By Mark Gutglueck
Six individuals criminally charged with involvement in three September 2023 swarm assault incidents relating to their crusade for justice this morning entered guilty pleas on single felony counts.
Stephanie Amésquita, 34 of San Bernardino; Vanessa Carrasco, 41 of Ontario; Wendy Luján, 41 of Upland; David Chavez, 28 of Riverside; and Edwin Peña, 27 of Los Angeles, each pleaded guilty to a single count of violating Penal Code § 245(a)(4)-F: assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury. Fernando Lopez, 45 of Los Angeles, entered a single guilty plea to PC245(a)(1)-F: assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm likely to result in great bodily injury.
Present during the hearing before Judge John M. Wilkerson were Deputy District Attorney Jason Wilkinson, the prosecutor on the case; all six defendants; Amésquita’s attorney, Mauro Quintero; Luján’s attorney, Christian Contreras; Chávez’s attorney, Alejandro Benitez; Peña’s attorney, Arsany Said; and López’s attorney, Erik Hammett.
The six were followers and close associates of Edin Alex Enamorado, a self-styled social justice advocate whose efforts have generated more controversy than political reform.
Judge John M Wilkerson, after re-advising all six of each of their rights, found each defendant understood the charge to which each was pleading, the possible penalties, the right against self-incrimination, the right to confront and cross examine witnesses, the right to a public and speedy trial, the right to a jury trial, the right to have an attorney present at all stages of the proceedings and the right have the court exercise its compulsory process of subpoenaing witnesses. According to court records, each defendant freely, voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently expressly waived those rights in open court.
Under the agreements stipulated to by Wilkinson, Quintero, Contreras, Carrasco, Benitez, Said and Hammett and accepted by Judge Wilkerson, Amésquita, Carrasco and Luján were to be released today and must return to court on December 12, at which point they are to be sentenced to 353 days in county jail and will simultaneously be given, as of that date, credit for 353 days’ time served, while Chávez, Peña and López are to remain in custody and return to court on December 12, at which point they are to be sentenced to two years in state prison with 364 days’ credit for time served to be subtracted from that term.
Judge Wilkerson agreed to dismiss one other count of PC245(a)(4) – felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury; one count of PC182(A)(1)-felony conspiracy to commit a crime; one count of PC422(A) – issuing felony threats to engage in criminal action likely to result in death or great bodily injury; two counts of PC236 – felony false imprisonment; and one count of PC22810(G)(1) – felony unlawful use of tear gas against Amesquita.
Judge Wilkerson agreed to dismiss two other counts of PC245(a)(4) – felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury; one count of PC182(A)(1)-felony conspiracy to commit a crime; two counts of PC422(A)- issuing felony threats to engage in criminal action likely to result in death or great bodily injury; three counts of PC236 – felony false imprisonment; three counts of PC207(A) – felony kidnapping; and two counts of PC22810(G)(1) – felony unlawful use of tear gas against Carrasco.
Judge Wilkerson agreed to dismiss two other counts of PC245(a)(4) – felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury; one charge of PC182(A)(1)-felony conspiracy to commit a crime; two counts of PC422(A) – felony threats to engage in criminal action likely to result in death or great bodily injury; three counts of PC236 – felony false imprisonment; one count of PC207(A) – felony kidnapping; and two counts of PC22810(G)(1) – felony unlawful use of tear gas against Luján.
Judge Wilkerson agreed to dismiss two other counts of PC245(a)(4) – felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury; PC182(A)(1) – felony conspiracy to commit a crime; two counts of PC422(A) – felony threats to engage in criminal action likely to result in death or great bodily injury; three counts of PC236 – felony false imprisonment; PC207(A) – felony kidnapping; and two counts of PC22810(G)(1) – felony unlawful use of tear gas against Chávez.
Judge Wilkerson agreed to dismiss PC182(A)(1)-felony conspiracy to commit a crime; two counts of PC422(A) – felony threats to engage in criminal action likely to result in death or great bodily injury; two counts of PC236 – felony false imprisonment; PC207(A) – felony kidnapping; one count of PC245(a)(4) – felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury; one count of PC22810(G)(1) – felony unlawful use of tear gas; and one count of PC22810(A)- misdemeanor possession of tear gas by a convicted felon against López.
Judge Wilkerson agreed to dismiss two remaining counts of PC245(a)(4) – felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury; one count of PC182(A)(1)-felony conspiracy to commit a crime; two counts of PC422(A)- felony issuing threats of engaging in criminal action likely to result in death or great bodily injury; three counts of PC236 – felony false imprisonment; three counts of PC207(A) – felony kidnapping; and two counts of PC22810(G)(1) – felony unlawful use of tear gas against Peña.
Amésquita’s, Carrasco’s, Luján’s, Chávez’s, Peña’s and López’s two codefendants in the case, Gullit Eder Acevedo and Edin Alex Enamorado, the leader of the Enamorados, were not parties to the deal and were not in court. Acevedo, who is represented by attorneys Dan Chambers and Parag Shah, is due to return to court before Judge Albert Hsueh for a pretrial hearing on July 23. While Acevedo, who is known by the nickname “Jaguar,” was originally charged with the fewest number of counts against him of all of the defendants – felony PC 245.2, use of a deadly weapon on an operator of a motor vehicle; felony PC 236, false imprisonment; felony PC22810(G)(1), unlawful use of tear gas; and felony PC 182.5, conspiracy to commit a gang-related felony – Chambers was able to credibly establish that Acevedo was not present at two of the September 2023 incidents involving the other seven defendants and he persuaded Judge Zahara Arredondo to dismiss the PC182 conspiracy, PC236 – felony false imprisonment and PC22810 use of tear gas charges against Acevedo, entering a ruling that there was insufficient evidence to convict him on those counts. Judge Arredondo further granted Chambers’ motion to reduce or modify the PC245(a)(4) – felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury to PC245(a)(4)- misdemeanor assault.
Edin Alex Enamorado, represented by attorney Nicholas Rosenberg, has remained defiant, insisting that his aggressive activities in defending the poor and disenfranchised and standing up for street vendors while confronting the racists who victimize them have never crossed the line into criminality.
Enamorado, 37, a convicted felon and self-acknowledged “gang banger” who moved to the United States from Guatemala with his parents as an infant and was raised on the mean streets of Cudahy, claims he turned his life around about a decade ago when the gangland activity he was engaged in resulted in the shooting death of his girlfriend. Thereafter, he says, he committed himself to working toward the betterment of the society in which he lives. Enamorado maintains social justice demands American society coming to a recognition that white Europeans who colonized the New World and then created the United States have usurped the land of the indigenous people of North America, whom they exterminated, removed, marginalized or otherwise dominated, while imposing on them an onerous, unfair and damaging capitalistic system.
One immediate element of Enamorado’s action plan was to resist local municipalities in their imposition of regulations and ordinances relating to street vending. Enamorado maintains street vending is an element of Latino culture, and that its practitioners enjoy a constitutional right to ply their trade. According to the Enamorados, the indigenous people who have survived or made their way back into what is now the United States and Alta California after having been displaced generations ago should now be free to conduct themselves outside that inherently unfair capitalistic paradigm without the interference of the white European racists who now have political control of California. Moreover, the Enamorados propound, those indigenous people who have been assimilated into the white European culture or those members of La Raza whose ancestors returned to California from Mexico or even further south two, three, four or five generations ago and have now been abstracted into the California establishment either politically or economically or both are “coconuts,” i.e., people who are brown on the outside but white on the inside, ones who have accepted the racist ethos of the white oppressors.
One tactic favored by the Enamorados was to show up en masse at a public meeting of the civil authority or a given jurisdiction’s decision-making body such as a city council, generally with Edin Alex Enamorado leading them, to either protest a past decision or ongoing policy or to lobby against a contemplated new policy such as passing an ordinance that would clamp down on street vendors.
Another was a general show of protest in a given area, such as a downtown business district or outside a public building.
With his acolytes, whom he recruited both in person and through his use of various social media platforms, Edin Alex Enamorado has rallied to the locations where street vendors were confronted by law enforcement, municipal code enforcement, local business owners or citizens to take “direct action.” The ordinances put in place to prevent street vendors or sidewalk vendors from setting up operations near, in front of or in the parking lots of brick-and-mortar operations are an immoral carryover of the racist capitalistic system, the Enamorados maintain. One technique in their approach consists of offering what they term “support” and “security” to street vendors as they ply their trade, a presence intended to ward off anyone who would interfere with the vendors. That extends to “protection,” i.e., providing the vendors with what are essentially bodyguards. In addition, they will supply the vendors with chemical agents such as mace or pepper spray that they can use against anyone they deem to be threatening them.
On his own as a social justice crusader prior to his incarceration, Enamorado often engaged in exchanges with the media during which he held 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. During those media encounters, Enamorado sought to express himself in measured and articulate terms. His approach in the field, which more often than not was captured in moving sound images by videographers who accompanied him, was to portray himself as an avenging angel of justice ready to strike down with furious rage upon those who would harm the innocent immigrants whom he was protecting. These encounters were often augmented with physical confrontation. His activism involved a 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 Edin Alex Enamorado, 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. Routinely, videos of these confrontations were uploaded onto social media platforms Enamorado controlled. Some of those depicted an individual being confronted or in other cases bystanders 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.
Three such incidents, two of which occurred over the 2023 Labor Day holiday on September 3 and another on September 24, formed the criminal case put together against the six Enamorados by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office.
In early September, after Edin Enamorado learned that a security guard at El Super Market at the northeast corner of Indian Hill Avenue and Holt Boulevard in Pomona had a confrontation with some street vendors there by insisting that they not sell their food items from a table set up in the grocery store parking lot, he appealed to his followers on social media to find out who the security guard was. On the morning of September 3, a Sunday, Enamorado traveled from his residence in Upland to the Pomona Police Department headquarters located within the Pomona Civic Center to demand that the department take action against the security guard, who was later identified by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department investigators and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office as “John Doe 1.” Enamorado, who had yet to determine the identity of the security guard, livestreamed to his Instagram channel that exchange with two police officers outside the entrance to the police station lobby, during which he was critical of the department’s failure to arrest the security guard. In that video, Enamorado tells the police, in the midst of assailing them for not dealing with the security guard that “We’ll be holding him accountable.”
After that exchange with the officers, Enamorado returned to Upland, where, at 2:43 p.m., he received a message from an individual identified as “Big Guppy 420” who was apparently monitoring El Super.
“He’s here,” Big Guppy 420 related to Enamorado, who responded, “I’m on my way.” While he was yet in Upland, Enamorado phoned Luján at 2:45 p.m. and arrangements were made to alert the other Enamorados that the security guard – John Doe 1 – was at El Super and that they should go there at once. In video footage of what ensued taken by one of the Enamorados which was later posted to social media one of the Enamorados can be heard saying “Spray his dumb ass.”
Other video passages taken inside El Super, including ones recorded by one of the Enamorados as well as the store’s security videos, show the security guard sprawled on the floor, blinded by pepper spray. He manages to get to his feet, make his way toward one of the store’s cash registers, where three of the Enamorados are kicking him and raining blows down upon him.
After the mid-afternoon September 3 incident between the Enamorados and the security guard, Pomona Police arrived and arrested Luján. Thereupon, the Enamorados sojourned to the Pomona Police headquarters to object to her arrest and get her out of custody. A Pomona resident, later identified during court proceedings as John Doe 2, came to the police station, intending to file an unrelated police report. Unbeknownst to any of those there – both the Enamorados and the Pomona resident – the police station was shuttered that day because of the Labor Day holiday. The resident, unable to get into the police headquarters lobby because of the protesters milling about in front of the station, perceived his inability to file the report he had come to make was because police personnel had locked the entrance because of the protest. Words were exchanged between the resident and some of Enamorados. When John Doe 2 went back to his car, he was accompanied by several of the Enamorados. Further words were exchanged, and the resident threw an open Gatorade bottle at them as he was about to drive off. The Enamorados mistakenly took the liquid in the bottle to be urine. Edin 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 John Doe 2’s home. About half of the Enamorados engaged in the protest peeled off and went to the man’s home. There they found him seated in his vehicle.
Enamorado challenged him to fight. Someone else could be heard on one of the videos of that confrontation telling John Doe 2 “I will beat you every day if you don’t get out of the car.” When he did get out of the vehicle, John Doe was forced to his knees, where he groveled before his tormentors, pleading with them not to harm him.
Further threats to harm John Doe 2 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, Edin Enamorado led a group of Enamorados 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, Edin 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. 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. 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 Edin 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, Edin 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, Edin 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.
Upon her booking, Luján provided her jailers with a Pomona address rather than her actual residence in Upland, which sheriff’s department’s investigators, as a result of their subsequent investigation, came to believe was an effort to protect Edin Enamorado, with whom she cohabited in Upland, from being connected to what had occurred that day.
Edin 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 including the assault of the couple in the Hyundai on September 24 to a social media account on TikTok he controlled under 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 was one of the Enamorados 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 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, had ascertained Enamorado was their leader, were giving him especially close scrutiny and had begun to secure copies of the videos and other materials that were being uploaded to various websites and social media accounts. Those materials would form a substantial basis of warrants the investigators would obtain, which led to further discoveries and, penultimately, 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 dwelling in Los Angeles, where all eight were taken into custody.
They were arraigned before Judge Shannon Faherty on charges adjusted by the prosecutor’s office from the charges they were arrested under. At once, the support network around them came forward to maintain that they were being criminally charged for merely engaging in social reform advocacy and that holding the octet, referred to, variably, as the “Justice Eight” or the “Freedom Eight” to account for their aggressive form of activism was a violation of their First Amendment rights. Deputy district attorneys Wilkinson and John Richardson, however, argued before Judge Faherty, as well as Judge Melissa Rodriguez during other pre-trial hearings and before Judge Arredondo throughout the preliminary hearing process that their social activism crossed the line from speech to criminal, and in some cases, felonious violence. Given Enamorado’s, Luján’s, Chávez’s, Carrasco’s, Amésquita’s, Peña’s and López’s insistence and that of their supporters that their actions in combating racism were morally and legally justified, Wilkinson and Richardson convinced judges Faherty, Rodriguez and Wilkerson that the seven remained a continuing threat to the community that could not be contained in any other way than incarceration, such that they remained in jail with no bail holds.
Defense attorneys explored multiple avenues on behalf of their clients, one of which included seeking a change of venue from San Bernardino County Superior Court to Los Angeles Superior Court with regard to the charges stemming from the incidents that took place in Pomona – which lies within Los Angeles County – on September 3. Enamorados’ attorney, Rosenberg, in particular was hopeful that removing the various cases other than those relating to the September 24 Victorville incident would auger well for the defendants, since Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón is understood by virtually everyone to be far more “progressive” in his attitude than San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson and thereby understanding and compassionate toward individuals who cross a perceived legal line in carrying out a personal crusade to effectuate what they consider to be social justice. Rosenberg, along with Quintero, Contreras, Said and Hammett, representing, respectively Amésquita, Luján, Peña and López, and Damon Alimouri, representing Carrasco, and Edwin Salguero, representing Chávez, sought to have the venue on the case relating to the Pomona attacks changed to Pomona Superior Court, with hope of then having the matter moved to the El Monte Courthouse, the Alhambra Courthouse, the East Los Angeles Courthouse, the Norwalk Courthouse, the Spring Street Courthouse, the Compton Courthouse, the Inglewood Courthouse or the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center. But both Wilkinson and Richardson thwarted that strategy by pointing out to the court that when Enamorado on September 3 had rallied Luján, Amésquita, Peña, López, Carrasco and Chávez to rendezvous with him in Pomona to administer the summary punishment they visited upon the security guard, John Doe Number 1, at the El Super, which then led to the confrontation with John Doe Number 2 in front of the Pomona Police Department Headquarters and at John Doe Number 2’s house, he did so by making cellphone calls to the others from his residence in Upland, with those calls being relayed by a cellphone tower in Upland, which lies within San Bernardino County. Thus, a key component of the crimes being alleged took place within San Bernardino County, the proper legal venue for which would be the San Bernardino Superior Court, the prosecutors asserted and the court concurred.
With the prospect of having to go to trial on the multiple felony cases against them at some indefinite point in the near-to-distant future and that they would remain incarcerated until the end of the trial, Luján, Amésquita, Peña, López, Carrasco and Chávez today entered single guilty pleas to bring their legal travails to an end or set events on a trajectory thereto.
Acevedo, who is free on a $60,000 bond, and Enamorado, who remains jailed, both face having to yet stand trial, an ordeal which promises to prove rough for both, primarily because of the videos of Enamorado’s action and that of his followers which have now fallen into the possession of prosecutors. Those videos feature the application of violence as the standard method employed by the Enamorados to “protect” and “shield” the vulnerable victims of racism Enamorado saw it as his calling to serve. Intended more for the consumption of Enamorado’s followers than the public at large, the videos cavalierly and brazenly posted to the internet on various social media platforms are now in the hands of prosecutors and represent airtight evidence in the cases being made against him and Acevedo. Moreover, Acevedo’s communication to Enamorado in late September asking for the video of the attack on John Doe Number 3 to be removed from those platforms followed by Enamorado’s scrubbing of those videos stands as, prosecutors allege, a demonstration of what they term “consciousness of guilt” on both Acevedo’s and Enamorado’s parts, further evidence which is likely to damn both at their trials, if they indeed take place.
With the remaining charge against Acevedo having been reduced to a misdemeanor, he stands, at most, the risk of having to serve something under a year in county jail and having his record blemished with the conviction.
Enamorado is in a far more serious bind. He faces charges of PC182(A)(1)-felony conspiracy to commit a crime; two charges of PC422(A) – felony threats to engage in criminal action likely to result in death or great bodily injury; three counts of PC236 – felony false imprisonment; PC207(A) – felony kidnapping; three counts of PC245(a)(4) – felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury; two counts of PC22810(G)(1) – felony unlawful use of tear gas; one count of PC22810(A) – misdemeanor possession of tear gas by a convicted felon; and one count of PC29800(A)(1) – felony possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The charges, or most of them, are backed by video evidence Enamorado himself posted to his own social media accounts, including the videos of the September 3 Pomona incidents, the videos of the September 24 Victorville incident and a video of him using a firearm to take target practice at a shooting range.
There are a range of witnesses against Enamorado, as well as witnesses to incidents other than the three he has been charged with, including assaults against individuals who attended hearings at Fontana City Hall in October and November in which the Fontana City Council adopted an ordinance relating to regulating street vending and sidewalk vending, swarm protest tactics within residential neighborhoods in Apple Valley, Upland, Fontana and Rancho Cucamonga which targeted public officials, law enforcement officers and citizens Enamorado claimed were racists, as well as incidents in which the Enamorados approached, surrounded, accosted or attacked individuals by mistake, including a 92-year-old Upland man, the father of another Upland man who had antagonized the Enamorados by public utterances questioning the accuracy of their characterizations of law enforcement action as racist.
Reportedly, multiple individuals in Southern California who have had encounters with Enamorado directly or his followers, including ones in San Diego County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County and Los Angeles County are requesting that San Bernardino Authorities make Edin Alex Enamorado’s deportation to Guatemala a condition of any punishment for his conviction or plea arrangement relating to the charges he faces in San Bernardino County.
Rosenberg previously maintained that that the criminal case against the eight Enamorados had strengths and weaknesses and he conceded that the strongest elements of the prosecution’s case pertained to his client, Edin Enamorado. Nevertheless, Enamorado yet claims that the social and political order and establishment in Southern California is one that is illegitimate, indefensible, racist and inherently discriminatory and hostile toward the Latino population. The only antidote to this injustice, Enamorado propounds, is to abrasively and aggressively assert the rights of the oppressed masses. In doing so, it is his position, the Enamorados have never run afoul of the law, even if the corrupt legal system in California has been able to use its unfair advantage to induce guilty pleas from innocent victims of that injustice.