The City Square: Minutemen vs. May Day protesters in San Francisco; Two arrested

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It was a beautiful Saturday in San Francisco's Civic Center. On one side of Polk Street were about 40 Golden Gate Minutemen protesting in favor of immigration being safe and legal. Here is the scene from their side:

"What has two hands and only nine digits? An illegal alien with my social security number."

The protester above is seen facing a police van with flashing lights that was called in as pro-illegal demonstrators surged from the other side of Polk street toward the Minutemen. Here you can see the May Day protesters carrying Che signs and waving a Mexican flag at the Minutemen:

How dangerous was it? A man on the Minuteman side writes that the pro-illegals were preparing for violence:

They came as a mob almost up to our side of the street. I saw some bottles of water about to be thrown, and I saw some wrapping their heads with SEIU t-shirts to mask their faces in case someone broke rank and started to attack us. This of course would have allowed the entire mob to begin the violent attack.

They know enough to protect their anonymity when anticipating violence. They may not know how to fill out immigration papers but they do know how to riot.

The SF police pushed back, keeping the pro-illegals on the other side of Polk street:

In the foreground in the photo above are the pro-illegal protestors, behind them is a line of police, then Polk street, then police tape and barricades, then another line of policemen, then several parked cars, then more metal barricades, then the forty or so Minutemen protesters. The police were being careful. I would have gotten more photos of the Minutemen side but the police were not letting anyone near them.

Also, as shown above, the police had their backs to the Minutemen and faced the May Day crowd. Despite all the media reports about "right wing" violence, the police clearly knew which side was peaceful and which side was dangerous.

The success of the police in protecting the Minutemen caused frustration on the pro-illegal side and they responded with extreme crudity, as my Minuteman correspondent writes:

They responded with the bird and a gesture that looked like masturbation followed by tossing the result my way. Must be some Central American gesture as I've never seen it before.

Just how well prepared San Francisco police were can be seen in this photo looking from Civic Center, across Grove Street, toward the Bill Graham Auditorium and showing a very long line of police cars and police motorcycles waiting to swing into action:

(Despite the preparations, three Minutemen were attacked but more on that below.)

The May Day protesters, numbering a thousand or more, gathered around a stage in Civic Center:

If the speakers at the May Day rally were speaking English, I would try to summarize what they said, but they weren't. There were, however, colorful displays of flags, some Mexican, some Honduran, among others:

It must have been frustrating for the May Day crowd not to have Geo. Bush to kick around anymore. Instead, they were reduced to calling Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer a Nazi and racist:

The sign reads "I talked to your kids about racisim[sic.] last night. I told them that treating another group of people unfairly was wrong. They agreed. Signed, tu[sic.] nanny." The sign, of course, is also adorned with Nazi symbols and a "Heil Hitler." (Will Speaker Pelosi ever acknowledge that protesters on her side "carry swastikas"?)

The man shown below wanted Obama to "open the stables for the horses." I decided not to ask for a translation:

May Day rallies are not only about immigration. They are also about communism. While some of us may think that the USSR was a failed experiment, those belonging to the International Bolshevik Tendency still think fondly of the glory days in 1917:

My Minuteman correspondent writes about the media hypocrisy:

I also saw all the communist literature being sold in the Plaza. No media reports on this commie stuff, but would the media have reported if our side were selling Mein Kampf?

The man below was at the May Day rally to promote the "All African People's Revolutionary Party" with "a call to strengthen the solidarity between African people and the indigenous people of the Western hemisphere":

San Francisco is famous for colorful characters and they were also there for this event:

There were also lots of t-shirts and buttons for sale. Marijuana legalization advocates have a new slogan as seen on the button below: "legalize today, get high tonight":

At the end of the demonstration, I watched as the police escorted the Minutemen out of the area. Apparently the escort did not last long enough. ABC News reports that a large group of illegal-rights supporters followed them to the BART station (San Francisco's subway) and punched and kicked them. Three Minutemen supporters were injured. At least two of the attackers were arrested and will "likely be charged with felony assault and robbery."

UPDATE 1: Uncoverage has more on the vandalism in Santa Cruz that followed the pro-illegal demonstration. Local ABC News is reporting more than $100,000 in damages to Santa Cruz businesses:

UPDATE 2: One of the participants on the Minuteman side offers a few comments. For one, he describes his encounter with an AP reporter eager to make the Minutemen look bad:

Of course, there were no racist signs on our side, but when I met an AP photographer, I said, "Are you looking for a racist sign?" He excitedly looked around and said, "Where?" I pointed out to him that there were no racist signs, that racism was the farthest thing from our minds, and that his excitement about a possible racist sign was evidence that he WANTED there to be a racist sign. I told him my question was about him, not the sign. Obviously the possibility of a racist sign fit into his narrative, the one in which he got to be the hero in exposing what he was sure that was at the core of our ideology. The media are so transparent right now in their clear leftist slant.

UPDATE 3: Steve Kemp of the Golden Gate Minutemen has issued a statement:

I am very proud of all who showed up and stood with us, and also to those who wanted to, but truly couldn't. ....

Yes there was danger, but we had about 15 SFPD Officers assigned to protect us. I've been to many protests during my four years with the Minutemen, and as we expected, this was absolutely the worst one I've witnessed. The arrogance, vile hatred and racism that these "peaceful immigrants" displayed was disgusting - absolutely disgusting.

They walked OUR streets that WE pay for, that our parents and grandparents paid for (some with the ultimate sacrifice), openly admitting that they are here illegally, carrying mass murderer Che Guevara posters with pride, communist flags, socialist tables set up at the Civic Center Plaza, and Mexican flags waving on a beautiful spring day in a city that we all used to love called San Francisco. They spit at us, threw things and flipped us off. All while calling us "hate mongers", "racists" and "Nazis". And having the nerve to whine about "racial profiling" and how unfair America is to them. ....

This has been going on for some time now, and I got news for anyone that will listen. The "New Patriot Movement" had better get off of their butts and take a stand before we're totally overrun by people who think it's their right to take back "their" country.

Steve Kemp
Golden Gate Minutemen