Council spars during proposed apology to Edgar Vargas’ family

CITY HALL — The Council threw jabs at eachother Tuesday while discussing to give direction to City staff to draft a resolution apologizing to the family of Edgar Vargas-Azarte.

In brief, Vargas was falsely accused of attacking Santa Ana police officers during an arrest in 2014 that led to felony charges, leading to his deportation while heading to contest his original case with SAPD. It later came to light that officers had lied and had beaten up Vargas instead. He won a civil right case and settled with the City in 2016 for $175,000; FBI investigated, Booker pled guilty and was sentenced to probation and community service. He retired in 2018.

Olivia Azarte, mother of Vargas, became tearful and choked up while speaking during public comments, pleading for the City to give the family closure.

Benjamin Vazquez brought the item forward and ask his counterparts to join him in issuing a formal apology to the family. Some members on the dais took it as a threat to the image of the police department.

"Edgar Vargas deserves to be alive, to be with his family. I want to send my condolences to his mother and to his loved ones and their demands for justice. Justice for the Vargas family. May this decision we're making today move our city closer to our residents and move us in the direction of preserving human live," said Councilmember Johnathan Ryan Hernandez.

Amezcua asked City Attorney to confirm if the matter was closed by saying if litigation had obviously concluded. She also mentioned a recent sexual assault matter that occurred at Santa Ana High School involving a teacher and a student to dilute the police beating.

"I can't support this, I think this should go to the Police Oversight Commission, that's, you know, what they're for. I also don't want to come back and every single meeting because certain Councilmembers want to attack our police department every single meeting and have- we're gonna start with one apology and we're gonna work our way through however many they want to bring up... My concludes to the family, there are bad officers, there's bad doctors, bad lawyers, bad teachers... I would just say that I don't want to open us up to more. And if we do this, that's exactly—in my humble opinion—what will happen," said Mayor Valerie Amezcua.

Mayor Pro Tem Thai Viet Phan explained that apologizing this time around isn't "opening up a can of worms" as suggested by Amezcua.

"What this is to me is holding ourselves accountable for the wrongdoing that took place, whether or not we as individuals are responsible. The City Council, the City of Santa Ana issued an apology for the burning of Chinatown, a crime in my opinion that took place over 100 years ago, and to me yes, officer Booker was indicted, he did something wrong, he took criminal action, we are not saying that all officers are like that, but what I think we are saying as the City of Santa Ana when we apologize to this family is to say that we, this current police department, this City, this City Council, holds ourself to a high standee of morality of values and justice. That we as a City of Santa Ana are not affiliated with someone like Mr. Booker, we do not condone that violence and we believe that all loss of life is tragic and should be avoided at all costs. So to me, what we're doing is to mend those community relationships and to say that we can do better and we are doing better. I believe that since this Council has been here, we've worked on implementing police oversight, we've worked on policies, I think the acting chief has done a great job of bringing our communities together, increasing transparency, and making sure we have the training that we will continue to implement and improve on. I don't think that holding ourselves accountable for something that this City that someone did, under color of law, that someone did while in uniform, wearing our seal, our patch, is attacking any person. Because what we're saying is that the City of Santa Ana is willing to uplift and honor anyone who is willing to serve the public but also willing to hold eachother accountable when we do something wrong." said Mayor Pro Tem Phan.

Councilmember Penaloza, also POA-backed and funded campaign-wise, said he is supportive of the item as long as the final resolution blames the officials from that time.

"I don't know what the language in the resolution will be so I won't say right now if I support the resolution, but I am comfortable with having something come back and give the mother... some peace of mind and comforting. My condolences to her for the loss of her son. I know that none of us were here when this occurred. The entire police department has had a new, I mean, none of the deputy chiefs are here, none of the chiefs is different, all of their executive managnemt is different, the entire city council is different. Yeah, we've all changed up here, and there's been policies that have changed for the better, to make our police department better, so I don't see no harm in seeing a resolution come back, whether I support when it when does come back I don't know I have to see that language and what that says, but I will hope that it puts emphasis on the chief of police at that time, the staff, and the city Council of the time because it happened under their watch and those are my comments, but I am supportive of seeing something come back," said Penaloza.

Councilmember Phil Bacerra pivoted to the number of vacant police department positions and that Vargas could've asked for an apology when settling in 2016. He was the only Councilmember that did not publicly offer condolences to the family and rather reminded them by saying the apology wouldn't bring him back.

"If Officer Booker had not been indicted by federal prosecutors, and if he had not played guilty, and if the city had not settled Mr. Vargas' lawsuit in 2016, then I could see how this matter would be seen as unresolved, but Officer Booker was indicted by federal prosecutors. He pled guilty and he- and the city settled Mr. Vargas‘s lawsuit in 2016. The time for the city to issued any sort of apology would have been at the time of settling that lawsuit. To have this discussion today unfortunately will not bring back Mr. Vargas. We would’ve been better served if we were here discussing a proposal that would help fill the vacancies in our police department, but instead we’re discussing an item that only serves to remind people that there are Councilmembers up here that just don’t like police officers, so I won’t be [supporting] the item."

Vazquez replied to members defending the police department saying his intent was not to paint the department as disparaging, but to move forward positively.

"Bringing this forward it was not my intent to disparage any current police officers or the department (Deep sigh from someone with a hot mic). It’s a point of reference of how we begin to grow and be a better city and department. It’s from moving forward and knowing that your past mistakes, we have been reflected, and we have worked on and policy has changed and been enacted to become a better city and now until you reflect on what has been in the past, apologize for the things that we have done can a city in the community that you work with, can we move forward. So, it wasn’t a disparaging of current police officers is a place of where, historically, things have happened as recent as 2014 and it is not so far ago, so we still have a lot of cleaning up to do. We’ve talked about the culture of this police department and we think we have the leadership to move forward and I’m hoping we do and this is part of that work that we need to take to move ahead," said Councilmember Benjamin Vazquez.

Councilmember Jessie Lopez addressed the divisiveness between members on the dais.

"You know, we really have to move away from this framing that just because somebody up here supports something that you personally don’t care about that means we’re 'anti-this' or trying to 'attack PD'. That is not what is happening. If you can see a mother up here crying, struggling to get to her public comment, talking about the death of her child that happened due to injuries and you can’t take a step back and say 'You know what? Maybe we should apologize,' then we have much bigger problems here. You certainly don’t have to care about the family. You don’t have to care about what happened, but do not frame this as this council trying to attack our own PD for something that is a fact." said Councilmember Lopez.

Mayor Amezcua vehemently defended her position, adding the apology would not bring back Vargas. She also bet 'dollars to donuts' that Councilmember Vazquez would bring something back before the Council to diss police.

"Are you done?" — Amezcua

"Yes." — Lopez

"Great." — Amezcua

"I would just say that every single meeting there’s something about Santa Ana PD here and I will stick to that and you can say I’m saying sky's blue, gray, doesn’t matter. There’s always something in here about what PD’s doing wrong and those men and women put their lives on the line every single day for every single one of us. What happened in 2014 with Mr. Vargas is terrible and I think Councilman Bacerra read it out about Officer Booker was charged, and we- the city paid, the City Attorney explained how much money the City paid. Will it bring Mr. Vargas back? No. I send my deepest condolences but we have to move forward on things. We can’t keep going back. Councilman Vazquez will be back with another issue for Santa Ana PD for us to address with Santa Ana PD. I can bet dollars to donuts he's gonna do it, because that’s what he does. I would love to see a formal resolution that you bring forward Mr.- Councilmember Vazquez with Santa Ana Unified all the children that are molested in that school. The reason recent one with the choir teacher and the allegation that she’s sleeping with students, why are you not so passionate about our children? This is- this is happening today, not in the past so that is one of the reasons why I don’t support this. We can’t keep going back. We have to move forward. We have a new city manager, hopefully new police chief, permanent one soon, new officers, some of those are retired. I mean let’s go forward, but you guys can vote any way you like, give the directions to the manager, I made my position very clear, I will not support it," said Mayor Amezcua.

Hernandez had the last word by adding "To be pro-justice is not to be anti-police."

In a 5-2 vote, the Council is expected to present a resolution that formally apologizes to the Vargas family at a later meeting. Mayor Valerie Amezcua and Councilmember Phil Bacerra voted in opposition.