Beltway Area Indymedia

The showdown between racist bigots and the immigrant community boiled over on Saturday, July 21 at 8 AM outside the day labor center near Gaithersburg.

The MinuteKlan and National Alliance(Nazis) only had maybe 15 people at their peak-and at one point only 10 while counterprotesters had over 25, outnumbering them 2 1/2 to one at one point.

Several National Alliance cars were traced to the parking lot outside the nearby Giant food. Management was informed of the white SUV with W VA tag number WV9(a West Va politician?), and other racists' cars. Signs in the lot warn that "walk-off" cars can be towed-and counterdemonstrators warned the Minuteklan that they'd better go and save their cars, but they did not respond.

The MinuteKlan was there to photograph tag numbers of contractors hiring day laborers-but showed up on a Saturday morning when construction sites are idle and it's mostly individuals hiring help! To compensate for any business driven off, the day labor center scheduled necessary property mantainance for the day of the protest-hiring what looked like everyone in the center to help! As a result, it was the MinuteKlan that left empty-handed, not the day laborers.

Several times, speeches were given warning that any more of the sort of racist violence exemplified by the Tyler Froatz incident would NOT be tolerated.

This time around, it was the MinuteKlan that had to be damned glad for police(including riot squad) protection, as they were outnumbered at least 2-1 at nearly all times and sometimes 2 1/2 to one just by counterdemonstrators. Had the situation blown up all the way and the cops not been present or able to keep the two sides apart,, those 12-15 racists could have had to fight 25-30 activists and at least that many day laborers-over 50 people in all.

Audio:3 min 39 seconds