The Defense of Chicano Park, Part One

The Backstory: Racist internet celebrities eye San Diego

On December 20, 2009, Roger Ogden uploaded his first video. It was a six minute slide show of an anti-Obama/Pelosi protest, with a cover of Cream's "White Room" playing in the background. It was one of many anti-Obama videos that would soon occupy this former Navy contractor's YouTube page, "Stop Obama Now".

About four years and 67 videos later, he uploaded a video called "Amnesty Summit - La Raza Not Subject to US Law". A 42 second video where you see a woman say, "This is your homeland, don't let anyone tell you differently." She goes on to say that she doesn't support Obama's immigration plan and ends with, "Our answer has to be: We decide!"

And for some reason, Roger took that as "La Raza Not Subject to US Law"

With a seemingly growing hate-obsession over La Raza, his focus quickly turned to Chicano Park. It might have been fueled by the fact that on February 2013, Chicano Park was put on the National Register of Historic Places. In April 20, 2013, he was motivated enough to visit the park during their annual Chicano Park Day to film them raising the Chicano Park flag. He added all sorts of captions to the video:

"Other murals prophesy the return of Quetzalcoatl, a human, Obama-like Aztec "messiah," to liberate Aztlán from the US", "Thousands attended this celebration of revolution",  "Your tax dollars funding a cult of communistic Latino nationalism."

I found it kinda funny. Back then, Ogden was just another guy among the crowd. That was the point: He was allowed to enter the park and film. From the short footage he uploaded, it looked like nobody had bothered or confronted him, or asked him to leave because he was white. Part of his argument against the park was that he claims white people aren't allowed inside.

He then started uploading clips from various documentaries about Chicano Park and La Raza culture, but adding his own bastardized commentary to it. He then started his own webpage where he explained in detail why he believes that Chicano Park is run by a cult.

"The Chicano myth of Aztlán developed by Mexican/Hispanic supremacists is similar to — if not directly adapted from — the occult Nazi myth of a utopian Atlantis, where the Aryans dwelt as a race of gods. The Aztecs are also said to have been descended from a mythical race of gods, who lived in their homeland paradise of Aztlán."

In his next paragraph, he points out a broken sun cross swastika, admits it's a native sun cross, but still stubbornly decides it means 'Nazi'.

"Chicano Park in San Diego has swastikas displayed all around the park. If you ask they will probably say that it is an old Indian, symbol, which is true. However, such swastikas were not a common feature of Aztec art. The style of these swastikas is similar to those used by organizations that had connections to Nazism."

It seems like he took a tour of the park, snapped pics of a bunch of murals and studied them for every sun cross, implying in his site that their meaning had to do with Nazism.

Ogden was present in Murrietta on July 4, 2014, when bigoted protesters successfully stopped a Border Patrol bus from transporting people about to be deported, to a substation in town. His video shows a conflict where people got arrested.

I remember hearing about this event and was disgusted. I was living in Otay Mesa at the time and filming Discovering San Diego, but I took a break from that and went to film my first protest in response. It was at Friendship Park at the border. It's a park that is literally at the fence that separates the two cities. On the other side of the fence is another park that families visit to meet with friends and loved ones... the fence so thick that you can't even stick a finger through.  There were two symphonies. One from San Diego, and another from Tijuana. They sat on their side of the border and together played music for a couple of hours.

Year after year, Ogden would put out these misleading videos, developing his anti-Chicano ideology and people would watch and comment in agreement. Some of his videos had over a 100,000 views. He continued to demonize Obama in any way he can and would often join right winged protests and demonstrations. For at least a little while, Chicano Park was forgotten in Ogden's mind.

The next Chicano type video he released was called "Farrakhan Promises Return of Southwest To La Raza Chicanos" on September 15, 2015. He then returns for Chicano Park Day on April 23, 2016. Once again, seems like he was peacefully allowed to film at the park. It was around this time when he began to voice over his work.

Because it was now 2016, the Presidential Primaries were in full swing and it began to look like Donald Trump would win the Republican Primary. The Democratic Primary was still a toss up, between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, however. There was a day where  both Bernie Sanders and Bill Clinton (in for Hillary) arrived in San Diego to competing rallies in Chula Vista and National City. I was at the Bill Clinton rally in Chula Vista, while Ogden was at Bernie's rally in Kimball Park, National City.

Here, he reported on the "Bernie-Bees in their natural habitat", showing lots of "Fuck Trump" merchandise. He then approached what looked like a 13 year old shirtless kid with "Fuck Trump" written on his chest and asked, "You wanna tell me what you think about Donald Trump?" After the kid gave off a string of profanities, Ogden then asked him if he was a citizen, to which the kid said, "Yeah".

The first time Ogden and I would be at the same event was the Donald Trump Rally that took place at the convention center on May 27, 2016. I went inside with the intention of filming Trump's speech and to see how popular he really was for myself. I remember leaving that rally scared that he actually had a real chance. I did also stay afterwards for some of the chaos that was happening outside, but didn't stay for long.

Ogden, however, was there to film the chaos afterwards. He had a field day showing every bad thing the anti-Trump side did and excluding everything else the other side did. My battery died before I could film the chaos I witnessed, though I did capture a few pictures.

As the year went on, with the help of Russia, Donald Trump won the Republican nomination, and ultimately the presidency. Just days after the election, hundreds of angry residents marched through Barrio Logan against the election of Donald Trump. During the march, some asshole decided to come to Chicano Park, wearing a "wall" costume and waving a US Flag. Police escorted the man away before he could cause much trouble. Ogden caught this event on ABC 10 news and uploaded the report - with his own commentary - onto his YouTube page, which was called "Impeach Obama Now", but was since renamed to "Patriot Fire".

Ogden wasn't too happy December 2016, when Congress approved a bill that would allow Chicano Park to become a National Landmark. He made a video that reiterated his bastardized version of the park's history. On January 12, he posted another video - a news report confirming Chicano Park a historic landmark, but inserting picture of the murals in an attempt to reinforce his crappy ideology of what he thought the park was. The video ended with a bunch of previous Chicano clips he took. More videos were released on Trump's Inaugural day, but then for a large part of 2017, his efforts went to other things.

Many of the people who would be at the second "Patriot Picnic" were up and coming right winged internet celebrities. There was a "free speech" rally in Santa Monica, CA in June 2017 Antonio Foreman and Kyle Chapman were there, mainly to stir up  trouble and beat up liberals on their live stream. At the end of the rally, as he was leaving Foreman was attacked and stabbed nine times. There is no video of this event, so the only side I heard was Foreman's side. He survived the attack and got a lot of media attention over it.

Politicon 2017 was a two day event in Pasadena, CA on July 29-30. I had heard of the event, and decided to follow it on Social Media. I was mainly following Harry Widdifield's page - a sorry excuse for a wannabe Presidential candidate. Here, I got introduced to new people like Arthur Schaper. Schaper had gotten arrested the previous month at a townhall meeting for refusing to leave, he was that annoying. He spent his time in Politicon trying to annoy his way to fame, arguing and making fun of whoever he didn't like and turning most people off.

Schaper - who literally looked like a dick and Widdifield - looking like a total steam punk clown, met and Schaper interviewed him about his dream of running for President. They got along, but once the interview was over, Schaper eyed a reporter he wanted to confront and went on total offensive, trying to call out the journalist for - whatever. This turned Widdifield off who began calling Schaper a "dick", which ended their short friendship. I remember agreeing with the steam punk clown and trolling Schaper's video, reminding him of his arrest for being annoying until he blocked me.

Schaper did get a lot of positive media attention from those looking to become internet celebrities. A man named Frank Espinoza interviewed him at Politicon for his YouTube channel "LA Werewolf", with like some strange lovie-dovie background music. "Baked Alaska" and Antonio Foreman were at Politicon as well, basically trying to bully whoever disagreed with them.

Then there is R.C. Maxwell, head of a Political Action Committee. The right winged, African American Trump supporter rose to fame after he was sucker punched and chased away, on camera, while trying to debate an anti-Trump crowd at Laguna Beach. He was featured on Fox 5 Los Angeles for this incident, as well as multiple guest appearances on InfoWars. He was also at Politicon and made friends with Espinoza and "Baked Alaska".

As name recognition of these people grew, so did the call to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces. In Charlottesville, Virgina, there were calls to remove a Robert E Lee statue from one of their public parks after a mass shooting at a Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015.

This triggered a bunch of right winged organizers to set up a rally in Charlottsville called "Unite The Right". From the Wikipedia page on the rally:

Protesters included white supremacists, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and various militias. Some of the marchers chanted racist and antisemitic slogans, carried semi-automatic rifles, swastikas, Confederate battle flags, anti-Muslim and antisemitic banners, and "Trump/Pence" signs.

It took place the night of  Friday, August 11, 2017 and included hundreds of white men, marching to the statue, carrying Tiki-Torches and chanting phrases like of "White Lives Matter" and "Sieg Heil", while doing Nazi salutes. I'm serious. 

Antonio Foreman, who had been stabbed earlier in the year, was part of that rally and followed a man named "Baked Alaska" around. They didn't carry Tiki-Torches, but they did chant along, and followed the marching crowd of racists. When he and "Baked Alaska" got to the statue, they filmed a number of counter-protesters circling the statue. The white supremacists started to  beat the counter-protesters with their Tiki-Torches. Once the counter-protesters were taken care of, the white supremacists climbed on the statue and gave Nazi salutes in victory. I am not exaggerating this in any way. In the chaos, Foreman and "Baked Alaska" decided to leave in a hurry with Foreman protecting his streaming friend, who was yelling "Pray for us. Pray for us".

The following day, there was a march to the rally, where "Baked Alaska" taunted those against them as "Fucking Losers" and "Communists", yelling "Get the fuck out of our country, bitches", as well as, "Come up to me bitch". Seeing the large amount of people against them apparently "activated my (his) almonds". As they entered their own rally, they were met with many hundreds more, yelling "Black Lives Matter", so like any badass, "Baked Alaska" got very quiet. Foreman protected his rear and often gave directions on when to slow down or stop. When they realized that they were surrounded, they got very scared, asking "Where's our people, we're surrounded?". "Baked Alaska" suddenly yelled out, "Whoa, whoa pepper spray, I just got pepper sprayed!"

Foreman went to work and led his friend to safety, thus earning Foreman the title of "Baked Alaska's bodyguard". As amusing as the footage was, I kept in mind that this was only part of the chaos that would lead to the death of young Heather Heyer. On a lighter note, at some point, either before or after the event, they were in Washington DC when they called for an Uber. Whatever they said to the Uber driver apparently upset her enough to call them racists and leave them literally stranded in front of the Washington Monument.

The country was united in disgust at the alt-right and confederate monuments continued to be removed. Just days after the Charolttsville rally, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer decided to order the removal of  a plaque that honored Davis' grandnephew, W. Jefferson Davis at Horton Plaza.

It seems like by this time, Roger Ogden was well known in the right wing community. Ogden's heritage may have felt threatened by this rise in confederate removals. He posted another video of some local KOGO talk hosts crying about how ISIS and San Diego like to destroy history. He may have been thinking "If they're gonna get rid of one of our monuments, we should get rid of one of theirs".

He had the perfect target - A local park he had been scoping out for years, and had developed a distorted version of the history and ideology against, loosely based on the artwork around the park. That's it! He would call for a major change in Chicano Park. He then decided to  organize a small "Patriot Picnic" with the intention of walking them through the murals and indoctrinating them in his bastardized version of what they stood for.

The first "Patriot Picnic"

While the first Patriot Picnic was meant to be a small gathering, word got out that this event would take place and so there were hundreds of counter protesters there to meet them. The five "picnicers", which included Ogden, Arthur Schaper, a guy in a Chargers "Merriman" jersey holding two boxes of pizza, a man with a Sublime shirt named "Kevin", or "Based Krusader" on YouTube, and a fifth man, chatted about how this was going to be the first annual picnic. Once they unloaded their gear, they walked down Logan Avenue, choosing to go to the eastern end of the park, because the western end was full of people. During the walk, someone asked if anyone needed extra pepper spray, and Kevin responded "Oh, no, no, I don't think it's going to get to that, I hope."

Ogden warned that there might be people there to explain the murals and how that was not good and so he had set up a slide show for them instead. As they got closer to the park, Schaper darted out to film some of the murals against their wishes. Ogden then made disparaging comments about Schaper, saying "I told him no". When Kevin made a comment about having to respect Schaper's rights, Ogden responded, "We don't have to respect it, we just can't do anything about it... he's not respecting us", "He's a paid agitator, so he needs to justify his salary by doing shit, like to go out and agitate people, and I don't want these guys agitated cuz there's like a thousand of them."

They were not only hundreds of protesters at a rally across the street, but a heavy police presence as well as media. They walked past the "Varrio si, Yonkes no" mural, misinterpreting "Yonkes" for "Yankees" instead of "Junk Yards", and sat on the only table there, painted red, white and green. Schaper complemented SDPD for protecting them, saying "sorry if I'm a little jaded."

Around the time Ogden started filming, Kevin started disparaging the protesters on the other side of Logan, who were beginning to gather at the edge of the street. The protesters yelled back, before starting to cross the street. More police officers arrived and formed a line in front of the group. As the crowd grew, people began calling out "Arthur! Hey Arthur!" One man walked past the police line with his phone filming the group, saying "Fuck these fools" before turning around and walking away. Another man simply walked up to the group, wanting the challenge them, forcing police to separate the two and form a circle around the picnic. Within five minutes of them taking the bench, and yelling at the crowd on the other side, the group was completely surrounded and the police were beginning to get worried.

"Hey dawg, you can come to me anytime you want bro", Kevin continued to yell into the crowd, "I got more guns than all y'all mother fuckers!" He stopped when he began seeing Brown Berets coming to keep the protesters away and changed his tone to a whiny "I just wanna see the murals!" Activist Mark Lane, somehow got past the police line and began filming the group with his phone, saying "Here's what racist pizza looks like everybody, eaten by racist dudes that are tough with the police around them. Racist pizza, racist pizza eaters."

An officer approached Kevin and Schaper and told them, "This is going south. You guys have made a statement, I need you guys to get up and out of here", and promised to escort them out. Frustrated that they had to leave, Kevin heard Lane's taunts and responded "You don't even know me! The founder of this park founded Nazis!"

This statement was actually a bastardization of Ogden's bastardization of the Park's history. The five disgraced men then gathered their pizza and followed the police back down Logan Avenue, as they tried to keep a clear path. Photographers and hundreds of residents followed them the whole way back, taunting them and throwing up middle fingers. At one point they started chanting "Fuera!" at the group. One of them looked at Kevin's Sublime shirt and commented, "Take the Sublime shirt off, fool. Sublime wouldn't support you fucking Nazis!"

While the response to the first picnic was to successfully chase them out of Barrio Logan, it then got a lot of right winged media attention. With commenters calling the park a "no go zone". Emboldened, Roger tried to sue the city, by saying that his rights were denied when they were escorted out of the park. He failed, but he wasn't done yet. Roger and his minions would be back soon for a second "Patriot Picnic".

-F