Laguna Beach: Minutemen drop their mask

LAGUNA BEACH, 15 July 2006--The minutemen were mean. Just sheer, ugly, dog-biting mean. One of them had discovered the Laguna Beach Day Labor Center was on state land but, just days later, on July 11, the City of Laguna Beach leased the land from the state to keep the center open. The minutemen came to Laguna Beach to protest their defeat, at a day labor center that has been a hotspot over the past year between immigrant supporters and deportation mongers. But the City had already made up its mind. And the minutemen had lost before they even began.

Under the hot summer sun, the anti-migrant protestors set their tone when a minutewoman, recognized only as Penny, drove into a passing bicyclist, knocking him to the ground as she honked at her friends while turning into the parking lot. Her compatriots rushed to comfort the driver, while the cyclist lay in the street. The minutemen were in no mood to worry about other people. In a flashback to Hal Netkin’s violent vehicular attack in Garden Grove, the driver was apparently not cited by any of the dozen or so police present.

Traffic backed up more than three miles north along Laguna Canyon Road as the 40 protestors and 60 labor center supporters taunted each other. The migrants and their allies shouted “Nazis go home!” and “Racistas!” The minutemen shouted back, “Immigrants are murderers, rapists, and child molesters!” and “You silly little wet----!” Joe Turner, head of Save Our State announced, “I am Spartacus” and shook his fists over his head. Perhaps he was showing off for his new boss, Jim Gilchrist.

Gilchrist, head of the Minuteman Project, was joined for the first time by Turner. Until Saturday, the two men have avoided each other—Turner had been deemed too violent for Minuteman membership since early in 2005 when he posted the comment, "Bring your bats, fellas. If we are lucky, we are gonna need them. PING!" But Gilchrist recently acknowledged his long-simmering feud with Arizona-based Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox and officially split his organization from Simcox’s Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. It seems that Turner is being auditioned for new cowboy sidekick, as Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project winds down to a statewide group: a leaner and meaner zenophobic machine.

While protestors and labor center supporters were vying for the support of passing motorists a block north, Gilchrist and Turner took turns roaming the parking lot to the southeast of the day labor center, trying to provoke migrant supporters returning to their cars. Turner called one woman a c--t. Gilchrist, with his press squad/thugs in tow, ordered the camera turned on another as he baited the lone woman to hit him. His face shriveled in anger and his fists waved in the air. She declined the offer.

Another day labor supporter, getting into her car, threw water on the woman who had first tried to close the center. Arms outstretched, the minutemen lurched through the car window. The police removed the labor supporter from her car, handcuffed her, and led her past the minutemen to a squad car. She was taken to the police station, cited for misdemeanor battery, and released.

It wasn’t long after 1:00 p.m., when most of the minutemen and the day labor supporters had left, that an SUV drove into the day labor center. A man, who identified himself only as a Laguna Beach resident, pulled out a roll of bills and handed out more than $600 in twenties to the laborers. He said he wanted to help make up for the lost day of work, and he apologized on behalf of city residents. The day laborers explained to a remaining supporter that the residents of Laguna Beach like and appreciate them, and often drop off food and clothing at the center. It seems that Laguna Beach City Hall got it right.