Alejo asks Attorney General to investigate King City.

Voicing concerns about potential civil rights violations, Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Watsonville, has asked state Attorney General Kamala Harris to assist Monterey County District Attorney Dean Flippo in an ongoing investigation into the King City Police Department. 

The who's who of law enforcement is already on the case, which resulted in the arrests of seven people—Acting Police Chief Bruce Edward Miller, Sgt. Bobby Javier Carrillo, retired Chief Nick Baldiviez, Officer Mario Alonso Mottu, Sr., Officer Jaime Andrade, Officer Mark Allen Baker, and the acting chief's brother, Brian Miller, who owns a tow and impound business in King City, Miller's Towing—last Tuesday morning. 

With the exception of Baker and and Andrade, the others faces various charges of bribery and embezzlement in connection with a scheme to impound cars, deliver most of those vehicles to Miller's Towing—and then get some cars themselves in exchange. 

The FBI, Salinas PD, Monterey County sheriff and DA's Bureau of Investigation led the six-month investigation, which began in September, as a result of ongoing complaints of corruption in the King City PD. 

Now Alejo is asking Harris to investigate potential civil rights violations, on the basis that most impound victims who lost their cars were Latino, and many non-English-speaking immigrants. 

"I believe [this case] raises serious civil rights issues relating to ethnic discrimination," Alejo wrote in the March 4 letter.

"This is a prime example how immigrants are taken advantage of and abused," he wrote.  "Ultimately, we need your help to set a statewide precedent of zero tolerance towards this type of discrimination."

Luis Alejo will speak on the subject at a press conference scheduled for Thursday at noon in front of City Hall in King City to address human rights. Representatives of the National League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, and the Tri-County Association of Latino Elected Officials, will also speak on access to justice and discrimination. 

Most surprising to Chief Assistant District Attorney Terry Spitz thus far in the investigation: "The number of cars that were towed, and how long it went on before it finally got investigated.