Law enforcement shootings in L.A. are so common that two people with the same exact name—Daniel Hernandez—were killed just days apart from one another in April of this year leading to confusion amongst community members and media outlets.
In a city where people that identify as Latino represent roughly half of the population and at a time when other Daniel Hernandezes have been pushed into the public spotlight, Daniel Hernandez is one of the most common names amongst Angelenos, Americans, and victims of police violence. (Full disclosure: It is also the name of L.A. Taco’s former Editor, who now works at LA Times.)
The April shootings—which happened a week apart and less than a mile from one another—highlight the prevalence of police violence that Latinos face in Los Angeles as well as the frequent police shootings at the LAPD Newton Division.
The LAPD categorizes Latinx people as “Latino” while other departments use “Hispanic.”
“It’s a confusion about whether we’re a race or whether we’re an ethnicity, some police departments will categorize Latinx as a race and some with categorize Latinx as an ethnicity,” Eddie Portillos, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, explained during a conversation on The Takeaway with L.A. Taco's Director of Partnerships Memo Torres and host Tanzina Vega.