Rallies were held on Sunday and Monday Dec. 29 and 39th at Baldwin Park City Hall and Police Station protesting the arrest of more than 30 undocumented immigrants on the grounds that they were driving without a license and didn’t have a “proper” I.D.
This issue will come before the Baldwin Park City Council on January 15 at 7 p.m. and it is important to mobilize, and strategize for, and attend the city council meeting in Baldwin Park that night. The address is:
14403 Pacific Ave, Baldwin Park, CA 91706
at the corner of Pacific Avenue and Maine Avenue, just south of Romona Blvd.
Please note that Baldwin Park City Hall is less than a block away from the Baldwin Park Metro Station. There is also free parking around the corner on Bogart Avenue.
The Baldwin Park Police Department has implemented a new policy where they are ARRESTING people at DUI checkpoints merely for driving without a license on the grounds that they do not have a “proper” I.D. Under this policy, the Baldwin Park Police Department is claiming that a consular I.D. is not sufficient identification, supposedly because the West Covina court is not accepting the consular ID as identification.
The San Gabriel Tribune reported that 37 people were arrested at checkpoints during the weekend of December 29, only 6 of whom were arrested for intoxicated driving or other DUI related offenses. Families, including families with children were broken up.
Rallies were held on Sunday and Monday Dec. 29 and 39th at Baldwin Park City Hall and Police Station against this policy. More information is available at:
It is also noteworthy that the version being given by the city of Baldwin Park is full of inconsistencies. At one point they were claiming that people were only arrested if they had expired consular IDs. Victims responded by contradicting that, and other police versions make no mention of expired consular IDs. Another version was that the West Covina court sent an email to the Baldwin Park police stating that it was not accepting consular IDs (no mention of the word “expired”). Other people contacted the West Covina court and were told that was not so.