OC Weekly compiles the Year in Hate: 2017

The following article is one take on the past year, through the eyes of the staff of the OC Weekly.

The Year In Hate: Saying Goodbye to 2017

OC Weekly Staff | December 28, 2017

JANUARY
On Jan. 5, the first day of the 2017-18 Legislative Session in Sacramento, Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra introduces Assembly Bill 39, which would establish the California Hate Crimes Registry. Listing every hate crime and criminal who perpetrates one for public inspection is necessary, the San Fernando Valley Democrat explains, because “we have witnessed an alarming spike in hate crimes in the days and weeks following the presidential election and a double-digit increase in hate crimes reported to California law enforcement in 2015.” The bill comes a month after an “alarming spike in hate crimes” in Orange County prompted the OC Human Relations Commission to launch the #HateFreeOC campaign. . . . We report on Jan. 16—Martin Luther King Jr. Day—that the Laguna Beach Police Department and Laguna Beach Unified School District confirm they are investigating a suspected hate crime that happened over the winter break. Five boys who attend Laguna Beach High School are accused of verbally taunting a 17-year-old classmate who was born in Africa as they threw watermelon at his home. . . . At a Jan. 21 rally in downtown Santa Ana, Muslim women hand out 200 hijabs, with the message that the demonstration is “not a moment,” but “a movement.” . . . The January issue of Orange County Lawyer comes out with a column by incoming Orange County Bar Association (OCBA) President Michael Baroni, who in his piece bashes immigrants, a supposed “war on cops” and apocryphal anti-American demonstrations. The day after publication, the OCBA board of directors issues an apology for Baroni’s screed. But that does not stop protesters from converging outside the association’s Jan. 26 Judges Night & Annual Meeting at the Hyatt Regency in Huntington Beach. Some lawyers inside leave when they first learn about Baroni’s column, and as he is being installed, dozens stand up and walk out while others unfurl a banner reading, “We Stand with ALL Immigrant Communities.” Baroni’s only acknowledgement of the controversy during his acceptance speech is when he whines that his crowning ceremony is not a “forum.”

FEBRUARY
In solidarity with World Hijab Day, more than 520 people attend an I Stand With Hijabs (a.k.a. #IStandWithHijabs) event Feb. 1 at the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove. . . . Raymond Herrera, a 60-year-old Mexican-American, Victorville resident and—you’re about to read this right—Minuteman Project activist, frequently haunted Huntington Beach during the days of Barbara Coe, the late, not-great immigrant-hate spreader who resided there. Herrera is back on Feb. 20 to counterprotest a rally against Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and call a U.S.-born Weekly staff writer an “illegal-alien reporter.” The next day, he goes to a Huntington Beach Police Department town hall to accuse Police Chief Robert Handy of being a traitor for failing to deport Mexicans. The day after that, Herrera goes before the Huntington Beach City Council to accuse it and Handy of creating a sanctuary city, something they had not done before or since. Herrera also accuses Councilman Erik Peterson of being nice to the Oak View barrio. . . . The Merage Jewish Community Center and Tarbut V’Torah school in Irvine are evacuated by police on Feb. 27 after someone calls in a bomb threat. About 1,000 people exit safely and without injury, and a search of the premises by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s (OCSD) bomb-sniffing dogs turns up nothing suspicious. The local JCC is among several around the country receiving bomb threats within days of one another. . . . On Feb. 28, Newsweek publishes “Golden State of Hate: Extremism’s Long History in California.” Author Gabriel Thompson connects the resurgent white supremacy of today to previous campaigns in the past, including Orange County’s role in it all, from Proposition 187 to last year’s Ku Klux Klan melee in Anaheim to the Minuteman Project of the past decade. Included is this charming tidbit: “The city of Orange, for example, only allowed children of Mexican descent to use the pool on Mondays until the late 1940s. The pool was drained on Monday nights and cleaned and refilled on Tuesdays to protect white children from contamination.”

MARCH
Two women, including one wearing a hijab, leave a Target store in Irvine around 8 p.m. on March 1 when a silver Toyota Camry pulls up alongside them and the driver yells religious slurs. Moments later, after the women drive away from the store, they hear clanking noises from coins being thrown out the driver-side window of the same Camry. One passenger is struck but not injured, and both get a partial plate number. . . . A suspended Orange Coast College student who was also the subject of a restraining order obtained by the Coast Community College District is arrested March 13 for allegedly slashing the tires of two Campus Safety vehicles and carving a swastika and “fuck the nigger” into the hood of one unit. Robert McDougal, 21, of Costa Mesa, is released on bail after being booked for suspected vandalism and hate crime charges. He’d been arrested twice before on campus for alleged battery on a peace officer and a college employee, according to Campus Safety officials. McDougal, whose nickname for himself is “McDeplorable,” frequently uses social media to promote Trump, white nationalism, the alt-right movement and anti-Semitism. . . . Two OC Weekly photographers and an intern are assaulted while covering #MAGAmarch, a March 26 pro-Trump rally at Bolsa Chica State Beach in Huntington Beach. While the mainstream-media reports erroneously make victims out of Trump supporters, who far outnumber the assembled media and counterprotesters combined, white supremacists worldwide hail the beat-down of the press and people of color as a huge victory. . . . Jennifer Sterling, who co-organized #MAGAmarch and twice helped Weekly intern Frank John Tristan from further harm by pro-Trump goons, goes on KFI-AM 640’s The John and Ken Show on March 27 to falsely claim thugs from the left stirred up the most shit.

APRIL
Orange County’s Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, who was arrested in December 2016 for allegedly stabbing and beating a man at a North Carolina Klan gathering, is convicted April 7 for assault with a deadly weapon for a 2015 attack on a homeless man in Orange. William Ernest Hagen, who also goes by “Billy Quigg” and “William Quigg,” was previously convicted in 1988 for assault with a deadly weapon, robbery and attempted robbery in Orange County. Readers may recall the California Grand Dragon West Coast King Kleagle of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was roughed up by counterprotesters during the February 2016 Klan rally in Anaheim, where Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, intervened to save the Orange resident from further harm. . . . An African-American woman files a lawsuit against Albertsons in Orange County Superior Court on April 10 because, she claims, a store clerk in Irvine assumed she was going to pay with food stamps. Deidre Harris, 42, grew up in Huntington Beach, works as a fashion brand consultant and has lived in Irvine for 22 years. . . . Newport Beach Harbor Commission Chairman Paul Blank serves controversial City Councilman Scott Peotter with recall papers at the April 11 City Council meeting. Blank, who resides within Peotter’s Corona del Mar district, accuses the councilman of failing to address the needs of constituents. In 2015, Peotter sent out a newsletter to constituents stating that gays stole rainbow symbology from God, earning condemnation from his council colleagues because he used the city seal on the mailer. Peotter was unapologetic, claiming he was the victim of political correctness. . . . During a violent face-off between antifa and alt-right supporters in Berkeley on April 15, 21 people are arrested. At least two of them come from Orange County: Robert Rundo, 26, of San Clemente (for battery on and resisting/obstructing a police officer), and Dennis Luke, 36, of Huntington Beach (for assault with a deadly weapon). Luke could also go by #BasedSkywalker, who was filming the crowd at last month’s #MAGAmarch in Huntington Beach.

MAY
A Cinco de Mayo promotion at Hennessey’s Tavern backfires. Anyone who can scale an inflatable “wall” outside the Dana Point watering hole wins a “green card,” which entitles the holder to one free drink for every purchased beverage of equal or lesser value. The stunt receives mucho condemnation, particularly from the Latino community, but tavern owner Paul Hennessey swears in a follow-up Facebook message that the promotion was aimed at showing “how ridiculous that it is to spend tens of millions of dollars to build a wall and even infer that Mexico foot some or the entire bill and have their citizens build it.” . . . A 25-year-old Irvine man pleads guilty May 12 to a racially charged attack on a black teen and his older brother. Christopher Qu accepts a plea deal that has him copping to assault with a deadly weapon, a felony, and a misdemeanor hate crime count. He is sentenced to 180 days in jail, which is waived because of time already served in custody, three years’ probation and placement in the custody of the Public Guardian’s Office to receive mental-health treatment. The teen was waiting for his brother to pick him up outside Irvine High School on March 30, 2016, when Qu approached while holding a pipe, yelled racial slurs and made threatening gestures with his weapon. That’s about when the boy’s 24-year-old brother rolled up, intervened and was head butted by Qu, who also slammed the pipe against the man’s arm several times. The victim suffered bruises and a broken nose. . . . Two anti-LGBT holy rollers arrive on the corner of Main and 10th Street in Santa Ana around 11:35 a.m. May 30 to berate Orange County School of the Arts students on their Tuesday lunch break. One man holds a sign reading, “Repent! Turn from your sin to Jesus,” while another blares, “Homos will go to hell!” on a bull horn. But the youth aren’t having it as they exercise their freedom-of-speech rights to the demonstrators, who are soon sorely outnumbered and surrounded. “Gays okay!” chant the students before a school bell rings, they return to class, and the Christian bigots are left alone with no one to harass.

JUNE
Buzzfeed News on June 6 reports that a white middle-schooler told a black classmate in Brea that with Trump’s presidential victory, she must return to Africa. Asked by the Weekly for more details, Buzzfeed criminal-justice reporter Albert Samaha shares the original tip: “My daughter, a 13-year-old we adopted from Mozambique, was told by her 8th-grade classmate: ‘Now that Trump won, you’re going to have to go back to Africa—where you belong.’ We, as her parents, have spoken with the school authorities, as well as members of the school board, and received a supportive response. We hope eventually to meet with the family of the boy who said this.” . . . Iraqi-American Shi’ite Imam Moustafa al-Qazwini of the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County (IECOC) in Costa Mesa delivers a June 23 sermon titled “Islamic Shari’ah Means Tolerance and Goodness to Others.” It sounds benign enough, but al-Qazwini testifies that ISIS is a product of Israeli intelligence. That results in a social-media storm that produced an IECOC statement in which al-Qazwini says he based his information on what he had received from “government and military sources” during a 2014 visit to Iraq, adding that his comments should not be viewed as criticism of “adherents of the Jewish faith.” . . . Jeff LeTourneau, a legendary gay activist and Democratic Party of Orange County North OC vice chairman, yells at gay Republicans outside a Fullerton Wal-Mart because he believes they are misinforming potential voters about the campaign to recall state Senator Josh Newman (D-Fullerton). Video of the clash goes viral, conservative media go wild, and Orange County GOP Chairman Fred Whitaker on June 27 demands that LeTourneau step down. LeTourneau fires back, “As you are the chairman of the OC Republican Party, a party that has waged a decades-long vicious attack on the OC LGBTQ community at virtually every level, I suggest that you get your own house in order before interfering in the affairs of the Democratic Party.”

JULY
In a July 8 Los Angeles Daily News interview, LA Chargers nose tackle Brandon Mebane alleges he and his black teammates are discriminated against in Orange County. The NFL team’s offices are in Costa Mesa, and the Chargers held preseason practices at UC Irvine. Mebane tells reporter Ryan Kartje that he and other teammates faced housing discrimination in Irvine and Newport Beach, even after offering to put down advance rents of up to a year. “But you can’t tell a person they can’t come in your neighborhood because they’re black; that’s against the law,” Mebane says. “They don’t actually say those types of things. But they’ll point out things. . . .The neighborhood was brand-new. There were no black families there.” The veteran added that he and his wife were not-so-subtly followed by a security guard at a Louis Vutton store. “People tell me it’s not true,” Mebane concludes, “but they don’t understand what it’s like to be black in America. The only way we can move on and hear each other is by talking about this.” . . . Actor James Woods uses Twitter on July 9 to say of two parents who took their gender-creative child to OC Pride in Santa Ana: “This is sweet. Wait until this poor kid grows up, realizes what you’ve done, and stuffs both of you dismembered into a freezer in the garage.” Woods includes a link to a photo of the child pulled from a previous tweet by the boy’s mother, Lori Duron, the author of the 2013 book Raising My Rainbow. . . . Attorney General Jeff Sessions catches heat for speaking at the private, closed-door Summit On Religious Liberty that the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) holds at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel on July 11. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) says the ADF “specializes in supporting the recriminalization of homosexuality abroad, ending same-sex marriage, and generally making life as difficult as possible for LGBT communities in the U.S. and internationally.” The ADF responds by framing the SPLC as “ultra-partisan.” . . . Brandon Ricardo Pascual is booked at the Irvine Police Department on July 26 following a months-long investigation that concludes the 35-year-old committed the hate crime against the two women outside a Target store on March 1. The partial plate number the women jotted down helped to uncover Pascual’s identity, police say.