Los Angeles City Council member resigns after release of racist audio

Three days after the release of a secretly recorded conversation in which three members of the Los Angeles City Council made racist remarks and disparaged the child of a colleague, the former president of the council resigned Wednesday.

"It is with a broken heart that I resign my seat for Council District 6, the community I grew up in and my home," Nury Martinez wrote in a lengthy message.

In the surreptitiously recorded hourlong conversation in October 2021, Martinez — while speaking with council members Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo as well as Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera — made racist remarks and insults about various elected officials.

Martinez apologized repeatedly in recent days and announced she was taking a leave of absence from the council. De León said he regretted his actions and "fell short". Cedillo said he should have intervened during the conversation but didn't mock his colleagues or make racist statements.

Earlier in the week, President Joe Biden — who was scheduled to be in California on Wednesday — called on Martinez and the two other council members to resign. All are Democrats and Latinos.  

"The president is glad to see that one of the participants in that conversation has resigned, but they all should," said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, calling the language recorded during the conversation "unacceptable" and "appalling".

The recording was private for nearly a year until the Los Angeles Times published details of it Sunday. It remained unclear who recorded the audio, who uploaded it and whether anyone else was present.

Martinez focused on council member Mike Bonin, who is white, and Bonin's young adopted son, who is black. At one point, Martinez referred to the child son as "parece changuito," or "like a monkey". She also said Bonin's son had misbehaved on a parade float and needed a "beatdown", and Bonin handled his son as though he were an "accessory". 

In an emotional speech during a Tuesday meeting of the council, Bonin called for the resignation of and apologies from the three council members. 

"These people stabbed us and shot us and cut the spirit of Los Angeles. It gave the beatdown to the heart and the soul of the city. But before anything else in the world, I'm a dad who loves his son in ways that words cannot capture. And I take a lot of hits, and I practically invite a bunch of them. But my son? Man, that makes my soul bleed, and it makes by temper burn," he said.

At one point during their talk, Martinez made racist remarks against Oaxacans, an Indigenous group that resides in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. A council woman of South Asian descent was also attacked by the council members who questioned her trustworthiness. 

The incident has renewed debates about race relations in America's second-largest city, which prides itself on ethnic diversity. 

The conversation reportedly grew out of the council members' frustration over the city's various groups' power struggle for political representation. It took place amid last year's intense negotiations over the city's redistricting process. 

A City Council session scheduled for Wednesday was canceled before it had started after protesters swarmed City Hall chanting, "No resignation, no meeting" and "step down or we shut down", according to the local ABC station.  

A Tuesday council meeting also was derailed after a raucous crowd gathered at City Hall to demand the resignation of the council members involved. The council will return on Friday.