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Common theme of discord plays in conflicting arenas


UNION-TRIBUNE

August 15, 2005

On back-to-back nights last week, conflicts between Anglos and Latinos were dramatized on North County stages.

How different the actors and the scripts in the Vista and Carlsbad auditoriums – in themselves a study in physical contrast – and yet how similar the disquiet as you drive home, the radio talking.



An hour before the town meeting, a young woman stood alone in front of Lincoln Middle School, passing out graduation photographs of Jesus Manzo, one of three Latino youths shot dead by sheriff's deputies during Vista's most violent week.

I asked if she was a friend or relative of Manzo.

No, she said. She works in the office of the attorney retained by a member of Manzo's family.

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In the almost empty parking lot, several burly men in suits huddled, a discreet display of sheriff's muscle.

Before the forum began, I talked briefly to an Anglo couple, old enough to be grandparents. They were there to show support for law enforcement, they said.

"Illegal immigration is a terrible, terrible problem," the woman said.

Later, during the packed forum in Lincoln's stifling hot gymnasium, the likeness of Jesus Manzo would be brandished in the faces of stoic officials – Vista Mayor Morris Vance, Sheriff Bill Kolender, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and a sheriff's captain based in Vista.

The panelists, primed to cite statistics on gangs, policy on police shootings and the number of Spanish speakers in law enforcement, answered dozens of questions, most playing off the perception that Anglo deputies are slow to comprehend but quick to kill Latinos in the barrio.

But they did not address the real, concrete question, the one that mattered most to the overheated crowd: "Why did deputies kill the fleeing men?"

Investigations take time, the officials repeated. Be patient.

The crowd, predominantly Latino, young and angry, stomped feet and shouted "Justicia." The crowd milled. Babies cried. Firebrands egged others on.

It was bedlam with a rough, insulting edge. But the show went on to its bitter, inconclusive end without an overt display of police force.



The next night, I arrived at Carlsbad High School two hours before show time. At the corner of Chestnut Avenue and Lancer Way, two cruisers and six motorcycle cops were standing by.

By the end of the night, 150 officers would be called to the scene. Carlsbad's superintendent panicked, but it also looked like a police panic attack.

Fearing violence on campus, Superintendent John Roach had revoked the scheduled forum's permit on Aug. 5, hoping the organizers of the illegal immigration forum would make other plans.

No naif in the publicity game, state Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Carlsbad, the organizer (and chief beneficiary) of the forum, slapped Roach with a lawsuit. In short order, Roach caved and opened the doors to the plush, air-conditioned community theater.

Morrow had himself a priceless media coup, an event radioactive with the specter of violence.

Across Lancer Way, groups of blue-collar Latinos gathered in front of their modest apartments to watch the TV trucks and the long line of Anglos, most of whom were retirement age. Roger Hedgecock, the forum's moderator, had pumped up his listeners, encouraging them to arrive early and fill the seats.

During the forum, Hedgecock and others profusely thanked the police for protecting them from the pro-immigrant forces gathered outside.

The border advocates harbor as profound a grievance as the Latino residents of Vista's Townsite, but not against police or the military, forces they admire enormously.

Rather, they blame the political power structure – the Democrats, turncoat Republicans like President Bush and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Big Business – for what they see as a human plague.

Only genuine patriots are aware of how "illegal aliens" are depleting America's resources and coarsening the English-based culture, they believe.

The call to arms on the border taps into a populist vein of votes.

Morrow is an early front-runner for the congressional seat in the 50th District, soon to be vacated by Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Morrow's strategy is clear: Ride the border to Washington.

James Gilchrist, the founder of the Minutemen and a feisty Carlsbad panelist, is also angling for a congressional seat. Forum headliner Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., looked like a dark-horse presidential candidate. ("You can beat Hillary," someone shouted to the spellbinding speaker.)

Outside, as the audience of 400 filed out a side entrance, protesters on both sides yammered harmlessly back and forth. They were surrounded by riot police, the world's most expensive baby sitters.

Driving home from Carlsbad, I tuned the radio to a local AM station.

The talk-show subject: Illegal immigration.

It's killing this country, the host said, over and over.

Logan Jenkins can be reached at (760) 737-7555 or by e-mail at logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.