By Ted Rohrlich
August 27th, 2006
For a couple of hours Saturday, a small group of demonstrators made Slauson Avenue in the tiny city of Maywood feel like the red-hot center of the national debate over immigrant rights.
A few dozen people from Save Our State and like-minded groups lined up behind police barricades, shouted into bullhorns and waved American flags to protest characterizations of the heavily Latino, square-mile city by some elected officials as a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.
Separated from the Save Our State contingent by other barricades and a line of riot-ready police a block away, about 200 counter-demonstrators shouted into their own bullhorns that it was time for amnesty and for the “racists” to go home.
Joseph Turner of San Bernardino, founder of Save Our State, said his group staged the protest in Maywood “to punish the city … for their transgressions” by disrupting traffic and commerce and making the city pay for extra police.
Protester Roger Young, an aerospace engineer from Lake Forest, said he had been involved in two traffic accidents with illegal immigrants who had no driver’s licenses or insurance and tried to walk away, even though they were at fault. He said he was upset about people breaking laws, adding that it is difficult to get his point of view heard. “To voice a different opinion in this city,” he said, “it takes 100 policemen for an escort.” (….Full Article)
More:
Maywood City of Lawlessness… PHOTOS
Maywood Protest Video (Save Our State)
