Insults in Marin City: Caravan of Trump supporters gets into nasty spat with residents.
A caravan of flagfluttering Trump partisans motored into the parking lot at the Gateway Center in Marin City on Sunday morning, with some members hurling racial epithets at bystanders in what is Marin County’s only predominantly minority community, according to two witnesses and reports on the social media website Nextdoor.
Marin City resident Amber AllenPeirson, who works in the wellness center at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, said she arrived around 11: 30 a. m. after receiving several texts that local residents were being insulted by the interlopers. By the time she arrived, tensions were already high, with several dozen residents confronting the Trump supporters.
“They were calling children n—,” she said. “They were yelling at kids I know, kids I care about.”
The caravan started in Santa Rosa and arrived at about 11 a. m. at the Vintage Oaks Shopping Center in Novato. It ended at the Marin Gateway Shopping Center in Marin City, according to Sgt. Brenton Schneider of the Marin County Sheriff’s
“I’m concerned about Marin City because it’s the only Black community in Marin ... What was their point?” Amber AllenPeirson, Marin City resident
Office. He said the caravan included an estimated 250 to 350 vehicles. Nobody was arrested, but the Sheriff’s Office received reports of arguments, fights, as well as paintball shots and eggs chucked at the Trump supporters.
AllenPeirson said she was worried that the Trump convoy had purposefully selected Marin City as a minoritymajority community in a county that is 80% white. Marin City has had a strong African American presence since World War II, when many people worked in wartime shipyards.
“I’m concerned about Marin City because it’s the only Black community in Marin and there is only one entrance and one exit,” she said. “Are they going to attack us in the future? What was their point? Were they trying to make a statement?”
She said she was grateful nobody was hurt “because the tension was high and the environment was definitely unsafe.”
“It was like the Taliban had come to town. It felt like local terrorism, especially since it was Sunday, which is a holy day for the black community,” she said. “If this is what is happening on November 1st, then what is going to happen on the 3rd or 4th? It makes me scared of what we can expect moving forward.”
Several Trump supporters who were part of the caravan disputed allegations that members of their group threatened or intimidated Marin City residents. They said they remained peaceful and that it was Marin City residents who pelted their vehicles with eggs and screamed insults.
George Barich, a retired Cotati City Council member, said that the Marin City shopping center was the designated turn around spot for the caravan and that the group stopped there “to buy refreshments and stretch our legs, and nothing more.”
“This was a peaceful car cruise which started in Santa Rosa,” he said. “Like all our cruises and freeway overpass events they are designed to give encouragement to Trump voters everywhere and to share love. This includes Marin City where many Trump supporters reside.”
Santa Rosa resident Sandy Metzger also said that Marin City was not a target.
“We were there just to take a break from our trip down the freeway from Santa Rosa,” said Metzger in an email. “It was just a peaceful rally — until ( Black Lives Matters) members started hurling epithets, paintballs, and eggs at some of our vehicles.
But Paul Austin, a Marin City resident who is executive director of the youth organization Play Marin, disagreed with that characterization. He said he arrived at the shopping center around 11: 30 a. m. after finishing a workout with a group of children in Mill Valley.
“The entire Gateway Shopping Center was nothing but Trump supporters,” he said. “There is nobody who can tell me Marin City wasn't targeted, because we are the only diverse community in the county.”
He, too, heard racial epithets being hurled at residents.
He said the community was unprepared for what felt like an invasion on a quiet Halloween weekend in the midst of a pandemic with an election two days away.
“Nobody is expecting a caravan of Trump supporters to come and invade our space and create chaos and controversy,” he said. “Everyone was either in church or just trying to watch some football.”
Caravans of Trump supporters have popped up around the country as the election draws closer. One occurred this weekend in the Bronx in New York City; the organizer, Evelyn Torres Vera, said the purpose was “to show our community that there is a strong presence of people that support our president, that we're not afraid to show it,” according to NY1.