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Sunday, January 8, 2006
DID COSTA MESA POLICE CHIEF JOHN HENSLEY TARGET A
CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST?
Surprising video shot by Minuteman suggests the
lawman had Coyotl Tezcalipoca illegally arrested
By DUANE J. ROBERTS
duaneroberts92804@yahoo.com COSTA MESA, CA -- During the past 48 hours, video
footage has unexpectedly appeared on the internet
containing a number of startling images which suggest
that Coyotl Tezcalipoca, a young Mexican civil rights
activist who has been openly critical of Costa Mesa
Mayor Allan Mansoor's proposal to merge city law
enforcement with immigration duties, was illegally
arrested by police officers at the Tuesday, January
3rd meeting of that municipality's City Council.
The footage in question, a high quality five minute
video clip of that meeting, was taken by a
self-professed "Minuteman" who lives in Los Angeles,
and was posted on www.immigrationwatchdog.com,
a website that is dedicated to fighting "the human
tsunami of millions upon never ending millions of
poor illegal aliens from Latin America ...
[threatening] ... our way of life."
A careful, but detailed analysis of this clip not only
completely contradicts newspaper accounts claiming
that Tezcalipoca was taken into custody because he had
gone over his time limit during public comments and
had refused to leave the podium, but shows that
Costa Mesa Police Chief John Hensley himself may
have acted improperly -- and possibly illegally --
when he ordered several of his officers to arrest
the young activist.
The video clearly shows that Police Chief Hensley
ordered Tezcalipoca arrested shortly after Mayor
Mansoor stated twice over his microphone that the
meeting was temporarily being adjourned for what
appears to have been a pre-planned recess or
"break." If this is the case, as it appears to be,
then Hensley had his officers take Tezcalipoca into
custody for "disrupting" a Costa Mesa
City Council meeting which, technically, was no
longer in session. This casts serious doubts over
the validity of the arrest.
In addition to this, the video establishes for the
first time that Mayor Mansoor did in fact abruptly cut
off Tezcalipoca two minutes and twenty seconds into
his public comments -- out of the three minutes that
were available to him according to the Costa
Mesa municipal code. Civil libertarians looking
into this case argue this was an outright violation
of Tezcalipoca's constitutionally protected right to
free speech and assembly.
A separate investigation being conducted by John Earl,
publisher of the www.ocorganizer.com, a website that
covers labor and immigrant rights issues in Orange
County, not only has uncovered additional evidence
corroborating some of the claims brought up in this
article, but has discovered video clips showing that
Mayor Mansoor did in fact allow Minuteman founder Jim
Gilchrist to do things he refused to allow Tezcalipoca
to do during public comments.
"It seems that Mansoor's message to the public," Earl
told me yesterday via Yahoo messenger, "was that if
you are a Minuteman you may stand for your beliefs,
but if you are Mexican, please remain seated."
The video also shows, contrary to claims that Police
Chief Hensley made to the press last week, that
Tezcalipoca, although appearing upset over the fact
his comments were cut short by Mayor Mansoor, not
only was fully complying with orders by officers
to leave the podium, but was in the process of
exiting the building shortly before they violently
pushed him out the door.
VIDEO CAN BE SEEN AT WWW.IMMIGRATIONWATCHDOG.COM
Click on the following links to download them to your
computer in the appropriate formats.
QUICKTIME:
http://www.immigrationwatchdog.com/media/costamesa/bad_2.mov WINDOWS:
http://www.immigrationwatchdog.com/media/costamesa/bad_2.wmv 