Thread: Police to file charges against organizer

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March 26, 2006

Police to file charges against organizer

WATSONVILLE — Police will seek charges against the lead organizer of Saturday's immigration-law protest march, which law enforcement officers said was unauthorized.

The organizer, a 26-year-old Watsonville man, refused to seek a city-required parade permit, and the organizers did not comply with police orders to remain on the sidewalk and out of the way of traffic, according to Capt. Manny Solano.

The police department was forced to dedicate 10 officers for the two-hour march, Solano said.

Organizers, some of whom were members of the local chapter of the youth organizations Brown Berets, led the group through busy city streets, hampering fire, metro transit and ambulance services, police said.

In addition to seeking charges against the lead organizer, the police department said it will bill the Watsonville Brown Berets for the cost of police services.

And I hope they are steep fines! After these marchs the illegals throw the American flags on the ground and walk all over them. They have the same disrespect for our laws and our country!

I thought about that when I saw those people shoulder to shoulder for several blocks...how in the world would an emergency vehicle get thru that mess? Would people's lives and properties be endangered so they could 'protest'?

I also hope the 'organizers' have to pay for all the cleanup of the streets, and any other costs involved.

RR

Well, THIS is relief! I was thinking the police were not out because they'd gotten a call from Washington to let the situation go unpoliced to help the turnout! This sheds a different and a welcome new light on the situation.

The small cities, where the majority of the Americans live, where there weren't mobs of hundreds of thousands of threatening people waving foreign flags but only a few hundred, will take the appropriate action. But the big cities, the cities who invite them, will have no recourse because their problem is too big to handle now, thanks to their liberal stupidity.

GOOD NEWS!!

Go Santa Cruz!!

Perhaps more will join their action?

Charlotte perhaps?

Don't back down.

The organizer, a 26-year-old Watsonville man, refused to seek a city-required parade permit

Why would he? They don't think our laws have any application to them.

Originally Posted by concernedmother

The organizer, a 26-year-old Watsonville man, refused to seek a city-required parade permit

Why would he? They don't think our laws have any application to them.

I was thinking the very same thing!

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archiv ... 1local.htm

March 26, 2006

Thousands of Latinos march through the streets of Watsonville
By TOM RAGAN
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
WATSONVILLE — Nearly 2,000 people took to the streets of Watsonville on Saturday to protest the war in Iraq and an immigration bill that would crack down on undocumented workers in the United States.

The march, which started in front of St. Patrick's Catholic Church and meandered through parts of Watsonville before making its way across the Pajaro River, was the latest in a string of rallies to take place across the country in the past couple of weeks.

With the third anniversary of the Iraq war still fresh in the minds of many and the U.S. Senate scheduled next week to begin talks of immigration reform, millions of Latinos, both legal and illegal, have been making their voices heard the old-fashioned way: They're parading through the streets and carrying signs in a scenario not entirely different from the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

But there was also a Chicano feel to the protest — courtesy of Watsonville's Brown Beret — and a little bit of old-style Mexican politics with the emergence of the communal megaphone.

Cardboard signs were in abundance.

"Impeach Bush"

"Give Bush a real job. Let him pick strawberries."

"We are human."

"Who will feed America?"

And, "We didn't cross the borders, the borders crossed us" — a reference to the fact that Texas and California were once part of Mexico.

These were just a few of the statements that were held high by some of the Latinos who marched through the major thoroughfares of this predominantly agricultural town, where both the undocumented and documented rub shoulders in the fields of the Pajaro Valley, doing their part to feed the nation.

The subject of contention is a piece of legislation that passed the U.S. House of Representatives last year. It aims to curb the tide of illegal immigration by building more fences along the U.S.-Mexico border while imposing stricter penalties against the employers who hire them — all in the name of homeland security.

"We're just trying to make a living like everybody else, and most of us are law-abiding residents," said a Spanish-speaking Leovardo Acosta, 36, a fieldworker from Prunedale. "To call us terrorists or to suggest that people from Mexico are a terrorist threat is just an excuse to be racist. We help this country, we don't hurt it. We love this country, we don't hate it."

Passing motorists honked as Watsonville police served as an escort, their lights flashing, sirens occasionally wailing.

The more verbal of the protesters, just moments before the march, grabbed a hold of the megaphone outside of the church and spoke their piece — in a scene that resembled a cross between a Baptist revival.

But the chants were in Spanish, like "Si se puede!" in reference to the Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers — or "Que viva Los Estados Unidos!" "Long live the United States".

Mixed in with the hundreds of people who calmly walked through the streets were a few fathers and mothers who have lost their sons and daughters in the Iraq war — like Fernando Suarez del Solar, a San Diego resident and former 7-Eleven cashier whose son, Jesus Alberto, a lance corporal with the U.S. Marines, was killed after he stepped on a land mine on March 27, 2003.

"All of this is not just about opposing the war. All of this is not just about opposing bad immigration bills. This is all about much, much more: It's about Mexicanos sticking up for their rights and hopefully getting a few people to pay attention and listen," said the 48-year-old father, who has walked all the way from Tijuana to Watsonville and will conclude his 241-mile journey in San Francisco on Monday.

He's walked along Southern California's roads and now the Central Coast, determined to get his message across: "Get the American troops out of Iraq!" he screamed through the megaphone. "It is killing our sons and daughters."

And Latinos and other minorities, those who make up the bulk of America's low-income class, are the ones who are being recruited heavily for the war, according to Suarez del Solar.

Yet even he realizes that it's too late, that he can never stop the war — just because his son was a casualty of it. No, he said, the war will continue, despite the marches, despite the rallies, despite the brief moment that Latinos now enjoy in the sun.

"I'm just hoping I can prevent future wars," he says.

As for the immigration reform and HR 4437, Watsonville's Latinos, many of whom still have family back in Mexico, think it's unfair.

"The word 'illegal' is a bad concept," said Ramiro Medrano, 26, a Brown Beret. "It should be eliminated."

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of immigrant rights advocates from across Southern California marched Saturday

The march followed rallies on Friday that drew throngs of protesters to major cities around the nation.

On Saturday, demonstrators streamed into downtown Los Angeles for what was expected to be one of the city's largest pro-immigrant rallies. The crowd was estimated at more than 100,000, said police Sgt. Lee Sands.

Many of the marchers wore white shirts to symbolize peace and also waved U.S. flags. Some also carried the flags of Mexico and other countries, and even wore them as capes.

Elger Aloy, 26, of Riverside, a premed student, pushed a stroller with his 8-month-old son at Saturday's Los Angeles march.

"I think it's just inhumane. ... Everybody deserves the right to a better life," Aloy said of the legislation.

President Bush on Saturday called for legislation that does not force America to choose between being a welcoming society and a lawful one.

"America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws," Bush said in his weekly radio address about the emotional immigration issue that has driven a wedge into his party.

Bush sides with business leaders who want legislation to let some immigrants stay in the country and work for a set period of time. Others, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, say national security concerns should drive immigration reform.

"They say we are criminals. We are not criminals," said Salvador Hernandez, 43, of Los Angeles, a resident alien who came to the United States illegally from El Salvador 14 years ago and worked as truck driver, painter and day laborer.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Tom Ragan at tragan@santacruzsentinel.com.

Police to file charges against organizer
WATSONVILLE — Police will seek charges against the lead organizer of Saturday's immigration-law protest march, which law enforcement officers said was unauthorized.

The organizer, a 26-year-old Watsonville man, refused to seek a city-required parade permit, and the organizers did not comply with police orders to remain on the sidewalk and out of the way of traffic, according to Capt. Manny Solano.

The police department was forced to dedicate 10 officers for the two-hour march, Solano said.

Organizers, some of whom were members of the local chapter of the youth organizations Brown Berets, led the group through busy city streets, hampering fire, metro transit and ambulance services, police said.

In addition to seeking charges against the lead organizer, the police department said it will bill the Watsonville Brown Berets for the cost of police services.