LA VOZ DE AZTLAN
Los Angeles, Alta California
May 13, 2009

VIDEO: El Monte, CA police abuse continues

The El Monte, CA Police Department has an infamous history of police brutality. One of the most horrific cases involved the invasion of a home while a family slept and shooting a grandfather in the back while he was kneeling and posed no threat. The victim was 65 year old Mario Paz. The attorney for the family said, "In my 37 years of practicing law, this case is perhaps one of the most egregious I've ever seen." The police were caught in a series of lies attempting to cover up the crime and in addition attempted to steal $10,000 in life savings from the family.

The El Monte police sergeant who led the raid on the wrong house and shot Mario Paz was George Hopkins. Soon after the tragic incident and after the city of El Monte settled for $3 million dollars, Hopkins was promoted to captain. See the command structure of the El Monte Police Department at http://www.empd.org/admin.html. Also notice that the entire upper echelon of the department is White even though the El Monte population is 70% Latino, 25% Asian and only 5% White .

The following video captured today, shows 23 year old Richard Ramirez of El Monte being viciously kicked on the head by a pursuing El Monte policeman. Richard Ramirez is a parolee who was fleeing because he feared the brutal reputation of the El Monte Police Department. Worst of all, Police Chief Tom Armstrong, after viewing the video of the kick, starts making comments to the news reporter that are obviously not true. See for yourself:

The next video captured on Nov 17, 2006 shows two El Monte, California police officers taser a man at night. On the tape, the officers are seen with their tasers drawn approaching the man who was standing beside a building posing no threat. They fire and the man collapses and rolls on his back completely incapacitated. The cops then approach the man and "point blank" taser the man a second time just to get him to roll over.

UPDATE: El Monte CA police scandal gets uglier