“Of course the years of systemic racism and voicelessness are not near the same level the Black community has been forced to endure,” AL DÍA News’ Ericka Conant rightfully notes, “but the recent deaths of multiple Latinx individuals at the hands of police have reignited the call to end police brutality against Latinx people as well.” Among them has been 18-year-old Andres Guardado, who was shot and killed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department earlier this month.
A mountain of questions remain about why officers targeted Guardado outside the auto body shop where he worked as a security guard in the first place, why they chased him, and around police’s claim that he was carrying a gun. (His family said he wasn’t known to have a gun.) Casting further doubt on police is a report from the Los Angeles Times that Miguel Vega, the officer reportedly identified as having fatally shot the 18-year-old, already has a years-long history of accusations under his belt.
As Conant notes, Castro has also been vocal about the killing of Carlos Ingram-Lopez, who died in Phoenix police custody in April but the details of which haven’t been publicly released until just now.
“The secrecy surrounding his last living moments—even city officials didn’t know about Ingram-Lopez’s death until last week—has caused outrage in the southern Arizona city, whose progressive image, some residents believe, is at odds with the way police treat its largely Latinx population,” Mother Jones reported. He was appearing to have a mental health crisis at his grandmother’s house when officers pinned on his stomach and kept him that way as he began to plead for her in English and Spanish. Ingram-Lopez then “began to scream between gargling or choking noises,” the report said. “Paramedics would unsuccessfully perform CPR, and Ingram-Lopez died on the floor of his grandmother’s garage.”
“His name is Carlos Adrian Ingram Lopez,” Castro recently tweeted. “He cried out for his grandmother as police handcuffed him face-down for 12 mins. He couldn’t breathe.”
In endorsing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act last week, Castro said: “Police brutality affects both Black and Latino communities and together we’re confident we can overcome this long-standing injustice. This historic legislation is named for George Floyd—he’s changed the world—and he represents far too many people of color who have been killed by the police including Latinos such as Andres Guardado, Mike Ramos, Antonio Arce, Alejandro Nieto, and sadly many more,”
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