Rightwing Love Fest? Anything But
On Saturday, Oct. 16, a far-right political rally was held at Point Fermin Park. Organizers attempted to get a permit for the event, but according to sources at the Harbor Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, they were denied after a telephone call from Councilman Joe Buscaino’s office. The same organizers brought a similar event to Portland, OR, a week or so before, and it ended up in violence — a shootout between the far-right group and ANTIFA activists. The LAPD was on high alert for this event, staging more than 118 officers both at the park and offsite in case of violence. None occurred.
According to promotional flyers, the rally was called the “Fall Love Fest--United We Stand, Divided We Fall,” an attempt to mimic the hippie peace and love posters from the 1960s. Though the organizers of the event were not mentioned on the flyers, a number of the people who showed up were loud members of the Proud Boys, wearing group-identifying clothing.
Guest speakers listed in the flyer included Elsa Aldeguer, founder of Latinos for Trump, Jen Loh, who founded Latinos United for America, and Family America Project founder Genevieve Peters as well as Jesse Holguin, the founder of Lexit, named to suggest that Latinos exit from the Democratic Party. Campaign speeches were promised from candidates for state attorney general, Eric Early, Mark Meuser for Senate, and Derrick Gates for Congress. It doesn’t appear that any of them actually showed up after the permit was denied, but their followers did.
Random Lengths News photojournalist Arturo Garcia-Ayala and publisher James Preston Allen attended the event. The following is an on-theground-report after leaving the event:
The LAPD was already present when they arrived. Officers were patrolling in pairs and were spread throughout the park. There were about a dozen people [event attendees] walking around in small clusters at the park. They had a tent set up for selling concessions.
After an hour, the number of attendees grew to nearly 100, who gathered at the amphitheater. A couple of people who apparently weren’t fans of the Proud Boys walked up to attendees and hurled a few insults before leaving. Eight others, identified by the Harbor Division police officers as belonging to the Rancho San Pedro street gang, got into a verbal altercation with the event attendees. Harbor Division officers formed a line to separate the two sides and the local gang members left. The attendees were largely from elsewhere, as far away as Sacramento, Bakersfield and Fresno.
The LAPD said the right-wing group couldn’t have a bullhorn without a permit. The event started with introductions followed by prayer using the same jingoistic language common at Donald Trump rallies, referencing the “stolen election” and anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories.
Otherwise, the most-common messaging was delivered on signs reading “Don’t Tread on Me” and “Fuck Biden,” along with pro-Trump flags.
Roof Korea, a group of people identifying as a security force for the event, aggressively followed people who looked like they didn’t belong or appeared to be members of the press. Roof Korea is named after armed Korean Americans defending their business during the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion.
They engaged outsiders with the intent to provoke as if spoiling for a fight. They harassed anyone with a camera.
Garcia-Ayala said he tried diffusing the confrontations by responding truthfully while using humor.
“They usually just went away. I went around taking pictures, but people kept saying things like, ‘you shouldn’t take pictures because you work for the liberal media.’ Or, ‘You’re ANTIFA media. You’re probably here just to take pictures of people’s faces,’” Garcia-Ayala said.
Though they’re trying to rebrand themselves as being about peace and love, their behavior when it came to the press was anything but. There was an edge of hostility and not “love” that underpinned this event that was just waiting for someone to light a match to this gathering, which didn’t happen. There were a handful of people who were opposed that showed up to bear witness but the vocal opposition just didn’t show up, likely realizing that this was a made-for-TV news provocation.
Garcia-Ayala said he believed he was allowed to walk freely at first because of his military service (he is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan).
Garcia-Ayala said he was approached by two groups of people and one individual. He was approached by Roof Korea members once, and a random group of attendees the second time. The third time he was approached was by an individual who was particularly verbally aggressive. Every time Garcia-Ayala would walk away from a situation, someone would continue to follow him.
“Everytime I would take a picture, it was almost as if they wanted to just grab my camera,” Garcia-Ayala said.
Capt. Jay Mastick of Harbor Division confirmed that there was only one person detained but not arrested and that he had officers from Metro Division on standby if trouble erupted and others from throughout LAPD on duty that day.