The Ojai Metropolis Council was listening to public feedback on an earthly short-term rental ordinance when a scream pierced the air.
Cyrus Mayer burst into the room, carrying a kaffiyeh scarf and a white scarf soaked with fake blood.
“Hellllp!” shouted Mayer, a pro-Palestinian activist, punctuating his phrases with agonized screams. “Stop-fire! Stop-fire!”
Mayer collapsed onto the ground. He writhed. Then he went quiet, pretending to be lifeless.
“Why doesn’t anyone care? Why received’t individuals assist?” yelled a fellow protester within the crowd.
“Oh, Jesus,” muttered resident Larry Steingold, irritated as he stepped away from the lectern the place he had been asking for a crackdown on trip leases.
Metropolis Council members shuffled out of the room — their assembly, as soon as once more, halted by protest.
Ojai, inhabitants 7,500, is half a world away from the Gaza Strip. However the eclectic vacationer city — which has declared itself an “international city of peace” and a “nuclear-free zone” — has been rocked in current weeks by more and more brazen protests over the brutal battle between Israel and Hamas.
This month, pro-Palestinian activists have focused the historic Ojai Valley Inn as a result of it is owned by the billionaire Crown household of Chicago, who’re main shareholders of the army contractor Basic Dynamics. Protesters mentioned they oppose U.S.-made weapons being utilized by Israel.
On Feb. 11, somebody coated an indication for the famed resort — a celebrity haunt as soon as frequented by Clark Gable, Walt Disney, Ronald and Nancy Reagan — with blood-red paint. An investigation is ongoing, mentioned Ojai Police Chief Trina Newman.
The earlier two days, police obtained a number of calls about protesters attempting to interrupt onto the property and into a personal occasion. When officers confirmed up Feb. 10, they noticed 15 to twenty protesters outdoors the grounds “and stored the peace,” making no arrests, Newman mentioned.
A spokesperson for the inn couldn’t be reached for remark.
Shutting down the Feb. 13 Metropolis Council assembly with the “die-in” protest is the form of disruption that, Mayer informed The Occasions, he and different activists plan to proceed till council members go a decision calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Mayer, an Ojai resident who works as a landscaper, mentioned he was overwhelmed by grief over Palestinians’ struggling and that his screams have been “not only a theater piece.”
“What different place do we now have to show on this so-called democracy, the place our state and federal representatives have failed us, however our most native establishments?” requested Mayer, who mentioned he additionally attended one of many protests outdoors the Ojai Valley Inn.
Emotionally charged demonstrations over the battle in Gaza have taken over public conferences throughout California — from the state Capitol in Sacramento, the place cease-fire activists shut down the Assembly final month; to the Central Valley metropolis of Madera, which passed a cease-fire resolution on Valentine’s Day; to Berkeley, the place the rent stabilization board handed a cease-fire decision and the Metropolis Council has been assembly in a private conference room to keep away from shouting protesters.
In tiny Ojai, biweekly Metropolis Council conferences commonly lasted greater than 5 hours even earlier than scores of individuals started exhibiting as much as plead for a cease-fire.
“We have now rather a lot on our plate and solely a sure variety of hours within the day, and so my feeling is that we have to give attention to points in our jurisdiction,” Mayor Betsy Stix mentioned in an interview.
She famous {that a} dialogue about updating town’s basic plan was delayed after the die-in simply after 9 p.m. halted the council assembly for half an hour.
In December, the Metropolis Council devoted an entire special meeting to a cease-fire decision. The council agreed to present a younger lady who mentioned she was the daughter of Palestinian refugees greater than her allotted talking time — a choice met by indignant shouts from the viewers and attendees getting out of their seats to argue with each other.
Demonstrator Cyrus Mayer is dragged from an Ojai Metropolis Council assembly on Feb. 13.
(Michael Owen Baker / For The Occasions)
The assembly was shut down. The decision was dropped. It has not been introduced again for dialogue.
Stix opened the Feb. 13 assembly by main the gang in taking a deep breath, saying she hoped everybody “practices self-control” — and warning that the police chief would escort disruptors from the room.
“Please restrict your feedback to objects which are town’s enterprise,” Stix mentioned, including that the council and metropolis workers ought to give attention to native points similar to streets, sidewalks, public security and land use, regardless of the perils dealing with the world.
Speaker after speaker decried the battle and pleaded for a cease-fire decision.
Well being authorities in Gaza say that more than 27,000 people — largely ladies and kids — have been killed there since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants, in a shock assault, killed at the very least 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped around 250 hostages, in response to the Israeli authorities.
Within the Ojai Metropolis Council chambers, one speaker held her cellphone as much as the microphone, enjoying the recorded screams of a frightened little one pleading for assist as gunfire blasted close by.
“You sit right here and do nothing, caring extra about your picture than human life. Are you human beings? When you have any humanity in you, you’ll stand on the appropriate aspect of historical past and do the naked minimal by passing a cease-fire decision in Ojai, metropolis of peace,” a younger lady who mentioned she attended an area highschool informed the council.
Steingold, 72, mentioned he would have most popular to speak about roads, budgets and different metropolis points and that he was pissed off with the pro-Palestinian activists.
“There’s no person right here crying for Somalia or whining for the Uyghurs or beating their chest for Mali or Nigeria or any of the opposite conflicts on the earth,” Steingold mentioned from the lectern.
When Steingold returned an hour later to speak about short-term leases, Mayer burst in.
Nuri Ronaghy, 83, her voice cracking, learn dozens of names and ages of lifeless Palestinian youngsters whereas weeping activists positioned flowers by Mayer’s inclined physique.
“You could have crossed the road! It is a public assembly!” mentioned one pissed off lady standing within the room’s entryway. A protester tried, unsuccessfully, to close the door and preserve her out.
Paramedics are likely to Cyrus Mayer, who was dragged out of an Ojai Metropolis Council assembly after a “die-in” protest of the battle in Gaza.
(Michael Owen Baker / For The Occasions)
After a number of minutes, Newman stopped Ronaghy from studying the names and informed the protesters they may not preserve interrupting the assembly.
“Do you could have a baby?” Ronaghy repeatedly requested the chief.
Newman then stood over Mayer and — as a result of this can be a tiny city the place everybody is aware of nearly everybody — addressed him by first identify.
“Cyrus, what do you need to do?” she requested after he had been on the bottom for about half an hour. “Do we have to drag you out of right here?”
He remained immobile. Two officers hauled him outdoors. As paramedics checked on him, he screamed: “Stop-fire! Stop-fire! Stop-fire!”
Source link
