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Over 1,000 attend Bobby Salcedo's funeral mass
Outside the Bobby Salcedo funeral
(
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/KPCC
)
Bobby Salcedo's funeral mass took place at the Church of the Nativity in El Monte
(
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
)
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Over 1,000 attend Bobby Salcedo's funeral mass
Over 1,000 attend Bobby Salcedo's funeral mass
More than a thousand people overflowed the Church of the Nativity in El Monte this morning to pay their last respects to slain educator and school board member Bobby Salcedo.
People began arriving at the Catholic church, the Salcedo family’s parish, about an hour and a half before the 10:00 a.m. mass. Livier Medina, Salcedo’s aunt, sobbed as she walked to the church. Her tears fell on a pin with Bobby Salcedo’s picture and his birth and death dates. “He was a generous soul, that was always willing to do anything for anyone. He was adorable. He was charming. He was a joker. He always had a smile on his face."
Those traits made Salcedo a popular educator. Julian Gutierrez attended the funeral mass to pay respects to his Salcedo, his former economics and world history teacher. “He helped me out a lot. My junior year he sent me to a program called Boys State, where only two people from each school gets selected. And that’s helped me out so much that everywhere I go I mention Boys State and it pretty much gets me a foot in the door ahead of everyone else.”
The 33 year-old high school principal was shot to death one week ago during a night out at a restaurant in Gomez Palacio, Mexico. Salcedo was on a family vacation to visit his wife's family.
The El Monte Police Department mobilized about two dozen officers to handle attendance to the funeral mass. Some officers attended the funeral. On Tyler Avenue, outside the church, the L.A. County Fire Department draped a 40 foot by 15 foot flag from two fire truck ladders in honor of Salcedo’s civic leadership.
Salcedo grew up in El Monte and dove into San Gabriel Valley politics several years ago. He successfully campaigned for a second term last year on the school board of the El Monte City School District. Salcedo worked as an assistant principal at El Monte High School. That campus is overseen by a separate school board.
El Monte mayor Andre Quintero said Salcedo was a political ally and friend. Quintero spoke outside the church about why he’d come to the mass. “To honor him, to honor his legacy, to pay my respects on behalf of a grateful community, to his family.”
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State and federal police in Mexico are investigating the New Year’s Eve kidnapping and shooting that led to Salcedo’s death. Investigators believe the incident was related to the area’s rampant drug cartel violence. They don’t believe Salcedo had any connections to drug smuggling. Investigators want to know if anyone in Salcedo’s party or the restaurant that night did.
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