banks and retaliation for resistance, LAPD cruisers and a Department of Sanitation truck lined the
street outside the Hernandez family’s Van Nuys home this afternoon and declared that furniture
and a temporary wooden barricade on the property are violations of city sidewalk ordinance 56.11.
The Hernandez family, facing imminent foreclosure, currently have proceedings pending before
the court for two earlier 56.11 citations, noting that there are no sidewalks in front of their home
and no immediate threat to public health or safety. The Hernandez family has erected the ten-foot
barricade in symbolic protest of their impending, fraudulent eviction by Bank of America with the
help of neighbors, the Occupy Movement, and other grassroots groups.

On Saturday, five officers from the narcotics division lurked in three unmarked cars outside the
Hernandez home waiting for Ulises Hernandez to emerge. Shortly after 5:00 p.m., they seized Mr.
Hernandez giving no explanation at the time of arrest. Hernandez is the spokesperson for the
ongoing protest at his home, dubbed Fort Hernandez, devoted to putting a personal face on the
foreclosure crisis.

Hernandez later said that after asking his name, police asked where he was born. When he
requested a lawyer, the officers started to place the call but put down the phone, ended their
questioning, and put him in a holding cell. He was held there for hours without knowing the
charges against him. In a second interrogation, he was questioned about the Fort Hernandez
protest. Only after friends posted the $561 fine did police tell Hernandez that the warrant that
brought out a squad of narcotics officers was for the infraction of riding on the bus without paying
the $1.50 fare.

A week ago, the Hernandez family went to the LAPD Commissioner’s meeting to file a formal
grievance demanding Chief Charlie Beck investigate harassment and attempted intimidation. There,
Mr. Hernandez provided evidence of a 15 minute harassing monologue and attempted provocation
by an LAPD Sergeant. The complaint was also in response to a pre-dawn visit from 40 LAPD
officers, some in riot gear, during which, the officers issued the family a sanitation citation for sofas
and armchairs that line the front edge of the property.

After his release from custody on that same day of the arrest, Hernandez summed up his three-
hour visit to the Van Nuys jail: “It's another show of intimidation. They're trying to make us make a
mistake in any way possible.” He returned home at about 9:00 p.m., greeted with cheers, hugs, and
balloons from family and community supporters at Fort Hernandez.