Clergyman defends intimidating anti-wiccan demo -- Final End

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, [10] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 19:40:44 04/08/02 Mon
Author: Drummond
Subject: Clergyman defends intimidating anti-wiccan demo

Volunteer sheriff's chaplain admits presence at incident
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press April 5, 2002.

By JULIE DRAKE
Valley Press Staff Writer

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LANCASTER - One of the Valley's most politically active clergyman, a volunteer chaplain with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, on Thursday acknowledged his role in a rowdy demonstration against followers of the Wiccan religion.
The Rev. Billy Pricer, founder and executive director of United Community Action Network, or U-CAN, in Lancaster, admitted he was among the group of Christians who circled the Witches Grove store on Lancaster Boulevard during a rededication ceremony March 16.

"I was there," Pricer said.

Pricer said he was sitting in his son-in-law's car, parked across the alley from where the ceremony and disturbance took place.

"We weren't there to do anything other than offer alternatives (to Wicca)," Pricer said.

The incident has been "totally blown out of proportion" and they only went there to pray publicly for the Wiccans, he said.

"All of us have common sense to know we're not going to get involved in a fracas," Pricer said. "(There was) nothing physical or verbal that occurred to cause this kind of an outrage."

At the afternoon rededication ceremony, about 50 celebrants arranged themselves in a circle, with four men functioning as guardians outside the circle for security. Six cars of protesters reportedly arrived to disrupt the proceedings.

Witches Grove store owner Cyndia Riker reported that two men got out of the cars and bumped into the guardians and started yelling things out of the Bible at her 14-year-old son, who was one of the guardians.

She also said they were blaring Christian rock music.

"They were very organized," Riker said in a previous interview.

Pricer denied the gathering was organized and said they were invited to come through fliers and by a posting on the Internet.

"They invited us; we came; they didn't like us," Pricer said.

"If you are concerned about your community," Pricer said, "it behooves us to check it out and see what is going on. We did not want a confrontation, but we wanted our presence known.

"If you are going to do something with the dark side, we're here with the light," he said.

Pricer added he believes in freedom of religion and said his group's beliefs are just as strong as the Wiccans.

Riker said a flier announcing the ceremony was posted in her store, but the fliers were not distributed around town. A similar invitation for like-minded individuals was posted on the Web, she said.

As for the allegation by Riker that one of the protesters flashed a green card depicting a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department logo, Pricer said that simply isn't true.

Pricer said his son-in-law, who also works at U-CAN and who attended the event with him, had the placard sitting on the car console and one of the Wiccan celebrants saw it when she stuck her head inside the car.

Pricer declined to identify his son-in-law by name, but said he is with the Sheriff's Department's volunteer clergy program.

"He's ashamed it had to get this far," Pricer said of his son-in-law.

Pricer also claims that the accusation in which the sheriff's placard was flashed at celebrants was recanted.

Riker said that claim is completely false.

Pricer, a retired sheriff's deputy and a volunteer chaplain with the Sheriff's Department for about 16 years, said he was not at the Wiccan ceremony on behalf of the department.

U-CAN provides counseling, mentoring and after-school activities to at-risk youths to try to give them another direction. Funded partly through state and county grant money, the agency serves about 200 children at any one time.

The organization also offers classes so parents can get more involved with their children.

Pricer also is a former Antelope Valley Union High School District trustee, and challenged current Assemblyman George Runner for the Republican nomination for the 36th Assembly District in 1996.

He pondered becoming involved in politics again in 2000 when he pulled nomination papers to fill a vacant seat on the Palmdale City Council, but did not file them.

Pricer added that the reference to a "Pastor Bill" who allegedly bumped into a celebrant during the fray was not him but another Pastor Bill from another church.

The other pastor, Pricer said, was in a group of six people who went to the rededication ceremony to pray, not protest.

Pricer added that two other churches were represented. All those involved simply showed up.

"It wasn't organized," Pricer said. It was "a spontaneous thing."

From his viewpoint, Pricer added, the protesters didn't break any laws, adding that the Wiccans did not have the proper permits to hold their religious ceremony. The ceremony was in the parking lot outside Riker's store.

Riker said the parking spaces where the ceremony took place are covered under her lease.

"I don't need a permit to pray," said Riker, who is ordained through the Universal Life Church.

Sheriff's investigators determined the incident did not fall under hate-crime laws, but forwarded case information to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office to determine if any laws were broken.

The district attorney's office last week rejected information submitted by the Lancaster Sheriff's Station that could have resulted in a misdemeanor charge of disturbing the peace or a misdemeanor noise violation, saying the incident was a one-time occurrence and did not meet its minimum requirements for a case filing.

However, Darren Parker of the Antelope Valley Hate Crimes Task Force has asked the FBI to investigate the fray to determine if anyone's civil rights had been violated.

County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, whose 5th District includes the Antelope Valley, has also entered a query.

Jean Huston, Antonovich's justice deputy, said a letter has been sent to the Sheriff's Department questioning why it took deputies so long to respond to a call about a disturbance at the store that day.

"We were concerned about the long response time," Huston said. "I want to find out from the Sheriff's Department what happened before we characterize something."

Riker said it took deputies about five hours to respond to the disturbance call.

The letter from Antonovich's office was sent April 2

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Re: That's fucked up. -- The Serpent, 14:53:54 04/09/02 Tue
- The clergy, -- PAUL., 20:05:12 04/09/02 Tue