Columnist conveniently forgot some facts

Rosalinda Ramirez

I found Peter Buffa’s Comments & Curiosities column (“A council

meeting to remember,” July 21) about the July 15 City Council meeting

extremely amusing. I especially liked the extensive efforts he took

to make sure his “facts” were correct and to tell the entire story of

what occurred at the Niketown protest.

Or maybe not.

For the record, not all the protesters are anarchists. I know it

is easier to make sweeping generalizations than to carefully check

the facts, but the protest actually included very diverse groups of

people. The people who showed up to the council meeting to speak

about this issue are not anarchists.

Naui Huitzilopochtli is not an anarchist. I am not an anarchist.

We are two people that were treated wrongly by the Costa Mesa Police

Department, and we want to ensure that no other citizens are treated

so disrespectfully again.

I suppose Buffa chose to omit certain statements made at the

meeting because those details did not suit his purpose. He wanted to

mock our charges against the Police Department. He realized it would

not add to the credibility of his very one-sided story to tell

readers that the three men started the altercation, or that they were

the ones that began yelling racial epithets, and they were the ones

that began throwing objects at the protesters.

He forgot to mention that witnesses told the officers that Naui

did not throw the paint, but the officers refused to listen to their

statements.

Furthermore, it was also not in his interest to tell readers that

the three men shoved me, spit at me and yelled lewd remarks at me,

while grabbing their genitals. He omitted the fact that after they

made their citizen’s arrest, I tried to place them under arrest for

assaulting me.

The police refused to help me file a police report at the scene,

or to detain the men. They walked away free men, while Naui was

arrested. Meanwhile, I was threatened with arrest for requesting that

police officers do their job.

While Buffa may have meant to good-naturedly poke fun at the

incident, I do not feel that being told to “Go back to Mexico” and

have one of the men ask me to perform oral sex on him is any laughing

matter.

Buffa should be ashamed for feeling that it is.

* ROSALINDA RAMIREZ is an Anaheim resident.