This past Sunday, the New York Post printed an article about a company called Real Bronx Tours and how its tour guides promised tourists “a ride through a real New York City GHETTO.”

The article detailed how a tour guide, Lynn Battaglia, led tourists through the South Bronx, ridiculing its neighborhoods, defaming its history and mocking its residents—some of whom were in line at a local food pantry!

In this excerpt from the New York Post, the author describes Battaglia’s derisive comments about the borough’residents.

As the bus idled across from historic St. Ann’s Episcopalian Church, Battaglia launched into a description of the crime, poverty and violence that plagued the South Bronx during the 1970s recession.

As she spoke, a line of two dozen poor people — including one man visibly agitated by the onlookers — waited for handouts from the church pantry.

‘I don’t know what that line’s about, but every Wednesday we see it,’ Battaglia told the tourists. ‘We see them go in with empty carts, and we see them come out with carts full.’

It’s hard to see who knows less about the Bronx—Battaglia or her customers.  According to the Post article, Battaglia continued to spew prejudiced misinformation, from telling tourists that the derogatory use of the word “pig” for police officers originated in the Bronx, to telling the tourists that if during the 1970s someone wanted to die, they would have been “in the right neighborhood.”

Bronxites are understandably livid.  Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz slammed Battaglia as “the biggest fool on the planet” and a group called “Bronx Centric!: Movers and Shakers” have started a petition on Change.org to end Real Bronx Tours’ “ghetto gawking” tours.

The group appeals to Bronxites—and all New Yorkers, really—to sign a petition that calls for Real Bronx Tours to “Stop exploiting the Bronx by giving “ghetto gawking” tours. This is racist, classist, and plays on stereotypes.”

So far, the petition has been signed by 200 people, with many of them decrying the negative stereotypes being perpetuated and the negative aspects of the borough’s past that continue to be held against a new generation of Bronxites.

Here are testimonials from some of the supporters of the petition:

Santa Arocho BRONX, NY

I grew up in the South Bronx, was never mugged, earned a bachelor’s degree at an Ivy League school and I am an education administrator living in the Bronx. I am proud of the Bronx and the teachers, church community and my family who supported me and helped me become who I am today.

Gregg Gruber  BRONX, NY

BECAUSE WE NEED TO HAVE THE WORLD SEE US FOR MORE THAN THE NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF OUR PAST!!

Kimberly Beazer BRONX, NY

The Bronx is a thriving and growing city full of many positive people and things. These stereotypes need to stop!

Today’s South Bronx is a far cry from the South Bronx that was “burning” four decades ago. It has a rich and beautiful history, present and future. It is home to many bright, driven and diverse people. The Bronx’s Grand Concourse—a street Battaglia made fun of during the tour written about in the New York Post— proudly boasts the names of the Bronx’s most famous former residents, including Rita Moreno, La India, Joy Bryant and Regis Philbin, to name a few. Every year since 1991, the Bronx hosts Bronx Week—a week dedicated to celebrating the Bronx, its residents and the contributions that each have made to the city, state and world. As it happens, Bronx Week ended on the day the Post article was published.

As of Monday, May 20, 2013—one day after the Post article was printed—Real Bronx Tours no longer offers “a ride through a real city GHETTO” on its site. Instead, the tour advert reads:

Get off the beaten path and see more of New York than just Manhattan. Let us show you the Bronx as it really is, a borough of diverse ethnic groups and neighborhoods, cultural institutions and surprising natural beauty.

That’s more like it.

UPDATE (from the Los Angeles Times): Rodriguez told ABC23 that “the more incriminating video was one on the other cell phone.” He said that video was shot “while the batons were swinging.” Rodriguez added the second phone was returned to his client with no video. If a video was erased from that phone, he said, it could not be recovered because of the type of the device.

After much anticipation, attorney Daniel Rodriguez finally released a cell phone video taken by one of his clients on May 8 in Bakersfield, when David Sal Silva died in custody. This video was from one of the cell phones initially seized by Kern County police later that night. Rodriguez also raised questions about whether another cell phone video was deleted.

Here is what local news reported:

“The question becomes, was the video ever there? If it was, was it deleted? Was it extracted? And for this kind of cell phone camera, you cannot tell whether it was deleted, extracted, or whether it was ever filmed. We can’t tell,” Rodriguez said.

Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood held a press conference last week where he also questioned if there was any video on the other cell phone.

“Was there a video on that second phone or was there not? I hope to God the FBI can give me that answer,” Youngblood said.

23ABC asked Rodriguez if his client verified that there was a video on the phone and Rodriguez said he is also trying to piece together the information.

“Did she verify it? Did she look at it? I don’t know for a fact. I’m assuming from what I’ve read but when I met with her, I did not ask her that question,” Rodriguez said.

And there are more questions than answers as this investigation continues.

“I’m asking the public to be patient. This is troubling. It’s not just troubling for the public, for the news media, it’s troubling for me,” Youngblood said.

Here is the raw video published by the Los Angeles Times:

Here is what the Times reported:

Silva died May 8 about an hour after the altercation, during which authorities say Kern County sheriff’s deputies wielded batons to control Silva. The footage made public Monday does not show any of the baton strikes. A grainy security surveillance video obtained earlier by The Times showed deputies swing batons toward a man on the ground.

The latest footage to become public is from a cellphone in the possession of attorney Daniel Rodriguez; according to the TV station, the phone belongs to one several witnesses to the beating. The cellphone has already been analyzed by the FBI, along with another phone.

Several outlets have reported tonight that the genocide conviction of former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt has been annulled. This is what Reuters reported: “Guatemala’s constitutional court on Monday overturned a genocide conviction against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, throwing out all proceedings in his case since a dispute broke out last month over who should hear it.”

“

On May 10, Ríos Montt was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison, according to Reuters, for “overseeing the deliberate killings by the armed forces of at least 1,771 members of the Maya Ixil population during his 1982-83 rule.”

Tweets from @NISGUA_Guate, which has been covering the trial from the very beginning, confirmed the news.

Reports from Guatemala indicate Constitutional Court has upheld challenge to #GenocideGT process, sentence annulled & trial to be set back.

— NISGUA (@NISGUA_Guate) May 21, 2013

CC orders #GenocideGT trial annulled from April 19 on, unclear at this moment what court will proceed with case from this point.

— NISGUA (@NISGUA_Guate) May 21, 2013

Today confirms what we already knew: Guatemala still has a long road ahead in the struggle against impunity. #GenocideGT

— NISGUA (@NISGUA_Guate) May 21, 2013

Full impact of CC ruling will take time to be sorted out, we await analysis from partners in Guatemala. Our hearts are with the survivors.

— NISGUA (@NISGUA_Guate) May 21, 2013

CC anula sentencia por GENOCIDIO y confirma: GUATEMALA sigue secuestrada por la impunidad!!!!

— H.I.J.O.S. Guatemala (@HijosGuatemala) May 21, 2013

Reporter Xeni Javier provided more details about the decision:

The language of the court ruling specifies that the concluding phase of the trial has been thrown out, along with the verdict and 80-year prison sentence. It states that the phase of the trial in which victim testimony was delivered is still intact. But it’s possible that this effectively means the trial is annulled, and that there must be a new trial, or that there is no posssibility of a guilty verdict. Reporters and international observers I’ve spoken to aren’t exactly sure what is next, as far as whether a trial on the same charges will in fact be re-convened and repeated, or whether Rios Montt, 86, is now guaranteed to be a free man for the rest of his life.

Watch.

Just watch.

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