Scores of public officials have called for the resignation of two more Los Angeles City council members involved in the leaked audio recording which captured Council President Nury Martinez using despicably racist language about a Black child. Martinez called it quits on Wednesday following a wave of public backlash, including a call to resign from President Biden on Tuesday.
In a statement, the Democrat stepped down, acknowledging what had become increasingly clear in the wake of days of protests after the leak: that her remaining in office was untenable.
“It is with a broken heart that I resign my seat for Council District 6, the community I grew up in and my home,” the nine-year councilwoman wrote in a statement composed mostly of nostalgia for her time in office.
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The audio recording, first reported by the Los Angeles Times and Block LA after being anonymously posted on reddit, featured Martinez likening a white colleague’s adopted son to a “changuito,” or monkey. She also dubbed Oaxacan immigrants living in the city’s Koreatown neighborhood “little short dark people.”
The conversation took place in October 2021, and came in the context of a contentious, ethnically-charged redistricting process. Three other participants in the vile exchange—City Council Members Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, and L.A. County Federation of Labor boss Ron Herrera—were also under fire.
“For Los Angeles to heal, and for its City Council to govern, there must be accountability,”Acting Council President Mitch O’Farrell said in a statement. “The resignation of Councilmember Nury Martinez is the first, necessary step in that process. To that end, I repeat my call on Councilmembers de Leon and Cedillo to also resign. There is no other way forward.”
As The New York Times reported, Herrera resigned on Monday night.
Other council members offered their own words, with some calling the closing chapter a “nightmare” that has “cut deep into the hearts and soul of Los Angeles.”
“This sad chapter has left a permanent stain on our City Council, forever changing the face of LA politics,” said Councilman Curren Price. “In order for us to get back to governing and business as usual, we will need Kevin and Gil to listen to their conscience, own their mistakes and do what’s morally right. Only then can we embark on the road toward healing.”
Councilman Mike Bonin, whose son was targeted by Martinez’s remarks, did not respond to The Daily Beast for a request for comment, but did offer an emotional speech on the matter at a city council meeting on Tuesday.
“These words, they cut and they stung. I know that I can never really know or comprehend or feel the weight of the daily relentless racism, anti-Black racism that my son is gonna face,” Bonin said, calling for the resignation of his colleagues. “People should not ask me for forgiveness, because I can’t forgive them because it’s not my prerogative. It’s the prerogative of a boy who was too young to really understand what the hell was going on. And when he’s older, maybe when he’s in high school, you can seek his forgiveness.”
