Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez resigned Monday after she was caught in leaked audio saying racist remarks about a colleague’s Black child and Oaxacan immigrants in LA.
Initially, Martinez released an apology that pointed the blame at her “intense frustration and anger.”
NEW: @CD6Nury has issued a statement apologizing for comments she made in a leaked audio recording, which was obtained by the @latimes. In it she makes racist remarks about @mikebonin‘s son among other things. https://t.co/3EGYquZDH0 pic.twitter.com/77BqOYFSOB
— Benjamin Oreskes? (@boreskes) October 9, 2022
Yet the day after, she claimed she took responsibility for her words and reached out to Black colleagues and officials she knew to apologize.
“Therefore, effective immediately, I am resigning as President of the Los Angeles City Council.”
NEWS: “I am resigning as President of the Los Angeles City Council,” @CD6Nury. https://t.co/3EGYquZDH0 pic.twitter.com/Sm11uj9jIw
— Benjamin Oreskes? (@boreskes) October 10, 2022
Martinez was heard in the audio conversing with Councilmembers Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo and LA Labor Federation President Ron Herrera. While they were discussing various topics, the main one was about LA City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas’s suspension and possible resignation amid federal corruption charges he obtained last year.
In different parts of the audio, racist comments spewed from Martinez’s mouth without any defense or correction from León, Cedillo, and Herrera.
Knock LA posted the entire audio.
“F**k that guy,” Martinez said around the 37:08 mark. “He’s with the Blacks.”
Around 34:29, Martinez began talking about a white colleague’s Black child misbehaving while on the same float she was on during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in the city.
“It’s like the oddest thing,” she started saying. “It’s like Black and Brow on this float, and then there’s this white guy with his little Black kid, who’s misbehaved. Este niño (this kid) has no…he’s not; they’re (the child’s parents) not doing (nothing).”
She then described his actions on the float and called the Black child a monkey in Spanish.
“The kid’s bouncing off the effing walls on the float, practically tipping it over,” she continued. “There’s nothing you can do to control him…parece changuito (translation: ‘looks like a monkey’).”
Martinez, a mother of one, judged the child’s parents for not spanking him, claiming they were raising him like a “white kid” and said the kid needed a “beat down,” declaring she would’ve given him one herself.
“…let me take him around the corner, and then I’ll bring him back,” she stated in the audio.
At the 1:11:26 mark, she made fun of the Oaxacan people.
“I see a lot of little short dark people,” she said while laughing.
Cedillo jumped in and told her they were “Oaxacan Korean. Not even like Kevin, little ones.”
“I was like, I don’t know what village they came from, how they got here, but…,” Martinez stated.
Protesters gathered outside of Martinez’s house demanding her resignation, causing the resigned Council President to send a squad of LA police officers to her home for protection.
Absolute waste of city resources. Nury sent dozens of LAPD goons to come shut down the protest outside of her house. @CD6Nury is afraid of accountability. #ResignNury pic.twitter.com/q7v25SjCJ5 https://t.co/s559vj4mON
— People’s City Council – Los Angeles (@PplsCityCouncil) October 10, 2022
The LA City Council has also called for the resignation of León and Cedillo.
New motion just dropped: city council is officially and formally calling for the immediate resignations of Nury Martinez, Kevin De Leon, & Gil Cedillo ??? #ResignKDL #ResignNury pic.twitter.com/XXOm97hYVL
— People’s City Council – Los Angeles (@PplsCityCouncil) October 11, 2022
A shorter version of the audio can be found below.
