I picked up La Opinion at my panaderia on Sunset just now and saw that El
Cucuy's New Year's night run-in with the LAPD made the lead story on
the front page. Ouch. Cucuy is out on bail after turning himself in at
Devonshire Station after getting into some kind of family brawl and
then threatening officers at his home in Northridge. El Cucuy was
recently profiled in The New Yorker. Last night, I watched as his wife
Virginia got in front of a camera on Telemundo's nighttime newscast,
lifted her shirt to show her middrift and say: "Look, I am fine. Look
at my face. You can look at me. He's never laid a hand on me. He loves me very much." A little bit later, she told the Telemundo reporter the whole mess is to blame on their neighbors, who "are not Hispanos" and don't understand how "we" party. Then Cucuy's son Miguel came on. He showed the bandages on his chest and said: "We were celebrating and suddenly, an accident. Accidents happen. No one is perfect in this life."
* LATimes.com has AP wire on the story and video from KTLA.
* Hoy had the story on its cover on Wednesday under the headline, "Bad Start of New Year for Cucuy." On Thursday, top headline read, "Wife of Cucuy Denies Accusations." Friday the lead story is "More Controveries in Cucuy Case": The paper reports that Cucuy hollered "Happy New Year! Happy New Year! Nothing happened," as he left the police station after a five-hour visit; his attorney Eugene Matthews said El Cucuy was wearing dark sunglasses because of the "tense circumstances."
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