Free Republic

Lawsuit says man arrested at January council meeting was assaulted by police, denied free speech. The ACLU on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the city of Costa Mesa over the treatment of a protester who was arrested at a Jan. 3 City Council meeting. The suit was filed by the ACLU of Southern California on behalf of Benito Acosta, a 24-year-old Costa Mesa resident and Orange Coast College student who also uses the name Coyotl Tezcatlipoca. It claims city officials violated Acosta's rights to free speech, equal protection and due process by silencing him and by using force to restrain...

Activists clashed in Costa Mesa on Tuesday night over the city's decision to become the nation's first authorizing its police department to enforce federal immigration laws. A 3-2 vote last month to train police officers to work with federal immigration officials and sheriff's deputies to determine the immigration status of suspects arrested for other crimes has made the city a battleground in the national controversy over immigration policy. Mayor Allan Mansoor, who proposed the idea, has stressed that enforcement will focus on those accused of serious crimes and that no random sweeps will occur. "The public has been demanding this,"...

COSTA MESA – A City Council meeting broke into chaos Tuesday night as police forcefully arrested immigration-rights activist Coyotl Tezcalipoca after he refused to leave the chambers. He was charged with disrupting an assembly and obstructing an arresting officer, police said. Tezcalipoca and about 100 people were there to protest Costa Mesa's effort to give certain police officials the power to enforce immigration law, a job usually left to federal authorities. About 40 supporters of the city's plan, including Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, expressed without incident their strong opposition to illegal immigration. After accusing the council majority of trying...