Inglewood mayor accused of telling activist ‘go choke yourself,’ but video evidence disappears

A video circulating in Inglewood this week appears to capture Mayor James Butts telling an activist to “go choke yourself,” but the city’s original version of the recording posted online has been altered to remove the insult.

In the current version, Butts adjourns the June 12 meeting and the video cuts out four seconds later. But, at least until July 18, the original video actually continued for 19 more seconds. And in those final moments, the microphone picks up what sounds like Butts saying, “Go choke yourself, Diane,” while seated at the dais, according to a cellphone recording of the exchange.

The invective was directed at resident Diane Sambrano, who criticized the City Council earlier in the meeting for giving the Los Angeles Clippers access to public land to hold a press conference.

Sambrano, a longtime activist who often clashes with Butts during council meetings, heard the mayor say her name at the end of the June 12 meeting, but she didn’t know what he said until she watched the meeting online. She then called Butts out at the City Council meeting July 10.

“It was there for a while, then I mentioned it, and they edited it maybe a week later,” she said.

Joseph Teixeira, a frequent opponent of Butts, used his cellphone to record the mayor’s comment directly from the city’s video, but when he returned to the video weeks later, he found that it ended abruptly. Earlier this month, Teixeira accused Butts of covering up the remark, and after the mayor denied the claim, Teixeira released a comparison with both versions.

In an email, Butts denied asking staff to alter the recording.

“As I said before, I have no recollection of saying this. This is not how I have ever spoken to the public,” Butts said. “I have never asked anyone to edit a video or delete a video, so I have no explanation for Mr. Texiera’s (sic) tape.”

Councilman Eloy Morales, who sits next to Butts, said he did not recall the mayor telling Sambrano to choke herself. In Teixeira’s clip, Morales turns toward Butts after the comment is made.

A cached version of the June 12 video confirms someone altered it more than a month after it was uploaded to YouTube. The original run-time was 41 minutes and 28 seconds as of July 18, according to Google’s snap shot. The same video now ends at 41 minutes and nine seconds.

Sambrano publicly accused Butts on July 10 and Teixeira circulated an email with similar accusations July 11.

“I don’t appreciate anyone, not even the mayor, suggesting that I choke myself in a public meeting. I just wonder how many workplace situations are going to be created where somebody sues us because of a hostile work environment that you created and we have to pay for,” Sambrano said at the July 10 Council meeting.

David Snyder, director of the San Rafael-based First Amendment Coalition, said the recorded meeting is a public record and questioned the city’s legal basis for altering it.

“At the very least, it is unseemly for them to edit a publicly released video in a way that is clearly just designed to protect the mayor for political reasons,” Snyder said. “If the city is going to redact information from public documents, they need a valid basis to do it, and I don’t see a valid basis here.”

The city, however, likely could not be forced to undo the redaction because the video wasn’t published in response to a request under the California Public Records Act, Snyder said. The original may not exist anymore. Inglewood City Clerk Yvonne Horton said the city does not retain the raw video after the meeting is uploaded to YouTube.

On Tuesday, Teixeira brought a flash drive to the City Council meeting and challenged Butts to play the comparison. The mayor declined.

“Last week, you sat up here and lied to everybody, said you didn’t say ‘go choke yourself, Diane,’ ” Teixeira said. “You lied. I’m saying right now, put this in there and make me look dumb.”

“You already look dumb, sir,” Butts replied.

“Show everybody what kind of a liar you are, what kind of things you say about a woman when you think nobody is hearing, or you think she is close enough to hear you and she will be afraid,” Teixeira responded. “You’re a coward and a bully.”

In an email, Butts said his staff edited other videos for length in 2016 and 2017. However, he would not provide the dates.

“Not going to have staff research, they have confirmed that this is not an anomaly,” Butts wrote.

But this edit is out of the ordinary. A comparison of every Inglewood City Council meeting in 2018 shows the videos continued for an average of 17 seconds after adjournment. The June 12 meeting, however, cut outs after just four seconds. Only one other video ends more quickly. In that video, Butts shut down the meeting when someone tries to serve him with a lawsuit. The council had not finished its agenda.

Even if the city does edit its videos, it is unlikely they were edited more than a month later, according to Snyder of the First Amendment Coalition.

“They released the full video, then went back, chopped off the end and put out a newly redacted video,” he said. “It seems unlikely that is a common practice.”

Inglewood typically posts its City Council videos to YouTube the day after the meeting. But the city also broadcasts the meetings live on Facebook. The June 12 meeting is the only one from 2018 that could not be found in the city’s archives.

Butts disputed that the video is not available on Facebook, but he did not provide proof of its existence when asked for it.