Thread: Top Latino DJ, immigrant activist arrested in LA

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlene ... BFeed%5D-8

Top Latino DJ, immigrant activist arrested in LA
Thu Jan 4, 2007 3:41pm ET18


By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A top-rated Latino radio host who emerged as a leader in the Los Angeles immigrant rallies last year has been arrested on suspicion of threatening his wife and a police officer.

Renan Almendarez Coello, known to his audience as "El Cucuy" ("The Boogeyman"), was taken into custody on Wednesday, two days after police responded to a domestic violence call at his Los Angeles area home and found him gone.

Almendarez, 53, was booked on suspicion of making criminal threats against his wife and an officer investigating the domestic abuse accusations, which stem from a "family fight" on New Year's Day, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement.



He was released after posting $50,000 bail and agreeing to provide a statement.

Almendarez emerged in the mainstream media last spring, when hundreds of thousands of Latinos spilled into the streets of Los Angeles to protest an immigration reform bill working its way through Congress.

He was credited along with fellow Latino radio personalities as Ricardo "El Mandril" ("The Baboon") Sanchez, and Eddie "Eli Piolin" ("Tweety Bird") Sotelo with mobilizing thousands of young Latinos to the cause.

The rallies were initially hailed by immigrant-rights activists as a watershed moment in their cause, but triggered a backlash among Americans who want tighter controls on the border and oppose citizenship rights for illegals.

Almendarez sought to register more than 1 million Latinos to vote over the summer, but fell well short of that goal.

Officers responding to the Almendarez home at about 7 a.m. on New Year's Day said they found traces of blood on his wife, who was uninjured but "initially uncooperative and belligerent." Police said they took a knife from the scene.

I'd like to see these "hundreds of thousands" parading around the courthouse when he goes to court-if, of course, that ever happens.