LA Council president resigns after racist remarks

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 president of the council resigned on 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 made racist remarks and insults about various elected officials, while speaking with council members Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo as well as Los Angeles County Federation of Labor president Ron Herrera.

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

Earlier in the week, US President Joe Biden called on Martinez and the two other council members to resign.

The recording remained private for nearly a year until the Los Angeles Times published details of it on 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 Bonin's son as parece changuito, or like a monkey. She also said his 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 resignations 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," he said. "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 my temper burn."

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", reported the local ABC station. A Tuesday council meeting was also derailed after a raucous crowd gathered at City Hall to demand the resignations of the council members involved.