WATSONVILLE—Watsonville Police Chief David Honda has contacted the FBI for help in tracing the origin of a heavily-circulated social media post calling for a “barbaric protest” in Watsonville on Thursday.
The flier circulated throughout the Bay Area, Honda said, and caused a stir locally. Dozens of businesses boarded up their storefronts, including the majority of shops at the Overlook Shopping Center—home to Target, Starbucks and Ross, among others—where the flier suggested people congregate.
Hundreds of Watsonville residents shared the flier on social media and urged the community to not participate in violent protests.
There was no violence or looting Thursday evening. Instead, several community groups showed to hold a counter-protest at the Overlook Shopping Center. Roughly 100 people remained at the shopping center until 9pm. Most stayed in their cars. Others held signs and chanted “we must protect our city.”
WPD stepped up its patrols in response to the flier. Several police cruisers were seen driving throughout the city and circling through the shopping center. Honda said that law enforcement officials throughout the county were standing by.
“We wanted to put something together just to be cautious,” he said. “In case it did escalate we were ready for it. Thankfully we did not have to utilize them.”
The protests calling for justice for the death of George Floyd have remained largely peaceful in Santa Cruz County. One held at Watsonville’s City Plaza on Sunday drew hundreds. There have been a handful of protests in Santa Cruz, including Wednesday night’s protest that featured thousands.
Hours after that massive protest several businesses and the Santa Cruz Police station were vandalized.
Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees President Daniel Dodge Jr. said those acts put Watsonville residents on edge.
“I think people wanted to be cautious because they saw what happened in Santa Cruz,” he said. “People didn’t want that to happen here.”
Another protest in Watsonville is scheduled for Saturday at 1pm.
It is still unclear if the flier was real or a hoax.
“At first we were thinking, (the flier) looked kind of fake, because we couldn’t validate where it came from, but we wanted to be cautious in light of what was going on in the Bay Area,” Honda said. “Just knowing it got into Bay Area circulation was cause for concern, because we didn’t know if it was going to draw people from out of the area just to come here to cause problems.”
If the FBI discovers who created the flier, it is not clear whether any criminal charges would come, since First Amendment rights would likely have to be balanced with questions of whether they were trying to incite a riot, Honda said.
But the FBI and police agencies can use the data gathered, in the event a similar threat is made in the future, he said.
“If we get another flier or threat of violence or anything like that, we can adjust and say, ‘is this a valid and credible threat?’” Honda said.
As the hour drew near for the protest—the time was listed as 5pm—business owners boarded up their windows throughout the downtown area and dozens of police officers assembled.
Honda said the canyon of boarded-up storefronts was something he was not comfortable with.
“Hopefully we never have to see that again,” Honda said.
Watsonville City Councilman Felipe Hernandez was at the shopping center for roughly an hour and also cruised around the city looking for suspicious activity before and after.
Many residents did the same. Along with those gathered at the Overlook Shopping Center, a group of about a dozen was patrolling the City Plaza in the early evening.
“I was blown away with the response and the diversity of the response,” he said. “A lot of the community stood against what that flier stood for… I think the city sent a message to whoever put that out there and was looking to start violence in our city.”
While there was no looting or destruction, Hernandez said the city’s businesses and their employees did suffer financial losses. Many restaurants closed early and missed out on the dinner rush.
The cost to board up the storefront, Hernandez said, was an additional financial burden for the city’s numerous mom-and-pop shops that are still in the process of recovering from the shelter-in-place restrictions.
“It was a detrimental impact overall for our city,” said Hernandez, who urged the community to shop and eat local over the weekend to make up for the losses.
Editor’s note: Managing Editor Tony Nuñez contributed to this report.
