Police arrest man at tense city meeting

Demonstrators gather outside council chambers to support, protest immigration plan.Costa Mesa police arrested a protest organizer, and afterward the City Council broke up its meeting for about 45 minutes when the crowd became unruly Tuesday night.

People supporting and opposing the council’s Dec. 6 decision to train city police to enforce federal immigration laws demonstrated outside City Hall before the meeting and then filled the council chambers to speak about the issue, which wasn’t on the agenda.

Police took a man out of the council chambers and arrested him after he spoke at the podium, urging those in the audience who agreed with him to stand up. The man gave his name as Coyotl Tezcalipoca, but police later said that his name is Benito Acosta and that he is a 25-year-old Costa Mesa resident.

“The individual’s time was up, he was asked to step away from the podium. He got angry and refused to follow the instructions of the officers,” Costa Mesa Police Chief John Hensley said.

Tezcalipoca was arrested on suspicion of disrupting the council meeting and obstructing a police officer. Police said that he would be released Tuesday night and that he promised to appear in court.

Some said Tezcalipoca was treated unfairly.

Theresa Dang, a friend of Tezcalipoca, said video of the meeting will show that Tezcalipoca’s three minutes of speaking time wasn’t up and that the arrest was unnecessary.

Under the immigration enforcement plan, some Costa Mesa police officers would be trained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and would then be able to check the immigration status of criminal suspects in the course of their regular duties. If necessary, suspects could be detained and turned over to federal immigration authorities.

If the plan proceeds, Costa Mesa could become the first city to take on immigration enforcement duties.

Tezcalipoca is with the Tonantzin Collective, a group opposing the plan. The group has demanded that the council reopen the city’s Job Center, a resource for day laborers that was closed Saturday after 17 years of operation. The group also asked that the immigration enforcement plan be withdrawn. Group members asked for recall of the three council members -- Mayor Allan Mansoor and Councilmen Eric Bever and Gary Monahan -- who supported the Job Center closure and immigration plan.

“There’s a large segment of this population, of this community that does not support the city’s plans,” said Dang of Westminster.

Alongside the protesters in front of City Hall were Jim Gilchrist and supporters of the Minuteman Project, which he co-founded. The Minuteman Project stages volunteer border patrols to discourage illegal crossings of the U.S.-Mexico border.

They came to support the council’s decision and to applaud Bever, Mansoor and Monahan for “preserving this nation under the rule of law,” as Gilchrist put it.

“We just want our sovereign nation to remain a sovereign nation with borders, rules, people enforcing the rules. That’s it,” said Penny Magnotto of Perris.

Supporters of Costa Mesa’s plan say it will only target criminals who have broken the law, but opponents fear it will lead to racial profiling and enforcement will be aimed largely at Costa Mesa’s Latino community. Those arguments were raised Tuesday, and speakers on both sides of the issue said what Costa Mesa does will be watched around the country.

Paula Galarza said she drove from Chicago, where she lives, to express her opposition to the city’s immigration plan.

“It starts here, and it’s going to go all over the United States, and it’s going to be really bad,” she said.

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