The Brief

Alejandra “Alex” Santamaria, a media sales veteran who most recently served as interim president/general manager and VP, Director of Sales for Univision Los Angeles, has been named president and CEO of LAist.

Santamaria takes over a nonprofit media organization that’s been struggling financially in recent years and has laid off staff two years in a row due to budget shortfalls.

Herb Scannell, LAist’s previous CEO, announced his retirement from the company in September and left the organization in April after five years.

LAist is the public-facing name for Southern California Public Radio, which includes the radio station LAist 89.3 (formerly KPCC), LAist.com and LAist Studios, the organization’s podcast unit.

In an interview, Santamaria said she was drawn to LAist’s mission of serving Southern Californians, which she also focused on during her career at Univision, specifically empowering Latino audiences.

Alejandra 'Alex' Santamaria will lead LAist beginning July 30, 2024.

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Brian Feinzimer

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For LAist

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“The representation and diversity that LAist brings to Southern California in their storytelling, in providing the facts in the news, and also the investigative reporting that has cracked open some things that really impact a lot of Southern Californians — it's exactly what excites me in terms of making an impact in a community,” she said.

As VP, Director of Sales for Univision Los Angeles, Santamaria was in charge of revenue for the company, which included two TV stations, four radio stations, and digital and social media properties.

“Stability and funding is going to be the key to be able to move the organization forward and thriving. And that's really what I'm hoping to be able to do with the team,” Santamaria said.

She starts at LAist July 30.

A background in sales

Last week, LAist laid off seven employees as part of a larger initiative to reduce an estimated budget shortfall of $4 to $5 million over the next two years. Combined with earlier voluntary buyouts, the organization has cut 28 people, an approximate 17% reduction of staff.

The organization also laid off 20 employees last year, an estimated 10% of staff at the time. A company statement issued Friday said the budget shortfall was due to “a decline in advertising, the end of our investment reserves, slower-than-anticipated digital monetization, and overall cost increases that have not kept pace with revenue.”

Santamaria says she plans to come into LAist with an open mind to see what opportunities exist to grow revenue.

Before Univision Los Angeles, Santamaria was also president and general manager of Univision Arizona, where she oversaw station operations, sales, and digital marketing for the group’s television, radio and digital entities.

“Based on my experience with revenue generation, the idea is really to try to turn over every rock and inform additional audiences as much as possible about the great work,” she said. “I really think that it’s important to be in front of those audiences and remind them of that.”

She says, for example, it’ll be important to think about what every given platform might offer.

“The media landscape is evolving. I think over the last 10 years, over the last five years, technology has really put a challenge to linear traditional media in that audiences are getting a little bit more spread out,” she said.

A born and raised Angeleno

The first in her family to be born in the U.S., Santamaria was raised in East Los Angeles. Her parents immigrated from Sonora, Mexico to Los Angeles, where her father found a job working in a factory.

From seventh to 12th grade, she was bused to the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, a magnet school in Mid-City. After graduating college from Loyola Marymount, she got her start in her media career as an intern at Univision Los Angeles in 1992. From there, she was hired as a research analyst, and moved up the ranks.

“My parents grew up watching Univision and that's how they figured out what were the things that they needed to do to grow and to thrive in Southern California,” she said. “So I have a lot of pride in being able to work for a company that wasn't just a traditional media company. It meant so much more.”

She currently resides in Manhattan Beach. She said she’s looking forward to joining the world of public media.

“I think that’s the beauty of LAist and public media — that even though there are challenges in funding… the audience is so passionate and really believes in the mission,” she said. “It’s trying to find that stability in funding to continue to do the good work that [they] do.”

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by Senior Reporter Elly Yu and edited by Senior Editors Ross Brenneman and Suzanne Levy. Under LAist's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

Yu, like all LAist reporters, is a member of SAG-AFTRA. She did not discuss the way this story was reported with any SAG-AFTRA members prior to publication.

A prominent attorney working on a low-level criminal case in Long Beach is alleging the Police Department there concealed an officer’s assault conviction for years — potentially calling into question the legitimacy of hundreds of cases.

Scott Sanders, who exposed the Orange County jailhouse snitch scandal, made the allegations in a series of motions filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court to force disclosure of police records and dismiss charges against Lonnie Jacobs, 47, his court-appointed client.

Jacobs is facing felony charges after Long Beach police said they found a small bag of cocaine tucked inside his sock while he was held at a jail following an arrest in March 2025. Jacobs has pleaded not guilty to the charge of bringing a controlled substance into a jail, which could carry a sentence of up to four years in prison.

At issue is the arrest that landed Jacobs in that cell in the first place — which Sanders argues in court filings was based on misrepresentations of now-former Long Beach police Officer Erik Suarez.

According to the defendant’s motion to dismiss, Suarez resigned from the Long Beach Police Department in June. In a filing made Sept. 8, Sanders said in the course of attempting to subpoena Suarez, the defense investigator discovered that he was convicted of a misdemeanor after initially being charged with a felony assault in the beating of a man outside a Waffle House in Marietta, Georgia, in 2019. At that time, Suarez had served on the Long Beach force for two years.

LAist attempted to contact Suarez by calling a phone number connected to him in public records. A man who answered said he was not Suarez, but asked what the story was about and said he would check with Suarez about contacting LAist.

In a recent court filing seeking more information about Suarez’s conduct, Jacobs’ defense asserts that the Long Beach Police Department knew about the conviction, but never disclosed this information to defendants or the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

That’s information Jacobs’ attorney argues was potentially exculpatory, and that withholding it amounts to a major violation of criminal defense laws. In the landmark 1963 case Brady v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court established that law enforcement has a legal responsibility to disclose such information to defendants. In Jacobs’ case, for example, the Sept. 8 filing said information about Suarez’s arrest and subsequent conviction could have been used to impeach him as a witness, as well as in other cases Suarez touched as a police officer.

The Long Beach Police Department has not yet responded to LAist’s emailed questions.

“The actions of the LBPD demonstrate a complete disregard to the danger Officer Suarez presented to the community and to the due process rights of defendants,” according to the motion to force disclosure. “The concealment of Officer Suarez's arrest and prosecution enabled [LBPD] to hide mandated discovery related to Officer Suarez’s conduct from what have likely been hundreds of defendants during the nearly seven-year period between the time of Officer Suarez’s August 2019 arrest and June 2026.”

Jacobs’ attorney alleges in the filing that Long Beach has an “unwritten policy” to keep information that could be used to impeach its officers in personnel files protected from public disclosure.

“The potential systemic consequences are enormous,” the filing argues.

Summer Lacey, the criminal justice and police practices director at the ACLU of Southern California, called the circumstances outlined in the case “very problematic.”

“Not just to the individual,” she said, “but to the entire community.”

Lacey said the information about Suarez’s conviction should have been known to the prosecutors, so they could vet the reliability of the evidence presented by law enforcement, and turned over to the defense at the outset of the case.

A spokesperson for L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in an emailed response to questions that they could not comment on what information they disclosed to Jacobs’ defense.

The District Attorney’s Office said it has a “collaborative relationship with the Long Beach Police Department,” and that the department does disclose material to prosecutors that is allowed under California law.

“Generally speaking, if our office had any such Brady material regarding an officer, we would have been legally obligated to turn that over to the defense.”

Lacey said if prosecutors did not have access to Suarez’s criminal record, the scope of people affected could be wide.

“We don't know how many cases are impacted by the potential unreliability of statements from the arresting law enforcement officer,” Lacey said. “This could impact people who have already pled guilty, who maybe are currently incarcerated, who are awaiting sentencing, or who are, like I said, incarcerated pretrial on other cases.”

In an interview with LAist, Sanders said the case raises three troubling issues: There’s the concealment of evidence leading to Jacobs' initial arrest, Suarez’s 2019 assault that was never disclosed, and the question of whether the Long Beach Police Department has concealed Brady material in other cases.

“If that's your modus operandi, we've got an enormous problem here,” Sanders said.

The underlying arrest that led to allegations about concealing an assault 

Long Beach police responded to the intersection of 52nd Street and Atlantic Boulevard after a man reported being held at gunpoint, with the robber driving away in the van he was repossessing.

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Megan Garvey

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LAist

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Just after 7:45 p.m. on March 18, 2025, Suarez and his partner Dylan Kelley responded to a call reporting a person with a gun at the intersection of 52nd Street and Atlantic Boulevard in Long Beach.

The alleged victim, identified in the filing by his last name, Ochoa, told the officers that he was attempting to repossess a black Dodge Sprinter van when someone threatened him with a gun, took the keys and drove off with the van.

Police later tracked down the van and detained Lonnie Jacobs and his brother, Lamar Jacobs.

According to court records, at the scene officers only presented Lonnie Jacobs to Ochoa.

Before seeing him, Ochoa stated that the suspect had braids, and body camera footage detailed in the court filing shows him gesturing to show long hair around his shoulders.

While looking at photos of the suspects in the van, Ochoa identified Lamar Jacobs. “That’s him! With the dreads!,” Ochoa is recorded saying on body camera footage.

Body camera footage shows Suarez confirming this description. “You said he had dreads? Can you remember if he has dreads?,” Suarez asks. The footage shows Ochoa nodding to confirm.

But Ochoa then identified Lonnie Jacobs in person, telling officers he recognized Lonnie Jacobs’ chain and ripped jeans as matching the person who pulled a gun on him earlier that night.

Jacobs’ court filings state that body camera footage shows both he and his brother wore the exact same chain, and they both wore ripped jeans that night.

In an interview with a detective for the District Attorney’s Office in August 2026 that is included in court filings, Ochoa said he was positive he identified a man with braids during the show-up.

Lonnie Jacobs is bald.

Lonnie Jacobs in a still from a police body cam on the night of his arrest.

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Long Beach Police Department

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L.A. County Superior Court filing

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Lamar Jacobs in a still from the night his brother was arrested. An officer is handing him a chain identical to one around his neck.

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Long Beach Police Department

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L.A. County Superior Court filing

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His attorney argued this fact is inconsistent with the description and should have disqualified Jacobs as a suspect, or at least warranted more questioning. Furthermore, he alleges Suarez failed to correct another officer at the scene who questioned why Ochoa didn’t see the hairstyle of the man who allegedly pulled a gun on him.

By this point, Ochoa had already described the suspect as having braids to Suarez and Kelley, according to the body cam footage, but Suarez did not correct the other officer.

“He couldn’t tell by the haircut,” Suarez said, adding he said “everything happened too fast.”

Jacobs’ defense alleges Suarez’s response was “actively misleading his fellow officers.”

Furthermore, body camera footage also shows Suarez agreeing with another officer who expressed doubts that Lonnie Jacobs was the one who brandished the firearm.

A still of officers discussing the potential suspects on the night of Lonnie Jacobs' arrest. A court filing by his defense said officers, including Erik Suarez, expressed doubts that he was the correct person.

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Long Beach Police Department

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L.A. County Superior Court

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“Yeah I think it was him, too,” Suarez said, referring to Lonnie’s brother Lamar. Lamar Jacobs was never charged in connection with the case.

In filings to the court, the District Attorney’s Office said the officers had probable cause to arrest Jacobs because he was in the van described by the witness and matched at least some of the characteristics of the suspect.

How that led to the Georgia case coming to light

Once Jacobs’ defense reviewed the body cam footage, they began attempting to depose Suarez in the case. Although Lonnie Jacobs was never charged with threatening Ochoa, the arrest led to the charges of bringing drugs into a jail. If the initial arrest was illegitimate, the drug case would go away.

The court scheduled a hearing earlier this year to discuss the evidence, but the Long Beach Police Department told Jacobs’ defense that Suarez was out of the country.

The defense subpoenaed Suarez through the Police Department again and on June 15, the department told the team that Suarez had resigned.

An investigator for Jacobs’ defense searched for his address to subpoena him at home. That search, according to the court filing, uncovered the assault charges in Georgia in 2019, two years after he joined the police force in Long Beach.

In the motion to dismiss the charges against Jacobs, his defense argues it is “plausible” that Suarez resigned from the police force out of concern he may have been questioned about his alleged misconduct that led to Jacobs’ arrest.

“However, it is also now apparent that Officer Suarez has been living with another secret that may also have propelled a decision to abandon his police officer position,” the defense wrote.

Through discovery, Jacobs’ attorney said in court filings they learned that Suarez had traveled to Georgia where he watched the Atlanta Braves beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-3 on Aug. 17, 2019.

According to an incident report attached to court filings, a witness saw Suarez wearing a Dodgers jersey in a Waffle House, “talking shit” and arguing with the victim.

“Suarez then walked up to the table where the victim was seated and began punching him in the face until the victim was left unconscious on the ground,” the filing describes. According to the incident report and other filings from that case, Suarez continued to punch the victim while he was unconscious.

The most recent filing from Jacobs’ defense says Suarez was arrested walking away from the restaurant.

According to a description of the crime by Barry Morgan, a Cobb County assistant solicitor general, Suarez “caused the victim significant injuries, including orbital fracture, fracture of the maxillary sinus, traumatic orbital hematoma, and concussion.”

A memo details injuries caused by Erik Suarez in a 2019 assault. A grand jury indicted him on two felony counts. He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and served a year of probation.

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Cobb County Superior Court

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via L.A. County Superior Court filing

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“Defendant beat the victim while the victim was on the ground, apparently unconscious,” the description explains. “This should be aggravated battery.”

On April 1, 2021, a grand jury indicted Suarez on two felony counts of aggravated battery, accusing him of “seriously disfiguring” the victim and rendering his right eye useless.

Right before trial, Suarez pleaded guilty in November 2022 to reduced misdemeanor charges of battery, was ordered to stay away from the victim and Cobb County, and was ordered to take anger management classes. He was sentenced to 12 months, which he was allowed to serve on probation.

According to Jacobs’ defense, “Suarez’s actions in Georgia triggered immediate reporting responsibilities related to his employment” with the Long Beach Police Department.

The court filing explains that the Long Beach police manual requires officers to inform their watch commander when they are arrested by another department or under a criminal investigation.

It’s not yet clear when the department learned about Suarez’s arrest. But Jacobs' defense argues that if the department learned of the arrest between 2019 and 2026, “this would have clearly triggered Brady responsibilities in this case and numerous others.”

That information is relevant to the case against Jacobs, the filing argues, because “it is entirely logical that the same officer who beat a victim into unconsciousness and then cavalierly walked from the scene would just as thoughtlessly arrest a man for whom no probable cause existed — concealing that the victim previously identified another suspect who possessed features irreconcilable with the defendant’s culpability.”

When does law enforcement need to disclose misconduct? 

While law enforcement has a legal requirement to proactively disclose Brady material that could help defendants build their case, California law exempts most police personnel records from disclosure, except under certain circumstances including findings of unnecessary use of force and misconduct while on the job.

Jacobs’ defense attorney, in the Sept. 8 filing, alleges Long Beach police purposefully placed evidence related to Suarez’s conviction in his personnel file, where it could be protected from disclosure.

He wrote this “enabled the agency to hide mandated discovery related to Officer Suarez’s conduct from what have likely been hundreds of defendants during the nearly seven-year period between the time of Officer Suarez’s August 2019 arrest and June 2026.”

Furthermore, the filing argues “there is every reason to believe that the hiding of Brady evidence extends far beyond Officer Suarez’s conduct and is the product of a long-established undisclosed policy designed to conceal Brady evidence.”

The filing points to a June 2021 news article wherein a spokesperson for the LBPD told reporters that it does not maintain a formal list of officers whose case involvement triggers Brady disclosures, but that it “continues to comply with its obligations to share such information.”

By that time, Suarez’s assault case was nearly two years old and, according to Jacobs’ defense, had never been disclosed.

The El Niño climate pattern is here and, in Southern California, that can mean heavy rain in the winter — which is why experts say now is the time to prepare and make sure you’re signed up for emergency alerts. But for the thousands of people who lost their homes and businesses in the Eaton and Palisades fires, there are some additional concerns.

With no trees or vegetation with roots to hold soil together, open dirt lots are prone to flooding and erosion. That soil can still be contaminated with toxic metals, which can wind up downstream with rain.

But there are ways survivors can prepare their properties, according to experts LAist spoke with, including understanding how water is flowing in your area, applying organic mulch to bare soil, and diverting water from structures and foundations.

Organic composted mulch ftw

Natalie Levy, a soil scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, has been studying how organic mulch can help prevent erosion and reinvigorate soil on fire-scarred properties in Altadena since last year.

In a pilot project, she and a group of 14 Altadena property owners applied 1 to 2 inches of compost "erosion-control blankets" to their lots. The mixture needs to be a combination of fine-screened compost and larger, coarser, composted mulch.

"Think of this coarse composted mulch as a protective blanket," Levy said. "Your strategy here is you're reducing rainfall hitting bare soil directly.  We're really trying to slow the movement of water down and give it more opportunity to infiltrate."

The larger pieces of mulch dissipate the energy of rainfall, while the finer compost can break down and help nourish the soil over time, Levy said.

The pilot analyzed 14 properties before and after significant rains last year. Levy found the properties with organic mulch had less erosion.

"Instead of a mass of soil that had fallen off of the edge of the parkway, we saw very clean curbs and less actual sediment in that storm drain," Levy said.

Lydia Whitlock was one of the participants in the pilot. A UC Master Gardener, she wanted to find more natural ways to clean her soil and prevent erosion after her home burned in the Eaton Fire. She worked closely with Levy and later contacted local native plant and nature-based stormwater capture experts, Hardy Californians, who connected her with a local landscaper to spread 645 tons of organic mulch across more than 128,000 square feet of her and her neighbors' properties.

A truck dumps organic composted mulch on Lydia Whitlock's property in Altadena.

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Courtesy Lydia Whitlock

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"Seeing how tended for and cared for the land looked as opposed to how it had looked as just bare dirt, it really felt like, oh, I'm taking a step towards coming back home," Whitlock said.

She was especially pleased with a neighbor’s property across the street, which had a steeper slope.

"After the first rains post-mulch, we noticed that she had almost no soil movement whatsoever," Whitlock said.

The county paid for the mulch to be applied for this pilot, but Whitlock said she hopes there's a broader effort and additional support from local authorities ahead of the rainy season, which officially starts mid-October. Many of the lots covered in the pilot have now been uncovered as rebuilding continues, Whitlock said.

"It was encouraging to get this done," she said, "but at the same time, 14 lots feels like a drop in the bucket compared to how many still-empty dirt lots there are around Altadena."

Other ways to prepare your property 

Meanwhile, Parker Davis, founder of Hardy Californians, said there are other affordable ways to prep your property ahead of potential significant rain. The group has been working closely with fire survivors on natural soil remediation strategies, as well as erosion control and water capture.

In most cases, on properties with moderate to minimal sloping, he said, residents shouldn’t be all that concerned.

"In general, the moderately-sloped [properties], they can help themselves," Davis said.

However, Davis emphasized, people right against recently burned hillsides do need to prepare for more significant mudflows and potential evacuations.

"People should really start preparing now," he said. "Crews are going to get busy, and once things get wet, then there's not a whole lot you can do about it."

Here are some other ways to prepare your property, according to Davis:

• Filling and placing sandbags now
• Staggering chain link fences on sloped properties can help capture debris
• Creating channels to redirect water from construction areas (though be sure to coordinate with neighbors if you can’t direct to a public storm drain)
• Apply jute on exposed soil under mulch on hillsides. That can also be used in combination with natural material wattles (some are made with plastics, which Davis doesn’t recommend, as it can contaminate soil and water)