Secret Anaheim Police Report Targets Mexican-American “Hot Zones” for Civil Unrest

By Duane Roberts / the Orange Juice Blog / Originally published August 12, 2012

CONTAINING A REBELLION: According to a highly confidential Anaheim Police Department “Incident Action Report” dated Friday, July 27, 2012, the working-class Mexican neighborhood of Leatrice/Wakefield, located about a mile away from the Disneyland and California Adventure theme parks, was considered by top brass to be a “hot zone” where officers were to use “civil unrest protocols” at all times.

Somebody has uploaded to AnonFiles.Com  a PDF file of what appears to be a highly confidential 44-page “Incident Action Report” prepared by the Anaheim Police Department in advance of the anti-police brutality demonstration that took place in front of police headquarters on the afternoon of Sunday, July 29th. Although much of it consists of a contingency plan that outlines in detail how Anaheim Police, in coordination with several other law enforcement agencies, would handle the upcoming protest, it also contains information identifying multiple working-class Mexican neighborhoods in Central Anaheim as “hot zones.”

On a form entitled “Incident Objectives (ICS 202),” co-signed by Craig Hunter, Deputy Police Chief (who is named throughout this report as being an “Incident Commander”), it states that between the dates of July 27th and July 28th, all officers are to adhere to certain “Hot Zone Guidelines,” that is to say, “civil unrest protocols,” in the following areas: “CHEVY, ANNA, MIRA LOMA, DIAMOND, MELROSE, WAGNER, WALNUT, GUINIDA, DOUGLAS, WAKEFIELD.” Several maps are included. All the areas identified as “hot zones” happen to be the names of streets located in neighborhoods where high concentrations of working-class Mexicans live.

What’s significant about this report is the information it contains suggests the “civil unrest” that recently occurred was not initially confined to one or two working-class Mexican neighborhoods as had been previously reported, but that it spread to different parts of Central Anaheim, including areas quite close to the Disneyland and California Adventure theme parks. In addition, it offers compelling evidence top brass at Anaheim Police knew, despite claims to the contrary by Police Chief John Welter, that “outside agitators” had nothing to do with them; that they were fully aware they were containing a rebellion of and by working-class Mexicans, all residents.

In previous articles I have posted here on the Orange Juice Blog, I reported I uncovered quite a bit of evidence that a massive law enforcement operation took place in Anaheim on the day of the aforementioned anti-police brutality demonstration. Photos I took of a staging area that had been set up on a parking lot just north of Glover Stadium in La Palma Park suggested that Special Weapons and Tactics teams had been deployed to confront the unarmed protesters that assembled. On top of that, there were numerous horse trailers, two armored vehicles, two police buses, and a command post being run by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

To those of you out there who may dispute the authenticity of the “Incident Action Report” that has been leaked, practically everything I’ve read in it so far describes what I witnessed firsthand when I was out there. Not only does it corroborate many things I had already suspected, but it points out the different units that were deployed, giving names, titles–sometimes even the cellphone numbers–of officers assigned to them. In fact, some of the names mentioned in the report happen to be cops I recognized and dealt with in the past when I was an organizer of, or a police liaison for, demonstrations and marches that various groups put together here in Anaheim.

Some other interesting things the report mentions:

• The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deployed a unit to the staging area and was prepared to send an army of deputies into Anaheim to back up law enforcement agencies here in Orange County just in case they “exhausted” all of their resources.

• Besides “Angel 1? and “Angel 2,” nicknames Anaheim Police give to the two helicopters it uses, the Orange County Sheriff, Huntington Beach Police, and California Highway Patrol also offered or were ready to offer “air support” to monitor the demonstration.

• An undercover team (or “U/C” as it is called) composed of an Anaheim Police sergeant and five “plain clothes investigators” were assigned the task of collecting intelligence on the protesters and to “identify and isolate individuals engaged in unlawful behavior or conduct.”

A copy of it can be downloaded here.