On Saturday in Laguna Beach, twenty-five Save Our State and neo-Nazis raised a display of U.S. and neo-Nazi flags while protesting day laborers. Fifty counter-protestors responded.
Laguna Beach, CA, July 30, 2005--Fifty or more angry counter-protestors stood up to twenty-five Save Our State members and neo-Nazis today to thwart harassment of day laborers at the Laguna Beach Day Labor Center. To the stunned amazement of the counter-protestors, Save Our State members showed their true colors when the neo-Nazis raised a Confederate flag and several large Hitler youth flags, with German swastikas on a horizontal red and white striped background, amidst a field of U.S. and California flags in the parking lot across from the center.
In spite of repeated denials of collaboration with neo-Nazis, the Ventura and Orange County Save Our State group has received support from several hate groups including the National Vanguard, VDARE, and Stormfront members. They have also solicited support from Glenn Spencer's American Patrol, which published notice of the Laguna Beach event. Spencer is most infamous for a one-man firefight against an imagined invasion of Mexicans in his backyard, and in the process shooting a neighbor's garage.
S.O.S. has repeatedly denied associating with or soliciting the aid of the neo-Nazis, who have appeared with regularity at S.O.S. protests. As of this writing, a request from an SOS member to the group's leader to explain the neo-Nazi demonstration has gone unanswered.
Save Our State organized the protest at the Day Labor Center to oppose the hiring of day laborers by city residents two weeks after some members of SOS attended an unofficial rally at the Laguna Beach Arts Festival. There they protested the event's contribution through rental space sale to city coffers, which in turn pays out $21,000 to the group that operates the Center. That protest's organizer, known as OCAngel, has publicly disassociated herself from S.O.S. after neo-Nazis stood with S.O.S. there.
Like previous day labor center events in Fallbrook, Victorville, and Alhambra, police allowed the protestors and counter-protestors to mingle. At about 1:30 p.m., S.O.S. took the east side of Laguna Canyon Road, leaving the counter-protestors, now joined by some of the day laborers, to ensure free passage into the Center. The small police presence tried to take a bullhorn from one protestor and interfered in the speech of several others, but none of the counter-protestors were arrested. The Orange County Register reports the arrest of one protestor for carrying a knife.
It was at about 2:00 p.m. that S.O.S. members and neo-Nazis on the north side of the parking lot raised the offensive and perhaps apocalyptic flag display. The counter-protestors responded by marching south to the crosswalk and to the east side of the street, where they confronted S.O.S. and the neo-Nazis. The police, even after calling in additional cars, refused to assure the safety of the S.O.S. protestors under the Nazi banners and ordered them to leave.
As I walked out, a Spanish-speaking laborer leaned across the fence and shouted out, "Thank you." I grinned at him and responded, "De nada." After all, it was at this small counter-protest that the Nazis were defeated and Save Our State exposed.