KTLA

Protesters, West Hollywood Residents Put Pressure on Mayor to Resign Amid Sexual Misconduct Allegations

Jerome Kitchen, left, gets a hug of support from Steven Martin, while others outside the West Hollywood City Council chambers to call on West Hollywood Mayor John Duran to resign amid allegations of sexual harassment on Feb. 19, 2019. (Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Some of the protesters were affiliated with the #MeToo movement. Others with Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ groups. Many were simply West Hollywood residents who were fed up with all the drama.

They showed up at a packed West Hollywood City Council meeting Tuesday because of two scandals: the recent sexual harassment allegations against Mayor John Duran and the deaths of two black men in the West Hollywood apartment of white Democratic donor Ed Buck — a man for whom Duran worked as an attorney for several years. Overwhelmingly, the crowd called for Duran to resign.

“Lately, I have been exhausted, and I have been embarrassed,” Tai Sunnanon, a West Hollywood resident, told the council. “I have to defend this city with relatives and friends who live out of state because we have not sought the proper due justice to two black men who have died in our neighborhoods. I am also exhausted and embarrassed by a mayor who uses gay and sexual liberation as a front with undue and unnecessary behavior that is really unbecoming of this city.”

Three current or former members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles have accused Duran, the group’s longtime board chairman, of crude sexual comments and unwanted touching.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.

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