Free Republic

The way Omar Sierra remembers it, dozens of day laborers gathered in the Kmart parking lot that day more than 15 years ago. A county mobile health clinic arrived with a mariachi band and free food and offered HIV tests to those waiting for work. Sierra got in line and sat for his test. He heard a commotion, turned and saw men running. He thought someone was offering a job and wondered whether he should go with them. Then he saw the immigration agents. And he ran as fast as he could. More than a dozen day laborers were arrested...

About 7,000 people attended a Mexican Flag Day ceremony in downtown Santa Ana on Sunday afternoon, aimed at honoring the Mexican and American flags and educating many in the audience about their Mexican roots. The eighth annual event – which featured flag presentations, live entertainment, a brief history lesson and more – ran from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Plaza Santa Ana, an outdoor space at the corner of Fourth and French streets. (Click here or on the photo above to see pictures from the event.) The gathering was sponsored by Los 32 Por Mexico en Orange County –...

When a residential burglar fired a gun at Jay Leone last month, he was initially too angry to realize he had been shot in the head, he testified Friday. "To tell you the truth, I never felt a thing," said Leone, 90, of Greenbrae. "I said, 'F—- you, you son of a bitch, now it's my turn.'" Whereupon he shot five bullets at the suspect from his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson snubnose revolver, hitting the burglar three times in the abdomen. A scuffle ensued between the wounded men. "Then he took the gun and put it to my head —...

The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office is seeking two unidentified male suspects after an Orick resident reported using a handgun to avert an attempted home invasion robbery early Sunday morning. The sheriff's office was notified at approximately 7 a.m. on Sunday that an attempted home invasion robbery allegedly had just occurred on the 100 block of Robinson Road in Orick. Sheriff's deputies responded to the scene and met with two victims, a 26-year-old female and a 35-year-old male, according to a release from the sheriff's office. According to the release, the victims told the deputies that they were asleep with their...

A Fairfield man was shot in the leg during an apparent robbery attempt in south Santa Rosa late Friday night, police said. The shooting victim, Denzel Demetre Simmons, 20, said he was smoking outside a relative’s house on Bellevue Avenue near Santa Rosa Avenue when someone shot him around 11:35 p.m., police said. But 15 minutes later, two other men said they’d been involved in a shooting after one of them had a gun put in his face. Savon Othello Cleveland, 21, and Frank David Kobrin, 22, said the shooter accosted them after they’d pulled over to the side of...

SACRAMENTO, Calif- A new tax proposal could be the answer to our state's budget mess. The proposal? Tax illegal immigrants. The people behind the initiative said they can get illegal immigrants to pay income taxes, but first the Governor must get a promise from the federal government, it won't go after anyone here illegally and is part of the program. "Trying to get the federal government to not spend resources on those folks who are filing and paying I don't know why that would come about, I would suspect some sort of political motivation in Sacramento visa vie Washington." Attorney...

Today, the 9th Circuit upheld the absurd ruling of Judge Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, striking down Proposition 8, the voter-approved constitutional amendment that would uphold traditional marriage in the state. The ruling itself was highly political and in no way legally oriented. “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians,” wrote the Court, “and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior… the Constitution simply does not allow for ‘laws of this sort.’” -snip-President Obama has...

DISCOVERY BAY, Calif. — Three women and one man pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to a $20 million crime that involved wire fraud, tax evasion and harboring illegal immigrants, and one of the alleged victims was a relative. Three and a half years after being indicted, Ronald Nelson, his second wife, Edith Nelson, and two former mortgage brokers pleaded guilty to dozens of charges tied to a mortgage loan fraud scheme. Kim Funke, the daughter of Ronald Nelson, said she was one of the victims. "It was kind of a sickening feeling," Funke said. Internal Revenue Service Special Agent...

Despite bleeding from three gunshot wounds, a co-owner of an East Oakland taco truck was able to return fire and twice hit the robbery suspect accused of shooting him early Thursday, police said. The suspect, Sean Ward Morris, 19, of Oakland, his brother Antoine Ward Morris, 18, and a 17-year-old Antioch boy whose name was not released were detained a short time later when they drove to a hospital and were subsequently arrested. The 32-year-old taco truck co-owner was in stable condition at a hospital. All are expected to recover from their wounds. The wild shootout happened about 1:30 a.m....

Sheriff's deputies are looking for three teenagers who tried to rob an auto repair shop and then stabbed an employee. The incident happened just before 11 p.m. Wednesday night at GMC General Auto Repair in Lost Hills. An employee, identified as Mario Soto, said he was working inside the business when he noticed three male juveniles outside in the parking lot. He said two of them tried to steal a car dolly so he grabbed a gun and went to confront the kids. When he tried to detain them he said he was stabbed in the neck. Soto said he...

Once again, for those Second Amendment snivelers who responded to Inga Barks' Jan. 28 column, "Long-gun ban only threatens our free speech rights," in the Feb. 1 Letters section: "Infringe (verb): Act so as to limit or undermine (something); encroach on. 'Infringe on his privacy.'" So those bombasts who start sentences with "I don't want to infringe on anyone's rights, but ..." are doing exactly that. Some other indisputable facts that freedom haters love to dispute: * Cops can't protect you from crime, but packing iron might. It ain't a guarantee, but having a gun offers more opportunity to successfully...

BALDWIN HILLS - Quick thinking and a sharpshooter's aim enabled an 87-year-old retired postal worker to thwart an attempted burglary and critically wound one of two burglars trying to break into his Baldwin Hills home, police said. Jack Goodwin, a World War II U.S. Army veteran, told police he was listening to a Lakers game when he heard the rear window breaking in his house in the 5300 block of Rodeo Road around 9 p.m. Tuesday night. Fearing for his life, Goodwin said he armed himself with a handgun, walked down his hall and opened fire when he saw the...

Five people are charged in a plot to employ African Americans from Compton to avert suspicion when bringing illegal immigrants across the border. In the calculus of cross-border human smuggling, Maria Lopez-Diaz allegedly concluded that black instead of brown equals green. The 60-year-old Compton woman, prosecutors say, tried to cash in on racial profiling by operating a human smuggling ring that hired mostly African American drivers who didn't speak a word of Spanish to ferry small groups of immigrants from Mexico to Los Angeles. In the end, the venture failed. Authorities announced charges Thursday against Lopez-Diaz and four others, including...

BALDWIN HILLS, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- An elderly man from Baldwin Hills took matters into his own hands when two suspected burglars were at his bedroom window Tuesday night. "I was in bed and heard the noise - boom, boom - then I came to see what it was," said 87-year-old Jack Goodwin. "It was two guys busting the window out coming in." Fearing for his life, Goodwin grabbed his 9mm handgun and shot at the suspects, wounding at least one of them. Goodwin was an Army marksman in World War II. "I only shot twice. I didn't empty the...

What do I find scary in Altadena? Fast traffic on dark roads, power lines in a windstorm, the cello-packed seafood at Ralph’s. Hot dry days when the mountains are full of brown and brittle brush -- yes, fire scares me. But I’m not afraid of people; neighbors or strangers with whom I share the streets, parks, shops, gas stations. Whatever personal safety questions cross my mind, owning a gun, much less carrying a gun, doesn’t offer much of an answer. I suppose I could shoot the Ralph’s salmon, but for heaven’s sakes, it’s been dead far too long already. Anthony...

Without a new kidney, Jesus Navarro will die. Although the Oakland man has a willing donor and private insurance to pay for the transplant, he faces an additional hurdle in the race to save his life: He is an illegal immigrant. That fact prompted administrators at UC San Francisco Medical Center to refuse to transplant a kidney from Navarro's wife because they cannot be sure he will receive adequate follow-up care. Their decision taps into the tension between health care and immigration policies in the state and the role medical professionals should play in trying to save the lives of...

“Although San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi was a strong advocate of gun control while on the Board of Supervisors, he surrendered 3 handguns when police recently booked him on misdemeanor domestic violence charges,” KCBS reports. Mirkarimi apparently owned them while sponsoring legislation last summer to bolster San Francisco gun control laws against a lawsuit by the National Rifle Association. “Mirkarimi was elected sheriff in November after serving seven years as one of the city's more liberal supervisors,” Fox News tells us. Indeed, “As a longtime member of the progressive bloc on the Board of Supervisors, Mirkarimi was a vocal advocate...

A bill introduced by Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge, would ban rifles, shotguns and other long guns from being openly displayed in public, even while unloaded. Portantino wrote in a press release that the bill is inspired by guns right protest groups that openly carry long guns in public. He noted that following the passage of AB 144, the bill he introduced last year barring the open carry of handguns, the groups began to show up instead with automatic rifles and shotguns at rallies. “Last year, the state made it clear that this type of behavior had no place on...

DANA POINT, Calif. (KABC) -- A Dana Point resident woke to the sounds of an intruder Monday night, then fatally shot the suspect. The resident has not been charged in the shooting, though the case is still under investigation. The incident happened at a house on the 34000 block of Capistrano By the Sea in Dana Point. At least two bullets shattered a window at the house. Authorities say at least one bullet hit the male intruder who allegedly confronted the victim around 11 p.m. Monday. "The homeowner heard some noises inside his home, checked around initially, did not see...

A crashed California Department of Justice (DOJ) website during the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday prevented the shipment of thousands of firearms to retailers in California, and cost legitimate businesses tens of thousands of dollars in delayed or lost sales. California has some of the most restrictive firearm laws in the country. One of those laws creates the California Firearms Licensee Check Program (CFLC). It was the inability to comply with the CFLC, due to the DOJ website crashing, that caused the whole problem here. Firearm dealers must be a Federal Firearm Licensee (FFL) in addition to having state and...