Los Angeles Indymedia : Activist News

This is serious.

This is not an "objective" report - but a sketchy, ground eye view of what occurred from someone bent on organizing - not reporting.

But I am writing from a place of rage tempered by a steely determination. What I am writing is the truth.

It is important to note here that the LA Times story tonight is a complete fabrication, and a transparent and racist attempt to completely invert the story, so that Mexican-hunting Minutemen vigilantes look like normal citizens and their crimes look like frustrated outrage at Chican@ protestor's supposed excesses.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

---

We need to look this situation right in the eye.

The Minutemen are bloodthirsty fascist thugs and racists - potential stormtroopers who are backed by the State and its police, and are an important part of the growing Christian Fascist apparatus. What we saw tonite was an effort at the outright brutal suppression of the Chican@ People - up to and including attempted murder.

What unfolded tonight amply demonstrates that point.

A Minuteman supporter was able to walk free for almost three quarters of an hour after what some termed an attempted murder of protestors, while innocent people on the other side of the line were snatched up in brutal surgical police strikes.

But for hours, the people didn't bend an inch. They only gave ground when met with overwhelming force - and even then, they held the line until having their ranks cut in two twice by baton wielding rioters in uniform.

Three hundred protestors - overwhelmingly young and Chican@ (again, like in Baldwin Park, our white Left "allies" were in scant supply) - gathered tonite in Garden Grove determined to take on the Minutemen.

We outnumbered the racist vigilante wannabes three to one.

Not the ten to one we had in Baldwin Park to shut down the Save Our State fascists ten days ago, but not bad. Especially not bad for a protest behind the Orange Curtain.

Police had cordoned off the entire area - leaving only one driveway open for cars manned by the Terminator's "exemplary citizens" to enter the compound where the gun toting Mexican-hunter Jim Gilchrist was to speak.

Early in the evening - contrary to the LA Times "report," which set the event at the end of the evening, hours after it occured - and which claimed protestors had, in effect, provoked being run over by trying to stop cars leaving the event, protestors were marching across that driveway when, just before dusk, a Minutemen supporter wheeled in from the street without stopping - striking at least five people, two of who were taken to the hospital.

The driver struck the people with a dark green Dodge Caravan, license plate number 4KVE303.

Intitially - for a period of some 45 minutes - NO ONE WAS ARRESTED for this crime, while paramedics bent over the two who remained down. One man had blood on his clothing, but apparently was later released from the hospital.

A young Asian woman said that what shocked her was the absolute force of the vehicle as it blew her to the ground. She and a friend were hit by the side of the vehicle - which did not stop. She said she yelled to her friend to move his feet, and that the rear wheels missed running over their feet by mere inches.

A visibly shaken white woman - a member of Global Women's Strike - later filed charges against the driver for striking her with the car, as protestors gathered outside the police station to demand the release of those arrested. One policeman was overheard trying to convince her that the incident might have been an "accident."

National Lawyer's Guild observers took statements from many witnesses.

Protestors chanted "Arrest the racists, not the people! and "Arrest the driver." After word spread that the driver had at last been taken into custody - only to be charged mere assault and battery - a misdemeanor, protestors chanted "Assault with a deadly weapon!"

Nothing could quiet the righteous sense of outrage and determination of the protestors in the face of such intense violence and smug and filthy indifference to justice.

After it became clear that we weren't backing down an inch the police told a National Lawyer's Guild observer that the driver would be charged with assault with a deadly weapon, after all. That remains, of course, to be seen. One thing's for sure - you won't see any headlines about Minutemen "terrorists."

A handful of the racist stormtrooper wannabes stood behind the police lines taunting and mocking the protestors even as their comrades lay stricken on the concrete, waving an American flag and doing their best to act jaunty and smug. One of these clowns - something of a Gilchrist look alike - wore an oversized black cowboy hat and an amazingly gaudy American flag tie with a black leather cowboy vest. Media interviewed him while our camaradas lay on the ground.

In the meantime, Garden Grove Police showed no such slowness in arresting protestors. One Chicano man - a MEChA leader - was standing with his back to the police and among the peaceful protestors during a momentary lull in the events, when an arm suddenly shot out from behind him in the crowd, grabbing and pulling him back across the police line, where he disappeared from sight until he was later seen cuffed and being shoved into a police van in a nearby parking lot. This man was charged, according to a police sargent, with a felony, as were seven others being held.

In another brutal strike riot pigs swept in from behind the crowd, swinging batons beating him and threatening the crowd with pepper spray, to sieze a single man - apparently an anarchist, who had been doing nothing at all, according to several witnesses. Beautifully, many of those around him stepped forward, not back and away from the batons and spray, to defend him, one woman reaching for him from behind a cop and from between his feet.

By the time the Nazi-fest was over, protestors blocked both exits, ready for what might come. Only when protestors were forced back by a line of helmeted cops on horseback were the MinuteNazis able to exit, after a delay of some 15 minutes or more.

However its reported, tonight was a victory for the Chican@ People and
our brave Asian and white allies. The Minutemen showed the desparation and tactical stupidity that underlies their empty bravado and swaggernig.

The police, while surprising no one, made it abundantly clear that their allegiance and service lies with the neo-Nazis in the White House and the Governor's Mansion and with the Minutemen.

And our People made it clear that we will not go quietly - that we will fight with complete determination to drive the fascists out, and back, no matter what it takes.

Report this post as: