Mexico.”

    Zamora and his younger brother have lived for decades in Missouri, where Zamora worked until retiring from the hotel business. During all that time, he said he returned to Mexico every December to visit the shrine.

    Guadalupe Ascencion crawls to the top of Hill of Tepeyac accompanied by his family and others

    Guadalupe Ascencion from Huamantla, Tlaxcala, crawls to the top of Tepeyac Hill accompanied by his wife, Jacqueline Maximo, and their children, Astrid, Hannytzi and Angel, on Thursday. His family says he does this every year to thank the Virgin for the favors he asks of her.

    He has asked Guadalupe for good health, for a strong family and for an end to the cartel violence plaguing his home state.

    “I pray for peace,” he said. “For Michoacán. For Mexico. For the United States. For the world.”

    This year, he said, he also thought about the immigrants in America who weren’t able to visit the basilica because they lack documents allowing them to travel between Mexico and the U.S.

    The immigrant community, he said, had been battered like never before in recent months. He also asked Guadalupe to help them.

    “I prayed for my people,” Zamora said. “And I prayed for Donald Trump, too.”

    [ad_2]

    Kate Linthicum

    Source link

  • Taking inspiration from Mamdani, democratic socialists look to expand their power in L.A.

    [ad_1]

    The revelers who packed Tuesday’s election night party in L.A.’s Highland Park neighborhood were roughly 2,500 miles from the concert hall where New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani celebrated his historic win.

    Yet despite that sprawling distance, the crowd, heavily populated with members of the L.A. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, had no trouble finishing the applause lines delivered by Mamdani, himself a DSA member, during his victory speech.

    “New York!” Mamdani bellowed on the oversized television screens hung throughout the Greyhound Bar & Grill. “We’re going to make buses fast and — “

    “Free!” the crowd inside the bar yelled back in response.

    In Los Angeles, activists with the Democratic Socialists of America have already fired up their campaigns for the June election, sending out canvassing teams and scheduling postcard-writing events for their chosen candidates. But they’re also taking fresh inspiration from Mamdani’s win, pointing to his inclusive, unapologetic campaign and his relentless focus on pocketbook issues, particularly among working-class voters.

    The message that propelled Mamdani to victory resonates just as much in L.A., said City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who won her seat in 2022 with logistical support from the DSA.

    “What New York City is saying is that the rent is too damn high, that affordability is a huge issue not just on housing, but when it comes to grocery shopping, when it comes to daycare,” she said. “These are the things that we’re also experiencing here in Los Angeles.”

    City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, appearing at a rally in Lincoln Heights last year, said New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s message will resonate in L.A.

    (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

    DSA-LA, which is a membership organization and not a political party, has elected four of its endorsed candidates to the council since 2020, ousting incumbents in each of the last three election cycles. They’ve done so in large part by knocking on doors and working to increase turnout among renters and lower-income households.

    The chapter hopes to win two additional seats in June. Organizers have begun contemplating a full-on socialist City Council — possibly by the end of 2028 — with DSA members holding eight of the council’s 15 seats.

    “We would like a socialist City Council majority,” said Benina Stern, co-chair of DSA’s Los Angeles chapter. “Because clearly that is the logical progression, to keep growing the bloc.”

    Despite those lofty ambitions, it could take at least five years before the L.A. chapter matches this week’s breakthrough in New York City.

    Mayor Karen Bass, a high-profile leader within the Democratic Party with few ties to the DSA, is now running for a second term. Her only major opponent is former schools superintendent Austin Beutner, who occupies the center of the political spectrum in L.A. Real estate developer Rick Caruso, a longtime Republican who is now a Democrat, has not disclosed his intentions but has long been at odds with DSA‘s progressive policies.

    In L.A., DSA organizers have put their emphasis on identifying and campaigning for candidates in down-ballot races, not citywide contests. Part of that is due to the fact that L.A. has a weak-mayor system, particularly when compared with New York City, where the mayor has responsibility not just for city services but also public schools and even judicial appointments.

    L.A. council members propose and approve legislation, rework the budgets submitted by the mayor and represent districts with more than a quarter of a million people. As a result, DSA organizers have chosen the council as their path to power at City Hall, Stern said.

    “The conditions in Los Angeles and New York I think are very different,” she said.

    Since 2020, DSA-LA has been highly selective about its endorsement choices. The all-volunteer organization sends applicants a lengthy questionnaire with dozens of litmus test questions: Do they support diverting funds away from law enforcement? Do they oppose L.A.’s decision to host the Olympics? Do they support a repeal of L.A.’s ban on homeless encampments near schools?

    Once a candidate secures an endorsement, DSA-LA turns to its formidable pool of volunteers, sending them out to help candidates knock on doors, staff phone banks and stage fundraising events.

    During Tuesday’s party, DSA-LA organizers recruited new members to assist with the reelection campaigns of Hernandez and Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, a former labor organizer. They distributed postcard-sized fliers with the message, “Hate Capitalism? So do we.”

    Standing nearby was Estuardo Mazariegos, a tenant rights advocate now running to replace Councilmember Curren Price in a South L.A. district. Mazariegos, 40, said he first became interested in the DSA in the seventh grade, when his middle school civics teacher displayed a DSA flag in her classroom.

    The crowd at the Greyhound in Highland Park reacts to results on Tuesday.

    The crowd at the Greyhound in Highland Park reacts to results on Tuesday.

    (Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

    Mazariegos hailed the results from New York and California, saying voters are “taking back America for the working people of America.” He sounded somewhat less excited about Bass, a former community organizer who has pursued some middle-of-the-road positions, such as hiring more police officers.

    Asked if he supports Bass’ bid for a second term, Mazariegos responded: “If she’s up against a billionaire, yes.”

    “If she’s up against another comrade, maybe not,” he added, laughing.

    When Bass ran in November 2022, DSA-LA grudgingly recommended a vote for her in its popular voter guide, describing her as a “status quo politician.”

    Councilmember Nithya Raman, who represents a Hollywood Hills district, is far more enthusiastic. Raman has worked closely with Bass on efforts to move homeless Angelenos indoors, while also seeking fixes to the larger systems that serve L.A.’s unhoused population.

    “Karen Bass is the most progressive mayor we’ve ever had in L.A,” said Raman, who co-hosted the election night party with the other three DSA-aligned council members, DSA-LA and others.

    Raman was the first of the DSA-backed candidates to win a council seat in L.A., running in 2020 as a reformer who would bring stronger renter protections and a network of community access centers to assist homeless residents.

    Two years later, voters elected labor organizer Soto-Martínez and Hernandez. Tenant rights attorney Ysabel Jurado became the fourth last year, ousting Councilmember Kevin de León.

    Stern, the DSA-LA co-chair, said she believes the four council members have brought a “sea change” to City Hall, working with their progressive colleagues to expand the city’s teams of unarmed responders, who are viewed as an alternative to gun-carrying police officers.

    The DSA voting bloc also shaped this year’s city budget, voting to reduce the number of new recruits at the Los Angeles Police Department and preserve other city jobs, Stern said.

    To be clear, the four-member bloc has pursued those efforts by working with other progressives on the council who are not affiliated with the DSA but more moderate on other issues. Beyond that, the group has plenty of detractors.

    Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., said DSA-backed council members are making the city worse, by pushing for a $30 per hour hotel minimum wage and a $32.35 minimum wage for construction workers.

    “No one is ever going to build a hotel in this city again, and DSA were a part of that,” he said. “Pretty soon no one will build housing, and the DSA is a part of that too.”

    The union that represents LAPD officers vowed to fight the DSA’s effort to expand its reach, saying it would work to ensure that “Angelenos are not bamboozled by the socialist bait and switch.”

    “Socialists want to bait Angelenos into talking about affordability, oppression and fairness, get their candidates elected, and then switch to enact their platform that states ‘Defund the police by rejecting any expansion to police budgets … while cutting [police] budgets annually towards zero,’” the union’s board of directors said in a statement.

    In New York City, Mamdani has proposed a series of measures to make the city more affordable, including free bus fares, city-run grocery stores and a four-year freeze on rent increases inside rent stabilized apartment units.

    Some of those ideas have already been tried in L.A.

    In 2020, weeks into the COVID-19 shutdown, Mayor Eric Garcetti placed a moratorium on rent hikes for more than 600,000 rent-stabilized apartments. The council kept that measure in place for four years.

    Around the same time, L.A. County’s transit agency suspended mandatory collection of bus fares. The agency started charging bus passengers again in 2022.

    City Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Eunisses Hernandez celebrate at an election party.

    City Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Eunisses Hernandez celebrate at the election night party they co-hosted with Democratic Socialists of America’s L.A. chapter and two other council members.

    (Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

    In recent months, the DSA-LA has pushed for new limits on rent increases inside L.A.’s rent-stabilized apartments. Raman, who chairs the council’s housing committee, is backing a yearly cap of 3% in those buildings, most of which were built before October 1978.

    Hernandez, whose district stretches from working-class Westlake to rapidly gentrifying Highland Park, is a believer in shifting the Overton Window at City Hall — moving the political debate left and “putting people over profits.”

    Like others at the election party, Hernandez is hoping the council will eventually have eight DSA-aligned members in the coming years, saying such a shift would be a “game changer.” With a clear majority, she said, the council would not face a huge battle to approve new tenant protections, expand the network of unarmed response teams and place “accountability measures” on corporations that are “making money off our city.”

    “There’s so many things … that we could do easier for the people of the city of Los Angeles if we had a majority,” she said.

    [ad_2]

    David Zahniser

    Source link

  • Judge pumps brakes on Bonta’s push to take over L.A. County juvenile halls

    [ad_1]

    A judge temporarily blocked California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s attempt to take over Los Angeles County’s beleaguered juvenile halls on Friday, finding that despite evidence of a “systemic failure” to improve poor conditions, Bonta had not met the legal grounds necessary to strip away local control.

    After years of scandals — including frequent drug overdoses and incidents of staff violence against youths — Bonta filed a motion in July to place the county’s juvenile halls in “receivership,” meaning a court-appointed monitor would manage the facilities, set their budgets and oversee the hiring and firing of staff. An ongoing staffing crisis previously led a state oversight body to deem two of L.A. County’s halls unfit to house children.

    L.A. County entered into a settlement with the California Department of Justice in 2021 to mandate improvements, but oversight bodies and a Times investigation earlier this year found the Probation Department was falling far short of fixing many issues, as required by the agreement.

    On Friday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Hernandez chastised Bonta for failing to clearly lay out tasks for the Probation Department to abide by in the 2021 settlement. Hernandez said the attorney general’s office’s filings failed to show that a state takeover would lead to “a transformation of the juvenile halls.”

    The steps the Probation Department needs to take to meet the terms of the settlement have been articulated in court filings and reports published by the L.A. County Office of the Inspector General for several years. Hernandez was only assigned to oversee the settlement in recent months and spent much of Friday’s hearing complaining about a lack of “clarity” in the case.

    Hernandez wrote that Bonta’s motion had set off alarm bells about the Probation Department’s management of the halls.

    “Going forward, the court expects all parties to have an ‘all-hands’ mentality,” the judge wrote in a tentative ruling earlier this week, which he adopted Friday morning.

    Hernandez said he would not rule out the possibility of a receivership in the future, but wanted more direct testimony from parties, including Probation Department Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa and the court-appointed monitor over the settlement, Michael Dempsey. A hearing was set for Oct. 24.

    The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    “The Department remains fully committed to making the necessary changes to bring our juvenile institutions to where they need to be,” Vicky Waters, the Probation Department’s chief spokesperson, said in a statement. “However, to achieve that goal, we must have both the authority and support to remove barriers that hinder progress rather than perpetuate no-win situations.”

    The California attorney general’s office began investigating L.A. County’s juvenile halls in 2018 and found probation officers were using pepper spray excessively, failing to provide proper educational and therapeutic programming and detaining youths in solitary confinement for far too long.

    Bonta said in July that the county has failed to improve “75%” of what they were mandated to change in the 2021 settlement.

    A 2022 Times investigation revealed a massive staffing shortage was leading to significant injuries for both youths and probation officers. By May of 2023, the California Board of State and Community Corrections ordered Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar shuttered due to unsafe conditions. That same month, an 18-year-old died of an overdose while in custody.

    The county soon reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, but the facility quickly became the site of a riot, an escape attempt and more drug overdoses. Last year, the California attorney general’s office won indictments against 30 officers who either orchestrated or allowed youths to engage in “gladiator fights.” That investigation was sparked by video of officers allowing eight youths to pummel another teen inside Los Padrinos, which has also been deemed unfit to house youths by a state commission.

    In court Friday, Laura Fair, an attorney from the attorney general’s office, said that while she understood Hernandez’s position, she expressed concern that teens are still in danger while in the Probation Department’s custody.

    “The youth in the halls continue to be in grave danger and continue to suffer irreparable harm every day,” she said.

    Fair told the court that several youths transferred out of Los Padrinos under a separate court order in recent weeks showed up at Nidorf Juvenile Hall with broken jaws and arms.

    She declined to comment further outside the courtroom. Waters, the Probation Department’s spokesperson, said she was unaware of the situation Fair was describing but would look into it.

    Despite the litany of fiascoes over the last few years, probation leaders still argued in court filings that Bonta had gone too far.

    “The County remains open to exploring any path that will lead to better outcomes. But it strongly opposes the DOJ’s ill-conceived proposal, which will only harm the youth in the County’s care by sowing chaos and inconsistency,” county lawyers wrote in an opposition motion submitted last month. “The DOJ’s request is almost literally without precedent. No state judge in California history has ever placed a correctional institution into receivership.”

    Under the leadership of Viera Rosa, who took office in 2023, the Probation Department has made improvements to its efforts to keep drugs out of the hall, rectify staffing issues and hold its own officers accountable for misconduct, the county argued.

    The department has placed “airport-grade” body scanners and drug-sniffing dogs at the entrances to both Nidorf and Los Padrinos in order to stymie the influx of narcotics into the halls, according to Robert Dugdale, an attorney representing the county.

    Dugdale also touted the department’s hiring of Robert Arcos, a former high-ranking member of the Los Angeles Police Department and L.A. County district attorney’s office, to oversee security in the facilities.

    The motion claimed it was the Probation Department that first uncovered the evidence that led to the gladiator fight prosecutions. Bonta said in March that his office launched its investigation after it reviewed leaked footage of one of the incidents.

    [ad_2]

    James Queally

    Source link

  • Firefighter accused of setting blazes in Northern California was a former inmate firefighter

    Firefighter accused of setting blazes in Northern California was a former inmate firefighter

    [ad_1]

    A Cal Fire engineer accused of setting several fires in Northern California had previously been in a firefighting training program while serving a six-year state prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter, according to state corrections officials.

    The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said 38-year-old Robert Matthew Hernandez, who was recently charged with multiple counts of arson, had participated in the state’s Conservation Camp Program from April through December 2018.

    The fire camps, about 35 in the state, are minimum-security facilities run by the corrections department, Cal Fire and the Los Angeles County Fire Department. State officials say the program paves the way for job opportunities and benefits for formerly incarcerated people.

    Mary Xjimenez, a corrections department spokesperson, said Hernandez was transferred from San Bernardino County to state prison in August 2017.

    “He was sentenced to six years for gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated,” she said. “He received 756 days of pre-sentence credit for time served while awaiting sentencing and was eligible for credit-earning opportunities while incarcerated.”

    Among those credit-earning opportunities was the fire camp program.

    Hernandez was released on parole supervision in December 2018. That following year, Xjimenez said, he enrolled in the Ventura Training Center, a certification program to help formerly incarcerated people apply for entry-level firefighting jobs with local, state and federal firefighting agencies.

    Xjimenez said Hernandez completed his parole in November 2020.

    Hernandez’s latest run in with the law occurred a week ago when the native of Healdsburg allegedly started five fires white off duty: The Alexander fire on Aug. 15, the Windsor River Road fire on Sept. 8, the Geysers fire on Sept. 12 and the Geyser and Kinley fires on Sept. 14, according to Cal Fire law enforcement officials.

    Hernandez was charged with five counts of arson on Tuesday. The Press Democrat, the first news outlet to report on Hernandez‘s ties to the fire camp program, said that Hernandez did not enter a plea and that his attorney, Orchid Vaghti, declined to comment.

    State corrections and fire officials said they were appalled to learn that Hernandez not only violated the public’s trust but attempted to tarnish the work of firefighters.

    “We strongly condemn the actions of any individual that endanger our communities and undermine the valuable contributions of fire camp participants,” Xjimenez said,

    [ad_2]

    Ruben Vives

    Source link

  • Fire engineer arrested on suspicion of setting blazes in Northern California

    Fire engineer arrested on suspicion of setting blazes in Northern California

    [ad_1]

    While fellow firefighters were battling voracious blazes throughout Northern California, Cal Fire engineer Robert Hernandez is accused of igniting his own fires, according to authorities.

    Hernandez, 38, was arrested Friday morning on suspicion of committing arson on forest land in the areas surrounding Geyserville, Healdsburg and Windsor, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the agency tasked with fire prevention on the state’s more than 31 million acres of privately owned wildlands.

    “I am appalled to learn one of our employees would violate the public’s trust and attempt to tarnish the tireless work of the 12,000 women and men of Cal Fire,” Joe Tyler, the agency’s director and fire chief, said in a statement.

    A Cal Fire spokesperson said the agency would not be providing any additional details.

    Hernandez’s case is unusual but not unique.

    Former Glendale Fire Capt. John Orr proclaimed his innocence even as he was sentenced in 1992 to 30 years in federal prison for setting fire to three stores in the San Joaquin Valley in 1987 as he drove home from an arson investigators conference in Fresno.

    Orr, a 17-year firefighting veteran, was also sentenced to four consecutive life terms in prison for the 1984 fire at Ole’s Home Center in South Pasadena.

    Cal Fire law enforcement officials allege Hernandez started five fires while off duty: the Alexander fire on Aug. 15, the Windsor River Road fire on Sept. 8, the Geyers fire on Sept. 12 and the Geyser and Kinley fires on Sept. 14.

    The blazes, in total, scorched less than an acre of wildland, according to Cal Fire, due in part to fire-suppression resources promoted by the agency.

    Cal Fire said it was in the process of booking Hernandez into Sonoma County Jail.

    The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Hernandez had not been booked as of 11 a.m. Friday.

    Cal Fire is asking residents to take note of suspicious persons when a fire starts.

    Anyone with information about potential arson is asked to contact the Cal Fire arson hotline at (800) 468-4408. Callers may remain anonymous.

    [ad_2]

    Andrew J. Campa

    Source link

  • A Logan Square Bar Copes With The Tragic Death of a Chef Days Before Opening

    A Logan Square Bar Copes With The Tragic Death of a Chef Days Before Opening

    [ad_1]

    After years of working at restaurants, Felipe Hernandez was brimming with excitement about finally opening his own. Hernandez was a partner and co-chef at Common Decency, an upcoming bar in Logan Square. Hernandez — with friends chef Mark Steuer, beverage director Kelsey Keller, and partner Jason Turley — had big plans for the space at 3154 W. Diversey Avenue.

    Hernandez, a native of Munster, Indiana, worked at restaurants like Takito Kitchen, Bistro Campagne, the Bedford, El Che Bar, and Funkenhausen. Simply nicknamed “Bro,” he was known as an all-around good guy, and ready to take the next step in his career with owning a place.

    That dream was cut short when, just days from opening, on Friday, April 5, Hernandez died suddenly after what friends and family described as an accident. No foul play was involved. Funeral services were held on Sunday, April 14. Hernandez was 34.

    Originally set to open in December, Common Decency’s opening date inside the former Lost Lake space had already been pushed back a few times when the tragic loss of their chef temporarily halted work. Chicago’s culinary community responded in kind with an outpouring of support for the Common Decency team.

    Hernandez’s family, who live in Indiana, declined comment. They were in town over the weekend as Common Decency quietly opened on Sunday for a private fundraiser. Steuer says they raised nearly $8,000 which they’ll donate to Chicago-based Evolved Network, a charity that “provides experiential programming through culinary and gardening equipping youth in systemically oppressed communities with transformative healing, skills and support needed to evolve into masters of their unique gifts.”

    Now, the staff is trying to get it together to open the bar and honor Hernandez’s work. The bar is set to open on Friday, April 26.

    Hernandez worked with Steuer to build the menu at the bar and at a second restaurant that will occupy the room next door to the bar. Fever Dream will open later this year. Steuer says he’s hired a key member of the kitchen staff (a cook who’s worked with Steuer before) at Webster’s Wine Bar in Logan Square, with the ownership’s blessing, to help pick up where Hernandez left off in the kitchen.

    Steuer, who led the kitchens at Funkenhausen and Bedford, worked with Hernandez for years. He struggled to articulate what his loss meant: “Spending time in the kitchen with him was one of my favorite things to do,” Steuer says.

    He described Hernandez as a very “soulful” man. As adults grow older, it’s harder to find real friends, and Steuer says he was fortunate to share such a genuine connection with Hernandez. He recalls spending a day with Hernandez watching the Super Bowl and being introduced to his mother’s signature seven-layer dip. A version of it named after Hernandez appears on the bar’s opening menu.

    Steuer posted a tribute on his Instagram account on Wednesday, April 10. He wrote: “I’m not sure how to even begin to navigate a life without you in it, but I will, and I promise to make you just as proud as you’ve made me over the years. To say that I’ll miss you every day is an understatement, but I know that all I need to do is recall any of the innumerable fond memories we made and you’ll be right here again.”

    [ad_2]

    Ashok Selvam

    Source link

  • L.A. tenants awaiting emergency rental assistance receive eviction protection

    L.A. tenants awaiting emergency rental assistance receive eviction protection

    [ad_1]

    The Los Angeles City Council adopted an ordinance Friday that prevents the eviction of tenants who are waiting to receive emergency rental assistance from the city.

    The vote came one day after the deadline to pay rent debt accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    More than 3,200 residents have been approved for the United to House L.A. Emergency Renters Assistance Program, which provides up to six months of unpaid rent for accepted applicants. Only 25% of the $30.4 million allocated for rental assistance has been distributed.

    That means a significant number of renters who have been promised emergency funds have not yet received their money. Thousands more are waiting to hear if they have been approved for the program, which has received more than 31,000 applications.

    Only those who have been approved will receive eviction protection.

    Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who introduced the motion to draft the ordinance last week, said prevention is essential while fighting homelessness. She wants to stem the eviction-to-homelessness pipeline, she said.

    “I don’t see us getting out of this homelessness crisis unless we as a city truly make transformational policy decisions around keeping people in their housing,” she said.

    There are not enough funds to assist every United to House L.A. applicant — according to Los Angeles Housing Department data, there were $472 million in claims from applicants, nearly $454 million more than the total available. Applications closed in October.

    It will take roughly 120 days from now for all applications to be processed. All applicants approved on or before May 31 will be protected from eviction, according to the draft ordinance the City Council voted to adopt Friday. Renters waiting to hear back will be at risk of eviction until their application is approved.

    Eviction protection applies only if the sole reason for eviction is nonpayment of rent.

    An earlier version of the motion that led to the ordinance would have protected all renters who applied for emergency funds regardless of their application status. Groups representing property owners raised concerns that this would lead to an indefinite delay of rent payments without the option to evict.

    “We’re thankful that the council narrowed it down to a smaller pool of individuals who have been approved,” said Fred Sutton, senior vice president of local public affairs for the California Apartment Assn.

    “But there remains the concern that this whole item was really rushed in a manner that isn’t acceptable,” he said.

    The City Council motion that prompted the ordinance was introduced Jan. 24 and approved Jan. 26. The ordinance was then drafted and adopted Feb. 2. Hernandez said it was necessary to move fast considering Thursday’s deadline.

    Rental arrears from Oct. 1, 2021, to Jan. 31, 2023, were due Thursday, the same day rent increases became allowed for units that fall under the city’s rent stabilization ordinance. Tenants living in rent-stabilized units could see rent increases of up to 4%, or 6% if the landlord pays for gas and electricity.

    “Housing is a human right,” Hernandez said. “For the Feb. 1 rent deadline to happen on the same day that rent increases take place, it’s just really sad.”

    Amid the challenges renters face, Hernandez said she hopes this ordinance will provide the protection necessary to keep people off the street.

    “With just a little bit of help, they will stay in their housing,” she said.

    [ad_2]

    Caroline Petrow-Cohen

    Source link

  • Video shows deputies repeatedly punching man in headlock during violent arrest in East L.A.

    Video shows deputies repeatedly punching man in headlock during violent arrest in East L.A.

    [ad_1]

    Two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies put a man in a headlock and repeatedly punched him in the head outside his home in East Los Angeles, according to his family.

    Deputies wrestled 34-year-old Alejandro Hernandez to the ground Monday, just before 4 p.m., and placed him in a headlock, according to his mother, Gabriela Ortega.

    Hernandez’s family said he was washing his car outside his home when the confrontation began, but the Sheriff’s Department said he was walking in the street in the 3500 block of Floral Drive at the time. The deputies watched him move his hands toward his waistband similar to “someone who was possibly attempting to conceal something,” according to a Sheriff’s Department statement.

    The deputies alleged they recognized Hernandez because of his prior history as a gang member and when they approached and searched him they “felt a firearm in his waistband,” according to the Sheriff’s Department.

    Hernandez refused to be handcuffed, the Sheriff’s Department said, and that’s when the deputies forced him to the ground. The violent arrest was first reported by Fox 11 News.

    In the cellphone video recorded by Ortega’s younger son, one deputy placed Hernandez in a headlock and pulled back his arm. Hernandez tried to pull the deputy’s arm off his neck, but the other deputy repeatedly punched and elbowed him in the head. Blood pooled on Hernandez’s face as the deputy continued to punch him and tried to get handcuffs on Hernandez’s wrist, according to the video. At one point during the encounter, a deputy pulled out a handgun from his holster and pointed it at a neighbor who approached Hernandez and the deputies, the video showed.

    The deputies said they found a loaded 9-millimeter firearm inside Hernandez’s pants. He was arrested on suspicion of being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm and battery on a police officer. The department said Hernandez and the deputies were treated at a local hospital for their injuries.

    “They’re saying that a police officer had blood. But it was my son’s blood,” Ortega said when reached by phone on Tuesday. “You could see in the video how he’s punching him so hard with his fist and elbow going back and forth. Of course he’s going to have blood.”

    The department said the arrest and the deputies’ actions are under investigation.

    “As with any use-of-force incident a comprehensive review will be conducted to determine if department policies and procedures were followed,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.

    Hernandez is an amputee, missing part of his leg, and spends most of his time at home, according to his mother. But she feels that because of his criminal record, law enforcement officers continue to harass him and her family. In a separate incident, sheriff’s deputies pulled over her husband because he didn’t have a license plate on the front of his vehicle. She said a deputy pointed a gun at her husband during that incident.

    She feels the deputies who beat her son were going out of their way to target him.

    “I want people to be held accountable for their actions. As a mother, that’s what I want and that’s what I’m going to fight for,” said Ortega, who was at work during the incident but saw the video footage later. “Just because you have a badge, you think that gives you the right and that you’re above the law?”

    Hernandez remains in police custody, according to jail records, with no bail set.

    [ad_2]

    Nathan Solis

    Source link