A California State University, Long Beach assistant professor of sociology, Osuna recalled Villaraigosa’s final State of the City address in April 2013 in which the latter boasted that the Los Angeles Police Department was more than 40 percent Latina/o at the time, making it one of the most diverse police forces nationally and therefore racially sensitive and sensible.
Three months after the mayor’s speech, 37-year-old Juan Chavez, an off-duty security guard attending a friend’s funeral, was fatally shot by undercover LAPD officers.
The plainclothes officers had been in an unmarked car monitoring a vigil for a gang member killed in a homicide when Chavez approached their car, reaching into his waistband. Believing Chavez was arming himself, the officers jumped out of their car and identified themselves, according to L.A. police records. When Chavez pulled out a revolver, the police shot him.
“To borrow a phrase from Villaraigosa, this is L.A.’s way of doing things,” Osuna dryly remarked, referring to the police force. “Villaraigosa’s State of the City speech was an ideological smokescreen.”
Osuna’s comments came during last week’s annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers. He was one of multiple scholars who presented research in the growing area of Chicana/o and Latina/o geography, specifically comparative racialization.
Osuna criticized the officers for resorting to lethal force so quickly against Chavez, especially because their plainclothes appearance could not have easily convinced him who they were.
