Protest leaders try to spin fallout from night riots.
Posted on Wednesday, May 03 @ 19:52:38 EDT
Topic: illegal immigration alien riots crimes
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 "What happened last night was just pure lawlessness" .... "...felt like I was in the middle of a war"
VISTA ---- Community leaders and sheriff's personnel Tuesday praised a crowd of up to 2,000 residents who demonstrated peacefully in Wildwood Park the day before, but rebuked those who turned violent that night.
Topics: Vista, Santa Ana, riots, illegal aliens, immigrants, protests, police, laws, crimes, gangs, legislation
5/3/2006
By: STACY BRANDT - Staff Writer
NC Times
"What happened last night was just pure lawlessness," Mayor Morris Vance said Tuesday. "It was contrary to what I think should take place."
There were no arrests or injuries reported Monday night in Vista, where a group of protesters began throwing rocks and bottles at officers and riling up crowds as they left a peaceful, daytime demonstration against a federal proposal to crack down on illegal immigration.
City and San Diego County Sheriff's Department officials are looking for what they called a small group of protesters who incited the larger standoff, and the city has asked deputies to strengthen their presence in Vista, especially for the Cinco de Mayo holiday Friday.
It was unclear how many protesters in the crowd of up to 1,000 people Monday were throwing objects and verbally harassing officers and how many were simply observing the situation.
"We didn't actually see any one person throwing the rocks," said sheriff's Lt. Hernando Torres on Tuesday. "We didn't know where they were coming from."
Protesters jammed North Santa Fe Avenue, forcing sheriff's deputies to close the street to traffic and call for backup. There were several reports of fighting, vandalism and reckless driving, Torres said.
Almost 200 officers from numerous law enforcement agencies throughout the county responded in riot gear, and the crowd gradually dispersed throughout the night and early morning.
On the other hand, Vance said, the organized event in Wildwood Park, on the corner of Escondido Avenue and East Vista Drive, was "exactly what it should have been."
Tina Jillings, one of the organizers of the daytime cultural celebration in Wildwood Park, said the later protest had nothing to do with the peaceful event put on by the Coalition for Justice, Peace and Dignity. She said she thinks it is unfortunate that the attention shifted from the larger gathering, which ended at 5 p.m., to its negative aftermath.
"Our event ended at five, and it was peaceful, and it was productive," she said. "We don't even know if these individuals were attending the event or who they were."
Jillings is a cofounder of the coalition, which was formed last summer after deputies shot and killed three Latino men as they either ran from or assaulted officers. She said tension felt in the Latino community after the shootings was partly responsible for the protesters' angry response to deputies. Torres and Vance disagreed.
Though deputies broke up the demonstrations without injury or arrest, Jillings said she thinks the Sheriff's Department should have handled the situation Monday night very differently.
"I felt like I was in the middle of a war," she said.
As night fell after the event in the park, a small group of rock-throwing protesters turned into a much larger crowd of up to 1,000 people who poured into the street. Some chanted in Spanish. Others drove slowly around, shouting and holding up flags.
During the evening, one person crawled up on top of a car and shouted. Another man sprayed a fire extinguisher into the air.
Sheriff's deputies and officers from all over the county responded, eventually creating a long parade of cars and officers on foot, some with police dogs. The slow parade pushed through the streets while a voice on a police loudspeaker threatened protesters to go home or face arrest.
The armada of police cruisers and officers, many in gas masks, eventually ended up squaring off with a group of what appeared to be about 50 protesters outside an apartment complex on West Los Angeles Drive. Sheriff's officials Tuesday put the number of gathered protesters between 200 and 300, with a few of them throwing rocks.
Whatever the number was, the protesters and the police and deputies stood watching each other for long, tense minutes. Police dogs barked. Protesters whistled. A helicopter roared overhead. And over a loudspeaker in a rock-dented solo sheriff's car out in front of the officers, came a repeated message ---- in English and Spanish ---- to go home.
The crowd eventually did so, and by about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, the area was clear and calm.
Torres said the department acted properly by calling in backup and using protective gear, and that officers had to plan for the worst-case scenario.
"We needed to have enough resources to deal with the unknown," Torres said.
Deputies were patrolling the park as well, but Torres said the crowd there was very respectful and peaceful.
Joyce Rogers, who was at the park as one of a handful of counter-protesters, said that other than a few obscene gestures and harsh words, most of the protesters were respectful.
"Most of the people in the park were respectful and proud," she said. "We're all neighbors here."
While Torres said he thinks many Vista residents were happy about the gathering in the park, he said he doesn't think the majority of community members supported the later protests.
"I don't think that what happened last night is indicative of what the community is like in Vista," Torres said Tuesday. "There were a lot of cowardly people who took advantage of the group's organized activities to create a disturbance."
Contact staff writer Stacy Brandt at (760) 631-6622 or sbrandt@nctimes.com.
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