The last three of Edin Alex Enamorado’s acolytes who emulated his physically aggressive brand of activism and followed him into jail as a result have been released from custody, after spending the previous 364 days incarcerated.
Six of his followers and Edin Enamorado had a part in two separate assaults on September 3, 2023 in Pomona, one against a security guard the activists claimed was wrongfully hassling street vendors and another against a man who exchanged angry words with them when their protest at that city’s police headquarters prevented him from being able to lodge a police report. The security guard was chemically maced, punched, kicked, beaten and knocked to the ground. The second man was challenged to a fight, threatened with death and forced to kneel on the ground and beg to be spared the beating his attackers were preparing to subject him to. On September 24, 2013, the same seven who were involved in the Pomona confrontations and an eighth member of the Enamorados were present in Victorville for a protest against the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department when the group set upon a bystander who had objected to the protesters surrounding the car in which he and his wife were riding, preventing them from leaving the area. He was punched, kicked, knocked to the ground and chemically maced.
Edin Enamorado, who most often goes by his middle name Alex, and his followers do not consider themselves to be criminals but avenging angels. Alex Enamorado has stated in numerous forums that North America rightfully belongs to the indigenous people of the continent and that the European oppressors and occupiers have usurped their land and are violating their human rights with the imposition of their capitalistic economic system. He is committed, as are those who follow his example, to standing up for La Raza. In recent years, the cause he and his followers – the Enamorados – have most often taken up is that of street vendors, whose rights and ability to make a living for themselves is being abridged unjustly and illegally, they maintain, by competing economic interests such as brick and mortar commercial establishments and restaurants who are being assisted by equally mendacious security guards, code enforcement officers, police officers, city governments, law enforcement agencies, public health officials and the like through personal confrontation, efforts to remove vendors and their vehicles from parking lots and the public right-of-way such as streets, sidewalks and parkways by enforcing county and city codes and ordinances and laws. In their efforts to protect street vendors, the Enamorados have sought them out, providing them with their phone numbers and arming them with pepper spray or chemical mace, instructing them to call for assistance if they are confronted by citizens; business owners or operators proximate to where the vendors have set up their carts, tables or vehicles; health department inspectors or officers; code enforcement officers; other authorities; or police officers. The Enamorados will then respond, singly or in multiple numbers and occasionally en masse. While the Enamorados have for the most part shown discretion and drawn the line at being merely verbally confrontational with police officers or sheriff’s deputies, they tended toward being more physical in dealing with others, intimidating health department inspectors and code enforcement officers and becoming physically confrontational with security officers employed by commercial business owners who objected to vendors operating from their parking lots or on the sidewalk or street in front of or near their places of business.
A central element of Alex Enamorado’s activism is the use of video footage of himself and the other Enamorados in action, which is then edited, to a greater or lesser degree to portray him and his crusaders in the best possible light, and then posted to social media sites. In presenting himself to the world through interaction and exchanges with the media, Alex Enamorado would endeavor to express himself in measured and articulate terms, holding himself out as an activist earnestly pursuing the goals of ensuring equality, protecting civil rights, standing up for the weak, impoverished and unenfranchised while holding government accountable to the people. His approach in the field, however, was far more crude, as would often be captured in the videos he and his followers were constantly recording. Portrayed in these videos over and over again was a familiar formula that had as its ingredients equal parts a presumption of moral superiority, making accusations of racism, profanity, rapid fire questions and assertions without giving his interlocutor an opportunity to respond or otherwise immediately dismissing any response made, browbeating, insults and threats. In such circumstances, the intent was not to achieve an exchange of information or views but rather to relentlessly intimidate, provoke and stage a scene in which he, as the group leader, emerged triumphant. Key elements of Enamorado’s approach were being accompanied by a physically intimidating support network, the use of surprise, verbal domination and videography to capture an indelible visual and audio recording of the individual being confronted, which in many, though not all, cases resulted in an untoward or intemperate remark or reaction. A significant number of the videos of these confrontations uploaded onto social media platforms Enamorado controlled or had access to depicted an individual being confronted or a bystander to the protests the Enamorados had mounted growing impatient at being harangued, blocked or hemmed in and then reacting, whereupon the subject would be ganged up upon and physically assaulted by those present. Audible in those videos would be a running commentary from Enamorado, the videographer or one of the participants in the melee offering a justification for the violence that was depicted. The overriding impression given by this concerted social media campaign was that Alex Enamorado and the Enamorados were ubiquitous in Southern California and ready at a moment’s notice to strike down with furious rage upon those who would harm the innocent immigrants they were committed to protect.
The Enamorados also made a practice of attending city council or county board of supervisors meetings at which those panels considered, voted upon or otherwise dealt with or contemplated action or ordinances relating to the regulation of street or sidewalk vendors or vending. At those meetings, the activists, typically led by Alex Enamorado, would protest such action, lobby against any ordinances regulating, restricting or outlawing street and sidewalk vending. Tactics applied in these venues extended to holding marches at or around the homes of the council members or public officials voting on the ordinances, flooding the meeting chamber where the council or board was meeting, identifying any citizens present who intended to speak in favor of the ordinance or regulations and threatening them, obstructing them, assaulting them or otherwise attempting to intimidate them and to prevent them making a show of support for the regulations. If this did not dissuade their targets from voicing support for the regulations, the Enamorados would verbally assail them and anyone who supported imposing regulations or restrictions on street and sidewalk vendors and vending as racists.
As Labor Day Weekend 2023 approached, the Enamorados received reports that a security guard at the El Super grocery store at the northwest corner of the Indian Hill and Holt boulevards in Pomona was being particularly insistent and persistent in preventing vendors in setting up their tables and/or carts and operating from their food trucks in the store’s parking lot, sidewalks or adjoining street. Alex Enamorado called upon those in the Enamorados’ network to identify and locate the security guard. On September 3, after receiving a text message informing him the security was at the Pomona El Super, Alex Enamorado summoned several to the Indian Hill/Holt location. Among those responding were his girlfriend/fiancé Wendy Luján, Stephanie Amésquita, Vanessa Carrasco, David Chávez, Edwin Peña and Fernando Lopez. All seven converged on the security guard in the parking lot, doused him with pepper spray, chased him into the market, punched him knocked him to the ground and kicked him. This encounter was caught on video from multiple angles, shot from handheld cameras wielded by some of the attackers as well as the store’s security cameras.
Later that same day, after Luján had been arrested by the Pomona Police Department as a result of her confrontation with the security guard in the El Super parking lot, Enamorado, Amésquita, Carrasco, Chávez , Peña and Lopez went to the Pomona Civic Center where the main Pomona Police Station/Headquarters is located to protest Luján’s arrest and attempt to secure her release. While they were milling about the front of the police headquarters, the doors into which were locked because the station was closed for the Labor Day holiday, a Pomona resident had come to the station intending to file a report with the police department about an unrelated matter. Unable to get past the crowd of people near the door to try to gain entrance to the police station lobby or use the intercom to communicate with those inside, the man had an angry exchange of words with several of the Enamorados. He headed back to his car, trailed by several of the Enamorados. Further words were exchanged, and the resident threw an open Gatorade bottle in the direction of Enamorado, Carrasco, Chávez, Peña and Lopez as he was about to drive off. The Enamorados mistakenly took the liquid in the bottle to be urine. Alex Enamorado told one of the Enamorados to determine where John Doe 2 lived. The resident resided roughly a mile from the Pomona Civic Center and shortly after his place of residence was determined, someone can be overheard on Edin Enamorado’s livestream video of the protest outside the police station say that they were going to the home of the man they had just had a confrontation with. About half of the Enamorados engaged in the protest – including Enamorado, Amésquita, Carrasco, Chávez , Peña and Lopez – peeled off and went to the man’s home. There they found him seated in his vehicle.
Depicted on Alex Enamorado’s livestream of the incident, the video of which was mounted on one of his social media sites, Enamorado challenged him to fight. Someone else could be heard on one of the videos of that confrontation telling the man, “I will beat you every day if you don’t get out of the car.” When he did get out of the vehicle, he was forced to his knees, where he groveled before his tormentors, pleading with them not to harm him.
Further threats to harm him were made, capped by Carrasco humiliating him yet further by implying that they could have easily killed him. “We let you live, homey,” she said.
On September 24, Alex Enamorado led a group of his followers to Victorville to protest an incident that had occurred in the parking lot outside Ray Moore Stadium in the immediate aftermath of a football game between Victor Valley and Big Bear high schools the evening of September 22 when Sheriff’s Deputy Starsun Fincel was videotaped slamming a 16-year-old girl, Faith Jeffers, a student at Victor Valley High, as the deputy and one of his colleagues sought to break up a fight that had broken out between Jeffers and another girl.
The protesters rallied in the area around the Victorville Sheriff’s Station on Amargosa Road near Palmdale Road. With his trademark bullhorn in hand, Alex Enamorado led a party of roughly 40 Enamorados, most of them from lower San Bernardino County and Los Angeles County, as they joined with an equal or greater number of protesters from the High Desert, several of them carrying placards calling for justice for Jeffers, as they paraded along the highly visible stretch of Palmdale Road between Amargosa Road and McArt Road. Among the Enamorados in Victorville that day were Luján, Amésquita, Carrasco, Chávez, Peña and Lopez, as well as Gullit Eder “Jaguar” Acevedo.
Exhorting the crowd, Enamorado who at that point had yet to learn the deputy involved was Fincel, demanded that the department publicly reveal who the deputy was and that he be fired by the department and prosecuted by the district attorney’s office. Enamorado used his cell phone to videorecord the protest, which was also being memorialized for posterity by at least three other Enamorados using shoulder-held, handheld or tripod-mounted video cameras.
As the protest was ongoing, a couple in a relatively late model Hyundai had gone into the car wash proximate to the sheriff’s station near the intersection of McArt Road and Palmdale Road. Upon attempting to leave, the woman, who was driving, was unable to pull onto Palmdale Road from the car wash parking lot’s exit because of the traffic flow on Palmdale Road coupled with the constant stream of protesters moving in both directions on the sidewalk and gutter of the roadway blocked the car’s path. Despite the Hyundai’s obvious presence and the driver’s intent to leave, the protesters remained disregardful of the car and its occupants as most were engaged in making a show of protest to the motorists passing by on Palmdale Road.
The occupants of the Hyundai exhibited patience initially, but after more than two minutes, the woman sounded the Hyundai’s horn. This had no appreciable impact on the protesters, who continued to file in front of the car, such that the driver could not move the car forward without running into and possibly injuring one or more of the protesters. A further wait ensued, at which point the woman sounded the horn once more and the man opened the door on the passenger’s side of the car. As the man emerged, Enamorado, making use of his bullhorn, accused him of hitting a woman by opening his car door into her, doing so in rather derogatory terms, including referring to the man as a “bitch.” One, then two, and then a third Enamorado began to rain blows on the man, who attempted to defend himself while he was angled away from the car and then knocked to the ground. As he attempted to get to his feet, he was pepper sprayed.
The incident was captured on video from at least three perspectives. Among those who can be seen in one of the video depictions hitting the man is Alex Enamorado, who does so with his left fist while holding and continuing to video with his cellphone in his right hand.
The man succeeded in getting up, but as he was staggering, he was knocked to the ground once more and kicked while he was down. After the man was pepper sprayed and on the ground for the second time, Alex Enamorado can be heard repeatedly remarking, “That’s what he gets.”
As it was ongoing, the incident was livestreamed to Enamorado’s YouTube page.
From their nearby vantage, deputies saw the assault and roughly two minutes later they came to the spot of the assault, whereupon a shoving match ensued between two of the deputies and two of the Enamorados. Within minutes, at least eight deputies had arrived. Narrowly, Alex Enamorado avoided arrest, but the deputies took two of the Enamorados – Chávez, who was arrested on suspicion of assault with a caustic chemical and unlawful assembly, along with Luján, who was arrested on suspicion of assault with a caustic chemical, obstructing a peace officer, battery and unlawful assembly – into custody at that time along with two other protesters, Victor Alba, 30, of Victorville, who was arrested on suspicion of obstructing a peace officer, battery and unlawful assembly; and Wayne Freeman, 36, of Moreno Valley, who was arrested on suspicion of obstructing a peace officer and unlawful assembly.
Enamorado uploaded to his social media platforms several videos of the two violent confrontations in Pomona on September 3 as well as one extended video, and two shorter videos, of the protest in Victorville, including the assault of the couple in the Hyundai on September 24, to a social media account on TikTok he controlled under the heading “Edin Enamorado is going live.” The videos were presented to the public within a context in which it was suggested that what had occurred were demonstrations of the noble efforts of the Enamorados to stand up to racism. The “Edin Enamorado is going live” posting did not dwell on the consideration that the passenger of the Hyundai who was assaulted in the Victorville incident is Hispanic.
Relatively shortly after the Victorville protest, “Jaguar” Acevedo, who had participated in the assault on the Hyundai passenger, contacted Enamorado, telling him he thought he should take down the video of the September 24 protest, given that law enforcement might be monitoring the websites and social media accounts he controlled in the aftermath of the arrests of Chávez, Luján, Alba and Freeman. Shortly thereafter, Chávez, who was facing possible charges at that point over his arrest on September 24, texted Enamorado, “Hey bro, could you take down the video. It’s incriminating me.”
Enamorado responded by making several passes at editing the video, cutting out the passages which depicted the gross violence against someone who was, in essence, a bystander, and altering the video and its context to emphasize the righteousness of the protest against the physical abuse of the high school student injured by a Deputy Fincel in the aftermath of the September 22 Friday night football game and the aggressive reaction of the deputies who responded to the protesters’ confrontation with the Hyundai driver and passenger at the car wash.
Acevedo’s and Chávez’s requests and Enamorado’s reaction came too late. Sheriff’s Department investigators had already begun monitoring the Enamorados’ social media postings and communications and had ascertained Alex Enamorado was their leader. Inadvertently, Enamorado had assisted them in their research by attending city council meetings in San Bernardino County throughout the late summer and fall of 2023, providing information about his whereabouts and living arrangements in doing so. At the September 11 and September 25 Upland City Council meetings, Edin Enamorado and some of his followers staged protests about that city’s police department’s promotional policy, stating during the latter meeting that he had moved from Los Angeles County and was living in Upland. The Enamorados and their leader also showed up in force at the Fontana City Council’s October 24, 2023 and November 14, 2023 meetings, where they lodged protest. On first occasion, the issue in dispute was the city council’s second reading and final passage of an ordinance regulating street and sidewalk vendors and vending. The November meeting related to augmenting the ordinance with a provision that imposed an impound fee of $232 to be borne by any sidewalk vendor intent on recovering the items seized as part of an enforcement action involving the ordinance.
On October 24, some 37 individuals spoke with regard to the regulation ordinance, most in opposition to it. Because of the number of speakers, Fontana Mayor Acquanetta Warren reduced the allotted speaking time for each during the public comment portion of the meeting from the normal three minutes to one minute. As the meeting progressed, the atmosphere in the Fontana Council Chamber became more and more tense. When Alex Enamorado addressed the council, profanely challenging and insulting the council, most particularly Mayor Warren, and accusing city officials of “lock[ing] us up in cages” and of “shov[ing] me down because my skin is brown,” the crowd thereafter grew uncontrollably unruly. The proceedings were twice suspended. The hearing was suspended after the audience began bellowing at Warren, “Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you, Acquanetta!” The public was removed from the meeting chamber, and no one other than the council, city staff and the press were allowed to return when the council reconvened, at which point the council unanimously voted to confirm the sidewalk vending regulation ordinance.
Some three dozen of those expelled from the meeting huddled briefly in the City Hall parking lot, whereupon, led by Edin Enamorado, they drove northward to congregate around Warren’s home, located in the 14200 block of Lauramore Court. Enamorado, armed with a bullhorn, began to exhort the crowd and regale the neighborhood with accounts of what a racist community Fontana is.
When Warren arrived home, driving her Mercedes Benz at a time approaching 11 p.m., the crowd reacted sharply, but Warren was able to get into her home unscathed.
Shortly thereafter, a SWAT van rolled onto Lauramore Court, and no fewer than 7 Fontana police officers outfitted in riot gear emerged from the van. Most of the Enamorados made a hasty retreat from the neighborhood. Edin Alex Enamorado, however, remained across the street from the mayor’s house, bullhorn in hand. Officer identified him and effectuated his arrest and that of one of his associates, referred to as his bodyguard, for disturbing the peace at 11:26 p.m. Enamorado, who had been remanded into the custody of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, was cite released at 8:48 a.m. on the morning of October 25.
Similarly, on November 14, the Fontana City Council meeting devolved into chaos when a contingent of Enamorados showed up to protest the intensification of the street and sidewalk vending ordinance. When a series of expletive-filled shouts and tirades from the gallery grew so loud that the proceedings could not be heard or conducted, the council chamber was cleared. Five of the Enamorados present who were observed to have been disruptive while the meeting was in progress were arrested by the contingent of police officers who were on hand as the crowd filed out into the meeting chamber’s foyer.
When the council reconvened, the public-at-large was gone and only the council, city staff, a few police officers and members of the press remained. The council then voted 4-to-1 to approve the impound fee. The council having an extremely heavily-laden agenda that evening, because of the delays it was unable to complete its consideration of all of the items that evening, agreeing to reconvene at 7:30 the following morning.
As had been the case at October 24 meeting, the more than two dozen Enamorados who were present at the meeting who had not been arrested, including Edin Alex Enamorado himself, regrouped in the City Hall parking lot after having been booted from the meeting and headed to Warren’s neighborhood to stage another late evening protest there. On of the Enamorados was taken into custody after the police arrived and declared the protest to be an unlawful assembly.
Alex Enamorado managed to evade arrest the night of November 14, 2023, and showed up at Fontana City Hall the following morning when the city council reconvened to finish off the remaining items from the previous night’s uncompleted agenda. Enamorado embraced the opportunity to make even more incendiary comments to the council and Warren in particular, characterizing her as a “sellout” and “racist” and a politician who was prone to “continue to take bribes and kickbacks [and] to continue to accept backdoor deals.”
Later that morning, the Fontana Police arrested him for disrupting the meeting. He was released from custody later that day, but the recognizance release documents he signed gave the sheriff’s department a window on elements of his existence complementing other information it was developing by downloading the videos and other materials he had uploaded to his social media sites and carefully going over them for what could be learned about activism he was engaged in and those he associated with and what actions or protests he was going to engage in. This provided the department with opportunities to send undercover officers to those protests and insinuate themselves among Enamorados and take on the guise of being one of them. From the information thus gleaned, the department obtained warrants for cellphone records, text messages, emails and other communications that served as a virtual roadmap of what the Enamorados had done and when they did it. On December 14, 2023, arrest warrants which were served by San Bernardino County sheriff’s personnel on the morning of December 14 between 3:20 a.m. and 4:46 a.m. at the Los Angeles residence of López, the Upland apartment of Enamorado and Luján, the Riverside abode of Chávez, Carrasco’s domicile in Ontario, Acevedo’s San Bernardino premises and Amésquita’s habitation in the same city and Peña’s dwelling in Los Angeles, where all eight were taken into custody.
Ultimately, Edin Enamorado was charged with 16 felonies, Amesquita with 11 Felonies, Carrasco with 14 felonies, Chávez with 14 Felonies, Lopez with 13 felonies, Lujan with 14 felonies and Peña with 14 felonies.
Each of the Enamorados, based on what had occurred on September 3 and September 24, were originally being held to answer on multiple felony unlawful use of tear gas charges, one felony charge of vandalism involving $400 or more worth of property, one charge of felony conspiracy to commit a crime; two charges of felony threats to engage in criminal action likely to result in death or great bodily injury; three counts of felony false imprisonment, two felony kidnapping charges and three counts of felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury. In addition, Edin Alex Enamorado was charged with being a felon in possession of tear gas and one count of felony possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Lopez was also charged with being a felon in possession of tear gas.
In the case of Acevedo, prosecutors early on alleged that he had been present at the assaults that took place in Pomona on September 3, which subjected him to conspiracy, kidnapping, false imprisonment, threatening great bodily injury, assault like to result in great bodily injury and vandalism charges. As a consequence, he remained in custody with his codefendants throughout December 2023. In January 2024, however, his attorney, Dan Chambers, was able to demonstrate through phone records, other documentation and testimony that Acevedo was in Santa Ana in Orange County on September 3 and was not involved with the other Enamorados in the attack on the security guard or the Pomona resident they encountered at the Pomona Police Station nor in Pomona at all on that day. It was further demonstrated that he had not possessed nor utilized pepper spray in his encounter with the Hyundai passenger at the car wash in Victorville on September 24. The charges against him were narrowed, initially, to PC245(a)(4) – felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury. In January, Chambers convinced Judge Zahara Arredondo to reduce that charge to PC245(a)(4)- misdemeanor assault and release Acevedo from custody pending trial.
Enamorado was represented by attorney Nicholas Rosenberg. Amésquita was represented by Mauro Quintero. Damon Alimouri represented Carrasco. Chávez’s attorney was Edwin S Salguero.
Erick Hammett represented López. Representing Luján was Christian Contreras. Arsany Said represented Peña.
A substantial support network formed around the eight defendants, consisting of Enamorados who had not been charged, some of the defendants’ family members and the thousands of followers Edin Alex Enamorado had on his multiple social media platforms. Moreover, the community of defense attorneys created something of an echo chamber around the defendants, whose supporters dubbed the “Freedom Eight.” A legend, indeed, a mythos and accompanying mystique, formed around the defendants, as Edin Alex Enamorado was lionized as a modern-day freedom fighter, the leader of a crusade fighting for justice and protecting the weak and disadvantaged. He was victim who had boldly carried out a noble effort to protect street vendors, one who was rightly admired for his efforts in the civilization that Los Angeles County, where his work was well known and recognized for what it was, according to the narrative that was being spun. Then, he had made the mistake of crossing into the backward and racist backwater of San Bernardino County, his admirers said, where the forces of darkness with their perverted criminal justice system was vilifying him and his closest associates, and maliciously prosecuting them. From his jail cell, Enamorado signaled to his confederates who were yet free that they should take down the incriminating videos that he had ill-advisedly posted to his various websites. That occurred.
Thus, when Rosenberg, Quintero, Alimouri, Salguero, Hammett, Contreras and Said began preparing to represent their clients, crucial evidence against the defendants was not available to them. In both their pleadings before the court and their public utterances, they intensified the benign sounding reverberations emanating from the Enamorado echo chamber, assertions that these were well meaning crusaders standing up for what was right.
When the preliminary hearing played out, Rosenberg, Quintero, Alimouri, Salguero, Hammett, Contreras and Said found themselves blindsided. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department had secured videos taken by the Enamorados, many of them taken by Edin Alex Enamorado himself, some of which featured his own narrative, ones that graphically depicted the defendants doing precisely what the prosecution alleged they were doing: assaulting those they had a philosophical and philanthropic beef with or perhaps some people who were simply uninvolved but unfortunately located bystanders. And the videos had sound. Heard on the videos were the utterances of the Enamorados just before they initiated their assaults, while they were engaged in the assaults and what they said after the assaults.
The Enamorados defense team tried to back up and regroup or come at the matter from a lightly variant angle or to take a radically vectored approach.
At one point, Rosenberg and the others sought to have the matter removed from San Bernardino County. An argument was posited that the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office was biased against the defendants and had overstepped itself in that the events of September 3 had taken place not in San Bernardino County but across the Los Angeles County line in Pomona.