Escondido Police Under Fire

  ESCONDIDO -- On a spring morning in 2010, Leticia dropped two of her children at their Escondido school and continued on to run errands with her 4-year-old daughter. Before long, she was stopped at a police checkpoint. According to retired San Diego police officer Carlos Ronquillo, who witnessed the incident, Escondido Police were conducting a DUI checkpoint at 9:30 in the morning.   Because she did not have a driver’s license, Leticia (not her real name) was susp...

Escondido Faces Ultimatum Over Latino Representation

By Alison St John The Escondido City Council was faced with an ultimatum this week: Change from citywide to district elections, or be sued. The council has adopted policies, such as traffic checkpoints, that some say target Latinos. Long-time Escondido resident Demetrio Gomez told the council it’s time to change the way city councilmembers are elected in order to give Latinos a better chance at fair representation. “Such a small percentage of the voters in Escondido are controlling b...

FORUM: The law is the law? Not really

Opinion piece in the North County Times by Bill Flores Columnist Thomas K. Arnold recently wrote (Wednesday, Nov. 2) that he feels sorry for the authorities in Escondido. They are, after all, just enforcing the law. This thinking seems to be pervasive among those who comment or blog in the NC Times, as if a piece of legislation is monolithic and written in stone. The law is the law, right? It is an exceedingly impractical position to take. Should cities be responsible for enforcing "the la...

ESCONDIDO: Demonstrators hold candlelight vigil for civil rights

By MORGAN COOK mcook@nctimes.com North County Times About 100 demonstrators gathered Tuesday evening in Grape Day Park to "mourn the loss of civil rights" for Escondido residents, especially Latinos, in recent years. The event, hosted by the San Diego branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, aligned with Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday during which people remember and pray for loved ones who have died. It included a candlelight vigil, and a ...

New law bars police from impounding vehicles seized during checkpoints

Police will no longer be allowed to impound for 30 days the vehicles of unlicensed drivers caught during checkpoints under a bill signed Sunday by Gov. Jerry Brown. When the new law takes effect in January, it will end a policy dreaded by illegal immigrants. Many illegal immigrants drive without licenses because they are not legally allowed to apply for licenses in California. However, the new law will apply only to vehicles seized during checkpoints. The legislation, Assembly Bill 353,...

Truth-Out.org: Targeting Immigrants

by: Nancy Murray and Kade Crockford, Truthout and ACLU Massachusetts | Special Feature Ten Years Later: Surveillance in the "Homeland" is a collaborative project with Truthout and ACLU Massachusetts. "Let the terrorists among us be warned," then-attorney general John Ashcroft intoned before the US Conference of Mayors on October 25, 2001: "If you overstay your visa - even by one day - we will arrest you." Ashcroft's vow to "use all weapons within the law" against nonci...