Dennis RomeroDid a member of the mayor's $26-million-a-year gang-reduction staff just go gangsta' on a Los Angeles police officer?
That seems to be the story coming from the LAPD over the weekend after they were called to the Conga Room downtown early Sunday because of a disturbance inside.
Cops say Blanca Martinez-Navarro, the Rampart manager for the gang program, assaulted one of the responding officers.
She was reportedly put on leave.
Her husband actually attacked cops first, according to the LAPD, then “she jumped on the back of one of the officers and started on him,” said LAPD Lt. Jim Gavin.
Martinez-Navarro was arrested on suspicion of assaulting an officer; she soon made $20,000 bail. Husband Oscar Navarro was arrested under similar allegations and apparently didn't make bail.
Blanca Martinez-Navarro; Credit: Facebook
According to KNX 1070 Newsradio Martinez-Navarro was placed on leave as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., where he met with President Obama as a part of a delegation of big-city mayors.
The fracas was reported at 1:40 a.m. Sunday at the club at LA Live in the 800 block of W. Olympic Boulevard downtown. The Conga Room was once touted as being co-owned by Jennifer Lopez, Paul Rodriguez, Jimmy Smits, and Shiela E.
An LAPD spokeswoman told Fox 11 News that an officer sustained minor injuries in the dust-up.
Martinez-Navarro's Facebook page states she's a graduate of Columbia University in New York as well as UCLA.
The mayor's $26-million-a-year Gang Reduction and Youth Development office has been controversial: Some of the intervention leaders it has supported have ended up in trouble with the law. And it's been hard to evaluate whether spending all that money has really helped put a lid on gang violence.
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