Hayden Seeking to Block Deportation

State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) has asked INS Commissioner Doris Meissner to halt the deportation of a gang mediator in Los Angeles who the legislator charged was targeted by LAPD officers in the Rampart Division.

Alex Sanchez, 27, was detained Friday night by Los Angeles police officers acting on a request from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said LAPD Sgt. John Pasquariello.

But Hayden contends that Sanchez was “threatened by individual officers of the gang suppression CRASH unit in Pico-Union, who clearly believe that the gang [peace] process is a threat to their all-out war on gangs.”

Hayden pointed out in his letter to Meissner that the Rampart CRASH unit is “at the center of L.A.’s greatest police corruption scandal in 60 years, involving many officers who have lied under oath, framed and shot innocent individuals.”

In arresting Sanchez, officers were retaliating against the gang worker because he had testified about LAPD harassment of gang workers before a state Senate committee in September, Hayden said.

Hayden is asking the INS to grant Sanchez, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, a special visa given to some government informants so they can stay in the country.

In a protest Tuesday in front of the Rampart police station, dozens of activists and supporters carried posters with pictures of Sanchez. They demanded that Officer Jesus Amezcua, assigned to the Rampart CRASH unit, be investigated for allegedly harassing Sanchez and members of the gang peace group he helps lead, Homies Unidos. Amezcua was one of the officers who detained Sanchez on Friday night.

“We believe that Officer Amezcua is targeting Homies Unidos because they’re part of a community who wants to unmask [problems with the police],” civil rights attorney Jorge Gonzalez said at the protest. “We’re here to ask that Amezcua be removed from the LAPD.”

More than 30 people signed petitions at the demonstration to launch an investigation of Amezcua’s actions.

Frank Alton, a minister at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, said his congregation has hosted meetings for Homies Unidos on Thursday nights for more than a year. Last summer, Amezcua and another officer approached his custodian several times to ask whether they could spy on the group from a hidden room in the church, Alton said. The minister said he denied the request and filed a complaint with the LAPD.

Sanchez, formerly a member of the Salvadoran street gang Mara Salvatrucha, was praised by the demonstrators for his efforts in recent years to establish truces among gang members.

One of Sanchez’s brothers expressed frustration over the situation, and praised the brother he now considers a role model for his community.

“[Alex] told me Amezcua had threatened him before. I can’t believe the LAPD is grabbing people from the streets,” said Oscar Sanchez. “I remember him being a bad example for me, but after his son was born, he changed.”

Hayden and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California accused the LAPD of violating its own policy in arresting Sanchez.

Special Order 40, a policy adopted by the LAPD in 1979, prohibits police officers from inquiring about a person’s immigrant status. The order was enacted to protect illegal immigrants who might refrain from contacting the police if a crime is committed against them, for fear of their status being discovered.

The ordinance was ignored by LAPD officers when they stopped Sanchez and turned him over to the INS, Hayden and the ACLU said.

But Pasquariello of the LAPD said no violation was committed because officers were responding to a request from federal immigration officials. INS officials were not available late Tuesday to discuss the Sanchez case.