LOS ANGELES — Rep. Maxine Waters attracted headlines this week for heading to Minnesota, where she called on protesters to get “more confrontational” if former police officer Derek Chauvin was not found guilty of the murder of George Floyd.
But Waters is a California Democrat whose crime-ridden district has witnessed two of the country’s deadliest riots — and her opponents believe she should sort out the issues on her doorstep before traveling cross country and stoking tensions in neighborhoods currently reeling from the deaths of Floyd and the more recent incident involving 20-year-old Daunte Wright.
DEREK CHAUVIN FOUND GUILTY OF MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD
“Our district is still dilapidated, run down. There has been no rebuilding of infrastructure,” said Brittani Daniels, adviser to Republican candidate Joe Collins, who is challenging Waters in next year’s election. “The Watts riots were in 1965, and we never rebuilt. There is commemoration of it every year, yet the community is still in ruin. It’s now overrun with a homeless encampment. We have hundreds of thousands of homeless.”
Do you know where I am?
Maxine Waters’ $6 Million Mansion.Do you know where I’m NOT?
Her District.Mansion Maxine Waters doesn’t live in her District — I do.
My name is Joe Collins and I’m running for Congress against Maxine Waters.
Help Me WIN: https://t.co/K4OcfhUR0E pic.twitter.com/GgnmvSWSq9
— Joe E. Collins III (@joeecollins3) October 10, 2020
MAXINE WATERS AND HER LONG HISTORY OF CONTROVERSIAL REMARKS
Waters, 82, has been in the House of Representatives since 1991. Her anti-police, anti-establishment rhetoric increased after President Donald Trump was elected — a throwback to her early support of radical 1960s race-based groups such as the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Movement.
“If nothing does not happen, then we know that we’ve got to not only stay in the street, but we’ve got to fight for justice,” she told a group of agitated Minnesota protesters on Saturday. “I am very hopeful. I hope that we are going to get a verdict that will say ‘guilty, guilty, guilty.’ And if we don’t, we cannot go away.” We’ve got to get more confrontational.”
Chauvin was found guilty of all charges on Tuesday.
Waters’s comments also inflamed tensions following the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King trial. The flashpoint was in her district, where trucker Reginald Denny was pulled from his vehicle and nearly beaten to death with a cement block. That area is known as South Central and has a poverty rate of 27% — double the national average. Denny is white, and South Central is 98% Hispanic and black. More than 12,000 people were arrested, 63 died, and 2,383 were injured.
The Democratic lock on California has helped Waters win 15 terms in Congress, many of those unopposed. In 2018, Republican challenger Omar Navarro seized on the fact that Waters lives outside her district in the wealthy Los Angeles neighborhood of Hancock Park. Her mansion is valued at $6 million.
“Waters justified the 1992 Los Angeles riots by calling them a ‘rebellion’ while bellowing, ‘No justice, no peace,’” Navarro said. “Maxine Waters continues to push for a divisive culture. She continues to divide people on a constant basis, not unite people.”
Omar went on to garner 24% of the vote in a nonpresidential election year. Last year, Collins received 28%. Like Navarro, he has focused on the dilapidated state of Waters’s district while she lives a life of luxury. Waters also owns a tony townhouse in a Washington, D.C., neighborhood where Ivanka Trump and the Obamas once lived.
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Residents of South Los Angeles are overwhelmingly Democrats, but they are fed up with living in poverty, Navarro said. His game plan for winning is to switch parties from Republican to Democrat.
“I know I can beat her if I’m a Democrat. I’ve walked the neighborhoods and talked to people. They want a change, but they always vote Democrat.”
