by Eyewitness to Victorville
Sunday, Jun. 12, 2005 at 9:32 AM
The SOS was in Victorville on Saturday. The picture quality is real bad but it's all we've got. Check below for the rundown of what happened.
victorville_5-11-05_001.jpg, image/jpeg, 640x480
Activists and residents from Los Angeles and the High Desert showed up to oppose the presence of Save Our State, the racist, immigrant scapegoating group led by Joe Turner of Ventura. Save Our State was there to oppose the presence of day laborers at Home Depot locations. At a prior SOS rally in Laguna Beach they were heard calling day laborers “vermin” and “disease carriers”.
Our group arrived at around 8am expecting to find day laborers on the grounds of Home Depot. When we found none we asked around and got directions to the location where the local day laborers congregate. The site was about 5 miles from Home Depot. We drove there and let the guys know that a racist group was in town and to be aware if they see anything resembling a California flag coming toward them. We waited until 9 just to make sure SOS wasn’t coming to that location and when we saw that they weren’t we headed back to Home Depot on Bear Valley Road.
We got back at 9:15am. Another group of counter-demonstrators was already on the ground. A few of them walked up to the street to scope out the situation and were handed two flyers by the anti-immigrant demonstrators. One lamented the fact that whites would be the minority in the U.S.A. in approximately 25 years and the other repeated the SOS claim that “our communities are becoming cesspools”.
We decided to stake out a corner across the street. So we all got in the cars, drove across the street and parked. When we got to our corner I could see the anti-immigrant protesters had staked out the two corners across from us. There were about 8-10 on one corner and the other group had about the same amount on the other one.
I later found out from talking to a reporter that SOS was on one corner and a group called the National Vanguard was on the other. From the looks of things the National Vanguard were akin to skinheads, white power groups or the KKK. If the SOS message isn’t racist then why are so many racists attracted to their message. At least twice I heard the yells of “white power” and “deport all Mexicans”.
By about 10:30am our ranks had swelled to around 20 with some other activists showing up along with members of the community who were opposed to the SOS racist message. At least 2 times community members brought us waters on ice and sodas.
At about 11:30am our ranks had swelled to 27. Apparently not getting the publicity he wanted, Joe Turner and a couple of his goons headed across the street to try to provoke us. With absolutely no police present at the time they were never, ever physically threatened. And they claim we’re violent?
One of Turner’s goons headed to the parking lot to utilize the old, right-wing intimidation tactic of taking pictures of license plates. We weren’t intimidated. With about 50 cars in the lot how did he know which cars were ours? We stayed where we were and kept the chants of “Nazis Go Home” , “Save Our State Means Racist Hate” , “Racist Go Home”, “Baldwin Park, Baldwin Park” , etc.
When they couldn’t provoke us Turner and his goons just left. I don’t mean they went back to their corner. I mean they went home. SOS packed up and went home at about 11:50am, ten minutes earlier than they had scheduled.
And while we were focused on the Turner boys the skinheads left too. A corner in Victorville was liberated.
Save Our State is coming to the Alhambra Home Depot on June 18 and will be back in Baldwin Park on June 25. Be aware that they are looking to provoke us. That is the only thing they can do to get publicity for their message.
