LA City Council President Steps Down After ‘Racist’ Audio Recordings Leaked

Los Angeles City Councilor Nury Martinez stepped down as the council’s president on Oct. 10 after audio recordings of her and two other councilors’ “racist” remarks surfaced the day before, with a wave of politicians—including Mayor Eric Garcetti—calling for them to resign from the council altogether.

After the audio was leaked, a slew of California politicians, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, came forward to condemn her comments. The incident comes just a month away from the Nov. 8 general election, in which Martinez was campaigning for re-election.

The recording, dated October 2021—published by a now-suspended Reddit user and first reported by the Los Angeles Times—included Councilmen Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera.

In the recording, Martinez, 49, spoke about Councilman Mike Bonin’s black son as “Parece changuito”—which is translated to “like a little monkey”—while recalling seeing Bonin’s son on a float during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, where she said the child was like “an accessory.”

Councilmember Mike Bonin attends the Palisades Village grand opening private ribbon-cutting ceremony at Palisades Village in Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2018. (Amanda Edwards/Getty Images)

De León chimed in and said Bonin treats his child the same way as “when Nury brings her Goyard bag or the Louis Vuitton bag.”

Martinez appeared to suggest Bonin’s son was misbehaving on the float, and if she and another woman didn’t step in to “parent his kid” the float may have tumbled over.

“They’re raising him like a little white kid,” Martinez was heard saying. “I was like, ‘this kid needs a beatdown,’ let me take him around the corner, and then I’ll bring him back.”

During the conversation, Martinez used multiple slurs in Spanish to describe Bonin’s son.

While referencing Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón,