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Sunday, January 8, 2006 DID COSTA MESA POLICE CHIEF JOHN HENSLEY TARGET A CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST? Surprising video shot by Minuteman suggests the lawman had Coyotl Tezcalipoca illegally arrested By DUANE J. ROBERTS [EMAIL PROTECTED] COSTA MESA, CA -- During the past 48 hours, video footage has unexpectedly appeared on the internet containing a number of startling images which suggest that Coyotl Tezcalipoca, a young Mexican civil rights activist who has been openly critical of Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor's proposal to merge city law enforcement with immigration duties, was illegally arrested by police officers at the Tuesday, January 3rd meeting of that municipality's City Council. The footage in question, a high quality five minute video clip of that meeting, was taken by a self-professed "Minuteman" who lives in Los Angeles, and was posted on www.immigrationwatchdog.com, a website that is dedicated to fighting "the human tsunami of millions upon never ending millions of poor illegal aliens from Latin America ... [threatening] ... our way of life." A careful, but detailed analysis of this clip not only completely contradicts newspaper accounts claiming that Tezcalipoca was taken into custody because he had gone over his time limit during public comments and had refused to leave the podium, but shows that Costa Mesa Police Chief John Hensley himself may have acted improperly -- and possibly illegally -- when he ordered several of his officers to arrest the young activist. The video clearly shows that Police Chief Hensley ordered Tezcalipoca arrested shortly after Mayor Mansoor stated twice over his microphone that the meeting was temporarily being adjourned for what appears to have been a pre-planned recess or "break." If this is the case, as it appears to be, then Hensley had his officers take Tezcalipoca into custody for "disrupting" a Costa Mesa City Council meeting which, technically, was no longer in session. This casts serious doubts over the validity of the arrest. In addition to this, the video establishes for the first time that Mayor Mansoor did in fact abruptly cut off Tezcalipoca two minutes and twenty seconds into his public comments -- out of the three minutes that were available to him according to the Costa Mesa municipal code. Civil libertarians looking into this case argue this was an outright violation of Tezcalipoca's constitutionally protected right to free speech and assembly. A separate investigation being conducted by John Earl, publisher of the www.ocorganizer.com, a website that covers labor and immigrant rights issues in Orange County, not only has uncovered additional evidence corroborating some of the claims brought up in this article, but has discovered video clips showing that Mayor Mansoor did in fact allow Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist to do things he refused to allow Tezcalipoca to do during public comments. "It seems that Mansoor's message to the public," Earl told me yesterday via Yahoo messenger, "was that if you are a Minuteman you may stand for your beliefs, but if you are Mexican, please remain seated." The video also shows, contrary to claims that Police Chief Hensley made to the press last week, that Tezcalipoca, although appearing upset over the fact his comments were cut short by Mayor Mansoor, not only was fully complying with orders by officers to leave the podium, but was in the process of exiting the building shortly before they violently pushed him out the door. VIDEO CAN BE SEEN AT WWW.IMMIGRATIONWATCHDOG.COM Click on the following links to download them to your computer in the appropriate formats. QUICKTIME: http://www.immigrationwatchdog.com/media/costamesa/bad_2.mov WINDOWS: http://www.immigrationwatchdog.com/media/costamesa/bad_2.wmv __________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL Something to write home about. 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