Planned private property patrol draws threats of fire, lawsuits

By Billie Jo Jannen
The Alpine Sun
     SAN DIEGO — The border watch operation by Friends of the Border Patrol, slated to start Friday, has brought a flurry of threats from open borders advocates, including urging the use of fireworks to disrupt patrollers and legal action from Claudia Smith of California Rural Legal Assistance.
     Funded by a combination of government and private sector grants, CRLA offers legal representation,”... based primarily on financial condition and legal entitlement to work in the U.S.”
     Smith has threatened homeowners with lawsuits if they allow FBP to operate on their privately-held farms and ranches.
     Smith has purchased a full-page ad in which she tells FBP and local property owners that they could be successfully sued if a migrant is injured on their properties by a border volunteer.
     She uses as an example the case of a South American couple were apprehended and allegedly pistol-whipped by a former Ranch Rescue volunteer in Arizona. Ranch Rescue volunteers, in contrast to the watch and report tactics used by more recent volunteers, have been actively rounding up illegals on the properties they patrol.
     Back Country residents have routinely done this on their own properties since 1993, turning apprehended groups over to U.S. Border Patrol.
     For these, policing their own properties has been a matter of necessity and some have welcomed the help of volunteers.
     San Diego attorney Peter Lepiscopo said he views Smith’s threats as insubstantial: “The assertions and threats in the advertisement have no factual or legal basis.”
     “In California, the property owners have the right to patrol their properties,” Lepiscopo said. “They also have the right to protect their guests.”
     Residents may also legitimately detain people who are committing a crime, such as trespass, vandalism, or acts with the potential to do harm to the owners, his family, or guests.
     The law draws the line, however, at violence of any kind,” Lepiscopo said.
     Regarding the Arizona case cited by Smith, he said, “It’s a scare tactic...a complete non sequitur. If it came up in court, the judge wouldn’t allow it to be discussed.”
     “Under the California and U.S. constitutions, homeowners have a right to freedom of association to invite whomever they please into their homes and onto their property, and to exclude anyone from their property,” he said.
     Of more immediate concern may be the urgings on the San Diego Independent Media website by an anonymous poster on behalf of a Buenos Noches Brigade, which suggsts the means by which illegal immigration advocates may “disrupt” volunteer operations.
     Among the suggestions is the use of live fireworks.
     “Consider this an invitation.” the blogger wrote. “ Consider this a list of targets. Consider this a playbill. Do as you will. Come up with the tactics you and your group are comfortable with, and which fulfills your feelings towards the racist vigilantes...cross the border and shine lights back at them. Fireworks are interesting at night, as well.”
     Further down on the page, a blogger calling himself “rocky” and using the e-mail address rockyneptun@yahoo.com offered to give the addresses of outlets in Mexico where fireworks could be purchased: 
     “I have firing off fireworks in the desert for almost 60 years. If anyone wants the addresses of places to buy them in Tijuana, please e-mail me,” he wrote. “In the meantime everyone, kick some minuteman, redneck ass.”
     The full text of the blog is at http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/110913.shtml.
     The rhetoric is fairly representative of that generally found in the website, which caters to anarchy, Aztlan, and open borders advocates. The site is also supported/used by the Human Rights Coalition which, with District 51 Congressman Bob Filner, has joined with the groups who portray border volunteers as gun slinging white supremacist migrant hunters: http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/110893.shtml.
     A self-styled advocate for veterans, Filner has offered no support or protection to Campo’s VFW Post 2080, which has been under fire by protesters.
     The material is viewed as protected free speech, though the use of fireworks in San Diego County is illegal under any circumstances, according to California Forestry and Fire Protection.
     CDF officials previously conducted fire warnings among the various “visitors” in the border area during Jim Chase’s California Minutemen action, said CDF Battalion Chief Jim Garrett.
     Garrett said no area fires were attributed to either Minutemen or protesters during the action, which went from early July to early August.
     He added that firefighters and deputies would do the same thing during the upcoming FBP action, due to start Friday night, Sept. 16.
     Garrett said that, while concerned, there is little CDF can do in advance of someone using fireworks, though if protesters actually use them, action would be taken then.
     If the fireworks are used with the intent to do harm, it becomes the business for the deputies or other sworn law enforcement:
     “In this context, it’s a sheriff’s matter,” he said. 
     "We have had, already this year, 50 or more fires along the border." said Deputy Chief of Operations Kevin Eggleston of CDF. "Fire is already an issue along the border. If we find someone is using illegal fireworks in the wildlands, and we catch them, we will prosecute to the full extent of law."
     View past coverage of volunteer patrols at:
The Alpine Sun, June 9, 2005
The Alpine Sun: June 16, 2005
The Alpine Sun, July 21, 2005
The Alpine Sun, August 11, 2005

                                         E-mail Billie Jannen