Summary of events, one week later...

Last Wednesday (10/22) there was a protest in Lake Worth against the PBSO, or at least against excessive force used by law enforcement agencies. It happened to coincide with a national day of protest, so it wasn't supposed to be a secret, you would think. Maybe you heard about it? If you are late to the discussion or are otherwise unsure of what happened, here are the facts about the protest and what happened THAT DAY here in Lake Worth. All of these facts are verifiable.

Prior to Wednesday morning only a select few individuals were aware a protest was being planned for the afternoon at 5:00. I read the newspapers, many blogs (except one in particular), stay updated on Facebook and also have many friends and colleagues who would routinely inform me that a protest or other event was being organized in Lake Worth. The truth is that no one did simply because no one knew. It was a well-kept secret until Wednesday morning, October 22nd.

At approximately 10:00 that morning I received a note from a reader of my blog. I was directed to an article in the Broward New Times by "Fire Ant". Fire Ant is Lake Worth resident Steve Ellman. Here is the story he submitted on Wednesday morning.

At the end of the article was a link for contact information. You can see that link here.

I gathered the information available and posted the information on this blog. You can read the original story here.

Then things all got a little unusual, maybe due to Mercury being retrograde at the time. All I did was make public information available to my readers. The fact is Mr. Ellman is a sympathizer for the Anarchists in Lake Worth and has been for many years. Lynne Purvis, aka Elle Purv, promoted the protest on a Facebook page. Lynne Purvis has worked along with former commissioner/Anarchist as can be seen here. In the video you can see both Lynne Purvis and Cara Jennings (this is soon before she gave birth to her child).

Many of the people "invited", "going", or "maybe" to the protest that afternoon were avowed Anarchists/activists or former political operatives such as Cara Jennings, Panagioti Tsolkas, Annabeth Karson, the EarthFirst! Journal, members of TWAC (an affinity group of EarthFirst!), and others who have opposed PBSO for many years.

Shortly after the 'protest' began a group of Guatemalans joined the group. Reverend Frank O'Loughlin, Vice Chairman and Executive Director of the Guatemalan-Maya Center (GMC) organized twenty to thirty of his congregation to join the Anarchists et al. Why didn't Reverend O'Loughlin contact his neighborhood association and let them know of his intentions? Why didn't Reverend O'Loughlin reach out to the city beforehand? If this problem was real, there were many other avenues to pursue its correction.

There is much anger about the 'protest' on Wednesday, October 22nd from many different perspectives. On Thursday, October 23rd the Lake Worth Herald printed an editorial about this protest. Somehow the protest the previous day is no longer the issue, Mr. Ellman for one is attempting to make the LW Herald the issue and not the protest which started this whole thing rolling.

Question, would we have all this upheaval in the community had the GMC and Reverend O'Loughlin not aligned himself with the Anarchists? What if Reverend O'Loughlin had reached out to his Lake Worth neighbors and community about his concerns with PBSO? How about talking to the sheriff's office directly?

This 'protest' was done with the absence of community involvement, set in motion by its organizers, the GMC and Reverend O'Loughlin in particular. Many others in our community, experienced a deep sense of betrayal last Wednesday. Our clergy in Lake Worth should be working to heal our community, not further divide us from our Guatemalan neighbors.

So, no good deed goes unpunished. Making people aware of an "action" I guess is an "invitation only" event here in Lake Worth. Even though many traditional media outlets were there, the organizer's made sure that a side counter to their claims should not and would not be heard or present at the event.