THREAD on L.A. sheriffs' attacks and harassment of Black and brown families in Los Angeles. We’re facing an all-out human rights crisis.

On top of these families surviving sheriffs' killing their loved ones—they’ve been surviving day after day their relentless harassment. https://twitter.com/CheckSheriff/status/1389666557903532032

We first brought this crisis to the attention of the @LACountyCOC in Nov. 2019. Alongside @BLMLA and @CentroCSO we submitted a letter right after Paul Rea’s family was harassed and arrested for pretextual reasons, on Oct. 30, 2019, at Paul's memorial site on Dia de los Muertos.

On that day, @ACLU_SoCal sued @LACoSheriff for not turning over a single record pursuant to The Right to Know Act. Families, @BLMLA, clergy led a delegation to symbolically serve the lawsuit to Villanueva, but were locked out from entering a public building during business hours.

So, we held a rally, where Paul's sister Jaylene spoke about her brother for the first time. Afterward, we went with the families of Paul and Anthony Vargas to one of Villanueva’s dog-and-pony show of townhalls. There, deputies kept taking photos of family members, incl. minors.

After the townhall, around 11pm, Paul’s mother Leah called me, saying about 20 sheriffs rolled up to Paul’s memorial site and manhandled and arrested Jaylene, banged her up. This was a bogus citation—the D.A. dropped any charges.

What happened afterwards was simply horrifying.

I got to the East L.A. station at 12am. We didn’t know where Jaylene was for 2 hrs. Her grandmother called every hospital nearby to find out where she was. She had been driven around—Jaylene kept asking, “where are you taking me?” Sheriffs answered, “You’ll see when we get there"

When they finally brought her to the station (located 5 mins. away from the memorial site), I saw her. She knew they were trying to intimidate her. In fact, they said they didn’t have anyone who could take her fingerprints until the morning. We stayed and got her out around 7am.

A month ago, we had a forum where family after family recounted a disturbing pattern of harassment, illegal stops, searches, arrests—a campaign of intimidation attempting to silence, retraumatize, harm—to the point of forcing many to flee the County, out of fear for their lives.

You can watch the entire forum here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=347471413335304&ref=watch_permalink

Sups. @HildaSolis and @HollyJMitchell heard these testimonies directly from the families. They listened with humility, dignity, and respect. And I can’t imagine hearing these stories and not be moved, not just as elected officials, but as human beings.

Today, they took action.

Thank you to @HildaSolis and @HollyJMitchell for standing up for your constituents who are being targeted and harassed by @LASDHQ for seeking justice for their loved ones and bringing the family protection motion to the @LACountyBOS!

#VillanuevaMustGo https://hildalsolis.org/los-angeles-county-approves-motion-protect-surviving-families-law-enforcement-harassment-retaliation

“Families experiencing loss at the hands of @LASDHQ deserve the space to mourn the loss of their loved ones peacefully without contending with retaliatory actions on behalf of sheriff’s deputies.” - @HildaSolis

Thank you for standing with families! #VillanuevaMustGo #LASDGangs

“I have met with too many members of our community who have had to deal with the grief of losing a family member while facing inexcusable acts of harassment from law enforcement. This is unacceptable.” - @HollyJMitchell TY for standing with families!

#VillanuevaMustGo #LASDGangs