He’s trying to break generational ties to gangs. Los Angeles police keep targeting him

As a child, Zach Lewis visited his parents in different prisons. The roles reversed less than two years ago.

Lewis was at Afflerbaugh and his twin brother next door at Paige, a pair of juvenile camps in the eastern foothills of Los Angeles County. Lewis’ parents took turns walking back and forth to visit each son for 30 minutes. They shared their visit in a large room, alongside other imprisoned teenagers and visiting parents, all seated in a long row facing one another. The gap between child and parent reinforced the rule prohibiting physical touch.

On a windy and cloudy day, Lewis had a realization.

“It made me think of a cycle — a bad cycle. Would I want that for my family; would I want that for my kids,” he told me in an interview. “I’d rather change that, now, while I’m still young.”

Today, Lewis, 20, helps other young people improve their lives.

Yet Los Angeles police are testing Lewis’ resolve. Despite personal reflection, navigating his family’s choices and breaking a generational cycle of gang involvement, Lewis has also maneuvered police harassment and profiling. What started with apparent shadowing and surveillance escalated beyond explanation when in the spring two dozen officers and more than a dozen vehicles cordoned off a busy intersection on Los Angeles’ eastside with a helicopter overhead. Lewis was released with no charges.  

Months after nine people were inexplicably detained, the LAPD told me the incident was a “personnel matter” and wouldn’t explain further. The absence of accountability frays whatever trust remains with a neighborhood that stood with Lewis that day. 

The inner work to change

Lewis’ body is awash in tattoos. His knuckles, biceps, forearms and neck declare the neighborhood he used to fight for — tattoos he plans to remove, he said. They’re reminders of a lifestyle he was born into. His father, who is Black, mother, who is Mexican, brothers, cousins, uncles and family friends are all involved in gangs. 

At Afflerbaugh, Lewis attended an audio engineering class offered by the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory. Three days after Lewis was released, he went to the conservatory and was hired for an internship.  

Lewis made himself useful. He would sweep and clean between assignments. He emulated the speech modeled by the artists and staff. He channeled his initiative into programming. Daily prompts like ‘What can you do better today?’ gave other young people direction and purpose, Lewis said. He led healing circles. 

In the parlance of restorative justice, Lewis has done the inner work to change. Within eight months, Lewis was hired for the conservatory’s Bridge Academy Movement, a program for formerly incarcerated and justice-impacted youth. 

Then the profiling and police harassment started.

Lewis stands out in the neighborhood. Of its 3,383 residents, 3,167 identify as Mexican or Latino. While 320 people in the neighborhood identify as multiracial, only 38 say they are Black or African American, like Lewis.

He worked at night assisting security at the Paramount, a music venue that shares the building with the conservatory. Police driving by would flash their lights at him and his coworkers, Lewis said. Police would ask Lewis where he was from — probing not for a neighborhood but his presumed gang affiliation.

Another night, Lewis accompanied a coworker to her car. Walking back, he saw police eating. He noticed them notice him. By the time Lewis reached the foyer of Bridge Academy, a pair of officers arrived. The door was locked. Searching for keys wasn’t a safe idea.

Approaching from opposite sides, one officer accused him of hiding a gun. A cook at Brooklyn Ave., a popular pizza spot in the same building as the conservatory and the Paramount, saw what was happening and went to check on Lewis. 

“If I would have reached in my pocket, (the officers) would have shot me,” Lewis said.

Lewis shouldn’t have to worry about eye contact or reaching into his pockets. He shouldn’t be accused of hiding a gun without cause. He shouldn’t have to worry about the police. But experience taught him otherwise. 

Then, in the spring, every precaution was validated.

Going viral on graduation day

March 26 was a breezy day in Boyle Heights. A heat wave had subsided. Construction continued at the intersection of Cesar Chavez Avenue and Mott Street. Families were on their way to celebrate the Bridge Academy graduation.

A couple hours before graduation, Lewis, another mentor and seven students went to get coffee. Police drove by. Lewis had the students wait, hoping to go unnoticed. One of the young men made a comment about the officer’s mustache.

Inside Milpa Kitchen, the group ordered coffee. One volunteered to pay the $35 bill. A local teacher, waiting for a drink, was impressed and asked about the occasion, recalled Xuan Carlos Espinoza, who sells coffee inside Milpa. The teacher offered to pay, Espinoza remembered. 

Then Lewis and the youth went outside to wait. He saw police approaching. Lewis told the students to turn on their phone cameras. He recognized some of the officers.

“The same cops; this shit is harassment at this point,” Lewis said. Lewis asked one of the familiar officers what they had done.

“It’s not my call, bro,” he said to Lewis, who still doesn’t know what to make of that response. 

Inside Milpa, Espinoza heard a slam. He went to check on the disturbance and found Lewis pinned against the wall. Espinoza began filming and asked police why his customers were being detained. Espinoza told Lewis to remain calm, don’t resist. Compliance would strengthen a harassment claim.

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At the conservatory, programs coordinator Teotl Veliz was bouncing between a children’s stop animation class and KQBH, a radio station inside the rear of the building. The wife of deejay Mr. OG said the kids next door were being arrested. 

Veliz and two coworkers walked outside. They saw Lewis and Bridge Academy students against the wall. There was a 2 to 1 ratio of deputy to detainee. Veliz returned to the conservatory for a microphone and camera to film.

“It became clear (police) fucked up because of the community response,” Veliz recalled. “Students got involved. Neighbors stood on corners. People got out of their cars. It felt like ICE tactics, but they couldn’t get away with it because of the community response.”

By the end, there were more than two dozen police officers, a dozen vehicles and a helicopter circling. Police cordoned the intersection. 

Lewis and another young man were placed in separate police cars and driven away. Lewis was taken to the Hollenbeck Community Police Station.

Conservatory executive director Carmelita Ramírez-Sánchez was about 15 miles away when staff called her. She arrived at the station within 17 minutes.

Inside, Ramírez-Sánchez asked about the two young men. The reception officer laughed and said they weren’t getting out, Ramírez-Sánchez recalled. Not long after, Los Angeles City Council member Ysabel Jurado arrived, as did Espinoza and a local cop watch group, demanding to know what happened. 

Still no explanation from LAPD

Months later, it is still unclear what triggered the police. 

At different points, Ramírez-Sánchez was told they were detained for obstructing a sidewalk; for vaping; that they were suspicious youths — even though none of them are minors.

In the absence of an explanation, Ramírez-Sánchez has questions: Why were so many members of the police gang unit present? How much money was spent on an incident that, in the end, only eroded community trust? Was this all because of a comment about a moustache?

“They all have guns and badges and the boys are at their whim,” Ramírez-Sánchez told me. “But what has stayed with the young men after the incident is the support. It underscores that once you get to know our young men, they become your young men too.”

Ramírez-Sánchez is not the only one with questions. But she shouldn’t be the only one publicly asking for accountability. 

In an April letter reviewed by CalMatters, LAPD police chief Jim McDonnell and captain Christopher Mayberry confirmed the department was conducting an internal investigation into “alleged misconduct.” Its status is unclear.

The inspector general’s office and the police commission, a civilian oversight board, declined to comment. Sarah E. Bell, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, explained that their oversight mandate is on policy, not day to day actions or, as in this incident, apparent missteps. 

The lack of an explanation from the LAPD creates dissonance with its mission of safety, service and protection — which, conversely, is modeled by Lewis and the young people he works with. This is what the police don’t see. They instead fixate on how he looks.

The incident on Chavez and Mott was the culmination of a pattern of profiling and police harassment. Thankfully, it didn’t escalate. Ongoing harassment partially ignited what we now call the Watts Riots. Witnesses of harassment kindled the Black Lives Matters movement. 

Los Angeles has shown again and again it will not tolerate harassment — whether police or federal agents. Now, as then, a just resolution demands respect and understanding from police, who are public servants, especially when their targets have repeatedly shown a cool patience and abiding resolve.

It seems Los Angeles police could learn a thing or two from Zach Lewis.