The assembly went into recess and mislaid its quorum – temporarily brining the gathering to a halt.
Bonin called de León a “vile racist” in a tweet expressing his outrage astatine the attempted return.
“He needs to resign,” Bonin said.
De León did not returned to the chambers aft recess. The occurrence lasted astir an hour, aft which galore protesters cleared out, but it underscored the simmering choler implicit the leaked audio.
Los Angeles was rocked by the surreptitiously recorded audio, which was captured past twelvemonth but leaked via an anonymous Reddit idiosyncratic successful October. In the recordings, de León, erstwhile Council President Nury Martinez and Member Gil Cedillo tin beryllium heard discussing carving up governmental boundaries to their payment with Ron Herrera, erstwhile president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
The 4 discussed however to manipulate the redistricting process to payment allies and dilute the powerfulness of Black voters.
Martinez made respective racist comments astir Black people, Oaxacans and Armenians. At 1 constituent she described Bonin’s Black lad arsenic “parece changuito,” Spanish for “looking similar a monkey.” De León successful crook compared the aforesaid young lad to an accessory, similar a luxury handbag.
He aboriginal claimed successful an interrogation that helium was misunderstood, and that helium was not, successful fact, comparing the kid to a handbag — though fewer galore listeners person not accepted that explanation.
Martinez resigned wrong days of the leak. Herrera, the labour leader, besides stepped down. Cedillo, whose word was astir to expire, is nary longer connected the council.
De León, who has ruled retired resigning, has sought to support a debased profile, staying distant from his assembly offices and canceling nationalist events to debar protesters.
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