Hundreds of Santa Ana residents took to city hall on Tuesday night, lambasting the city leadership’s response to recent ICE raids, occupation of downtown by the National Guard and how the police department has handled the resulting protests – with numerous calls for Mayor Valerie Amezcua to resign or be recalled.
During Tuesday night’s city council meeting, people said Amezcua has provided toxic leadership for the city during a time of crisis as communities reel from the federal immigration sweeps.
[Read: Immigration Sweeps Hit a Santa Ana Neighborhood on Father’s Day]
The intense scrutiny against the mayor comes after she put out a statement on social media questioning the futility of the protests and calling them “pure violence” and “destruction” of property and the city. She also accused some city council members and a county supervisor of condoning the destruction despite no major damage being reported.
Following the statement, she doubled down in an interview with ABC7 on questioning what change protests will bring to the city.
[Read: Santa Ana’s Response to ICE Protests Prompt Questions for Police & Mayor]
Tuesday marked the first time residents had a public forum to sound off their opinions to the police department and Amezcua – whose mayoral campaigns were heavily funded by the city’s police union, an interest Amezcua overwhelmingly praises like no other city department from the governing dais.
[Read: Santa Ana Sounds Off on City’s Response to ICE Raids, Protests]
More than a hundred residents – with all but two speakers taking issue with Amezcua’s leadership – speaking out for about five hours during public comment. Virtually all of the speakers also criticized the police department, saying officers responded too aggressively to protests by firing rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators in a city where more than 75% of residents are Latino.
Many also demanded Amezcua’s resignation amidst rising talk of a recall.
“We’re not going to wait until you’re termed out to see you out of the council chambers. Santa Ana will remember your complacency when we needed you the most. When we needed bold leadership the most,” said resident Mia Verdin, a resident, at Tuesday’s meeting
“We voted you in, and we will certainly vote you out.”
After hours of public comment, Amezcua said she does not support ICE and does not want the National Guard in the city but she can’t make them leave.
“Nothing I can say is going to take away your fear and I am so sorry that we all feel this way in our city. But as the mayor I am responding,” she said
Amezcua, who was booed when she first entered the meeting, said she also has to protect her family.
“Today, my home was assaulted by somebody that wanted to do harm to my family. On top of everything else that’s going on, they came to my home today. They didn’t go out and protest peacefully. They didn’t come here and yell at me, which I would have preferred. They came to my home, where my family is,” she said.
“I don’t want them going to your home and pulling your family out, and I don’t want anybody in my home injured either.”
Santa Ana Police Spokeswoman Natalie Garcia did not respond to questions regarding the incident Amezcua vaguely described at her home.
Amezcua was reelected as the mayor with about 60% of the vote or roughly 45,000 votes in last year’s November election. The Santa Ana Police Officers Association spent nearly $100,000 on her campaign last year.
Not a single speaker who showed up Tuesday night spoke in favor of Amezcua – an elected official who often calls herself the people’s mayor – with only two speakers defending her on Zoom.
Tuesday’s meeting comes after a majority of Santa Ana city council members voted almost two years ago to quietly pay out former City Manager Kristine Ridge paying out over $600,000 after Ridge alleged elected officials pressured her to boost the pay and pension of former police union president Gerry Serrano.
Ridge’s departure came weeks after former Police Chief David Valentin announced his retirement in a letter, seemingly pointing to the police union’s political reach over city hall – a group that routinely spends big in local elections.
Police Chief Robert Rodriguez and City Manager Alvaro Nuñez were brought on as their permanent replacements after serving in the positions in acting roles.
Tear Gas & Pepper Balls: Sounding Off on Police Response
Scores of residents also railed against the police department’s response to the anti-ICE protests, saying officers are routinely hostile to residents.
“SAPD says they won’t enforce ICE raids, but they’ll shoot rubber bullets and tear gas at people protesting ICE. SAPD says they won’t enforce ICE raids, but they’ll escort ICE to and from the courthouse like nothing,” said Bulmaro Vicente, policy and political director for Chispa – a local nonprofit, at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
“That’s not neutrality, that’s collaboration.”
The situation has gotten so tense that the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Chief of Police Robert Rodriguez last Friday, demanding the police department stop what the ACLU says is an illegal use of rubber bullets and pepper balls on protestors.
In a news release ahead of the meeting, police officials said their officers acted lawfully and were responding to people allegedly throwing objects at officers, including fireworks.
At the meeting, City Councilman Johnathan Hernandez was the one of the only elected officials to criticize the Santa Ana Police Department’s response to protestors.
“The violence that is being talked about was inflicted by our own police department,” Hernandez said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“I watched Santa Ana PD utilize these very tactics. They would shoot tear gas into the direction that they wanted people to flee, and when your back was turned, they would shoot you.
I still have the bruises on my back from the eight shots that my own officers fired at me. I still have the holes in my black shirt.”
Hernandez, who is running for state assembly, called on officials to review the city’s military equipment use policy and asked for information on how many non-lethal projectiles and chemical agents were fired and thrown at protestors.
“They are using projectiles, chemical agents. They’re not limited to rubber bullets, pepper balls and tear gas. They are violating state law,” He said.
He also said police officers have insulted him.
“I have seen officers tell me fuck you, I have seen an officer, in this room, tell me I’m not the one. He’s sitting right here. That’s a threat. I take that very serious,” Hernandez said.
Minutes before the meeting kicked off a group of police officers handcuffed a woman who entered the meeting chambers questioning why there weren’t more people being let in if there were empty chairs in the room.
Santa Ana Police Department Spokeswoman Natalie Garcia did not respond to questions on whether the woman was charged or what happened after they detained her. Santa Ana Spokesman Paul Eakins referred similar questions to Garcia.
The department’s silence matched the approach during the week, when city officials didn’t respond to media requests about police response or what time dispersal orders were issued.
Many residents at Tuesday’s meeting during public comments demanded the woman detained at the council meeting be released, including Councilman Hernandez.
“I was here, I watched. I didn’t see someone assault a police officer,” Hernandez said.
Councilman Ben Vazquez said the city council needs to rethink police department policies.
“We must ban the use of tear gas, a chemical weapon allowed in war zones. We must end the indiscriminate firing of rubber bullets into peaceful crowds. Protest is not a threat, it’s a right,” he said.
Councilwoman Jessie Lopez, who is also running for state assembly, questioned what was used by the police against protesters and questioned how the city will protect people’s right to protest.
“What is the plan moving forward? How are we going to work with our community to ensure they can peacefully protest without being brutalized? That is the question I need addressed tonight,” she asked
Police Chief Robert Rodriguez confirmed publicly at Tuesday’s council session that officers used rubber batons, threw tear gas, and shot pepper balls at protesters.
Residents also called for Amezcua and the council to address police using and shooting tear gas and pepper bullets at protestors.
Tuesday’s meeting comes two weeks after city council members voted unanimously to approve next year’s budget in which 38% of the general fund – or $161 million – will be spent on the police department.
A City Council Responds
Following five hours of public comments, some city council members urged residents to stand together in solidarity and not to point fingers.
Some council members said their hands are tied when it comes to federal immigration sweeps and the National Guard presence.
Councilman Phil Bacerra, whose council campaign was also heavily funded by the police union, said ICE raids are cruel, but the city can not stop them and officials need to come together.
“There’s been a lot of bickering up here. There’s been a lot of finger pointing, but I think that our community needs us more than ever,” he said.
“We can scream at the mayor. She did this. She didn’t do that. We can scream at each other. We can scream at all the council members up here. But at the end of the day, we’re not the ones asking ICE to be here.”
Councilman David Penaloza, who is running for state assembly and whose council campaign was heavily funded by the police union, said – echoing Bacerra and Amezcua – there was nothing they could do to get ICE and the National Guard out of the city.
Vazquez called ICE a bipartisan failure that needs to be abolished.
“ICE is being used as a tool of authoritarian power,” he said.
He called on the city to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to ICE for details on who is being detained, why and where they’re being held.
Lopez said the separation of families and the immigration sweeps are happening as a result of racial profiling and detailed how her own parents fled El Salvador in the middle of a civil war.
“That’s why we reject war and occupation, and that is why you’re seeing the very strong response from our community that you’ve witnessed for the past nine days,” she said.
“We do demand that ICE be out of our neighborhoods. We understand that they’re not just going to leave, but additionally, we understand that we have to speak up and that we have to push back against this administration.”
Lopez added that businesses in the downtown area are losing business due to the presence of the National Guard downtown and people are going to continue protesting against the immigration raids.
“And they should exercise their constitutional right to voice their political dissent, because I don’t know how much longer we’re going to have them,” she said. “That’s the reality of the situation.”
Councilwoman Thai Viet Phan, an immigrant herself, also said the city does not have the authority to remove ICE or the national guard out of Santa Ana but council members and city police could do better and the federal government is responsible.
“What we can do is to support our legislators who are fighting to remove them,” she said at the meeting.
“It’s the federal government, this administration is the one who’s separating families. This administration operates on cruelty, and this administration does not care about our families and our communities.”
Confronted: “The People’s Mayor” in Scrutiny
Residents also blasted Amezcua’s recent comments on social media.
A sharp focus was also on her ABC7 interview last week, when she said she “is not about photo ops. I’m not going to stand up and raise my arm and give my Chicano – you know – fist pump because it makes me look good.”
“Your recent public statements made to justify your absence defend your indifference, or what I call opposition, these things aren’t just disappointing to hear. They’re hurtful,” said Santa Ana-based rapper Jay Taj at the meeting.
“It shows a clear disconnect between you and the lived experiences of the people that you’re supposed to serve in a city that you call a sanctuary. You’ve dismissed the idea that standing with your people is some sort of pointless Chicano fist pump.”
Taj was recognized by the city for his contributions to the community at the June 3 council meeting. The mayor and the rest of the city council took a photo with him at that meeting.
On Tuesday, he told officials he will be returning the recognition because it has Amezcua’s signature on it.
It’s not the first time Amezcua has faced criticism over her leadership.
The mayor faced backlash last month after warning against a type of ICE notification policy, saying Congressman Lou Correa told them to keep their heads low.
Not long after, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli threatened the city with legal action if officials followed through on the policy.
On Tuesday, the council voted behind closed doors to shelve the policy. Hernandez and Vazquez, who spearheaded the notification proposal, dissented.
[Read: Santana: The Art of Standing Up While Laying Low on Immigration Crackdown]
“Your constituency is asking you to humble yourself, to stop rolling your eyes and taking our criticism like personal attacks,” said resident Anna Cecilia Fierro at the meeting.
“We are a community of predominantly immigrant and Latino residents. We cannot put our heads down simply not wave a Mexican flag at a protest, because the reality is that our community is a target.”
Some also said residents have stepped up at this time to help their immigrant neighbors worried about being caught in sweep if they go out by checking in, buying groceries for them and peacefully.
At the same time, many thanked OC Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento – the city’s previous mayor, Councilman Vazquez as well as Councilmembers Lopez and Hernandez – who are both running for state assembly – for showing up at protests last week and speaking out.
It’s the type of leadership and support that a host of people said is not coming from the mayor of a sanctuary city when federal agents are detaining people at Home Depots, car washes and at the immigration courthouse.
“We, the community, have stepped up,” said resident Fatima Calderon at Tuesday’s meeting.
“We have done what this city’s leadership refused to do – protect its people – and you Mayor Amezcua you have done nothing. You have watched our pain from your position of power and stayed quiet knowing we are essential to the community.”
Julie Leopo contributed to the reporting in this article.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
Spencer Custodio is the civic editor. You can reach him at scustodio@voiceofoc.org. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio.