Photo: L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva speaks Sept. 10, 2020 during protests over the killing of Dijon Kizzee by police in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD) head Sheriff Alex Villanueva seems to have a problem with how much media coverage Black people get when it comes to police brutality. The controversial sheriff is being blasted for his recent comments on Black people and crime.
Villanueva was asked by The Los Angeles Times about the different media coverage Latinos, and Black people get when it comes to protests about police brutality in their communities.
Villanueva replied by first naming George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, and Michael Brown — all Black people who, except for Martin, were killed by cops and whose deaths resulted in nationwide protests.
In the next breath, Villanueva called out Black-on-Black crime. “For everyone ‘Say her name,'” Villanueva proclaimed, “you’d have to say a thousand names of people who were killed. Black people killing Black people.”
He insinuated that Blacks were responsible for crime in general. He named four local cases of murdered women, including Beverly Hills philanthropist Jacqueline Avant and UCLA student Brianna Kupfer, where the accused killers are Black men.
“And is anybody be out there in the street chanting, ‘Say their name?'” he continued. “No one is going to. And how many people die? The overwhelming majority of these people are going to die by someone who looks exactly like them.”
Villanueva was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1963 to a Puerto Rican father and Polish-American mother. He is the second Spanish-speaking sheriff in Los Angeles County since 1890, when Martin G. Aguirre served a single two-year term as sheriff from 1889 to 1890, according to L.A. Almanac.
Villanueva also lived in New York City and Puerto Rico.
In 2018, Villanueva had retired as a sheriff’s lieutenant when defeated the incumbent Sheriff Jim McDonnell with 53 percent of the vote to become Sheriff of Los Angeles County. It is Villanueva’s second go-round as sheriff.
A Democrat, Villanueva has frequently become immersed in controversy such as when he rehired deputies previously fired for misconduct.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 74: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin returns for a new season of the GHOGH podcast to discuss Bitcoin, bubbles, and Biden. He talks about the risk factors for Bitcoin as an investment asset including origin risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment. Are broader financial markets in a massive speculative bubble?
When L.A. Times columnist Gustavo Arellano tried to point out that intraracial violence is also a phenomenon among Latinos, Villanueva shot back, “But not to the same degree,” adding that Black men were vastly overrepresented in the Los Angeles County Jail, while “hardly anybody” incarcerated there is Asian.
“Now [Asians have] become more prevalent as victims of hate crimes,” Villanueva continued. “And look at the one who’s assaulting victims. Overwhelming majority are Black. It’s a rule in the media that it cannot be mentioned.”
Photo: L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva speaks Sept. 10, 2020 during protests over the killing of Dijon Kizzee by police in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
