Evangelists and Cruisers Prove to Be a Volatile Mix

San Fernando Mission Boulevard and Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Pacoima is a popular intersection for “cruisers” in sleek customized cars who hang out at fast-food joints on weekends.

The cruisers draw born-again Christian missionaries, who have made a crusade of spreading the gospel among the congregated young people.

The mix of cruise night and evangelism led to violence Sunday, when a spontaneous religious debate with Catholic youths escalated into a brawl that left each side nursing bruises and blaming the other.

Alma Bolanos and her boyfriend, Albert Rabago, both 19, were out in Rabago’s 1966 Mustang with fellow members of the Styling Classics Mustang Club, celebrating the first big cruising weekend of the summer.

Preached for Years

Also on hand were Henry and Patricia Chacon, 24 and 28, their 3-year-old daughter and about 25 other members of the Praise Chapel Christian Fellowship of Sun Valley. For the past several years, the born-again Christian group has preached its beliefs to cruisers without incident, Henry Chacon said.

The Chacons said they preach to passers-by and “go one-on-one” with the young cruisers, many of whom they described as troubled by gangs, drugs and other spiritual ills.

“We pray for people who are hurting,” Henry Chacon said. “Every time we find a cruise scene, we’re out there. We’ll talk to anybody.”

Bolanos, a former contestant in the Miss San Fernando Contest, wore sunglasses Monday to cover a black eye and a scratched and swollen face. She said that during the confrontation in a parking lot outside the Pollo Gordo restaurant, the Chacons and other born-again Christians insulted her religion and made insinuations about her personal morality.

Bolanos acknowledged that she struck first, using her sandal to swat Henry Chacon, but claimed she reacted to extreme provocation.

“They told me I was Satan,” Bolanos said. “They said I was lost and they had been found.” At least three of the born-again Christians then attacked her, she said.

Rabago, Bolanos’ boyfriend, said: “It doesn’t make any sense. If they’re really Christians, why are they hitting girls?”

Chacon called their version a lie. He said he and his wife were the victims and that he also has a black eye, inflicted by Rabago, to prove it. He said he was trying to pull Bolanos off his wife when Rabago punched him.

“The guy socked me in the eye with all he had,” Chacon said. “I said, ‘That was a cheap shot. But I still love you, man.’ ”

Rabago said he punched Henry Chacon to defend his girlfriend. The Chacons said they were only trying to restrain Bolanos when she attacked Patricia Chacon after striking Henry Chacon. Patricia Chacon admits scratching Bolanos after pleading with her to let go of her hair.

Police were investigating a complaint filed by Bolanos, but they had few details about the incident.

The Chacons said Bolanos and the other teen-agers willingly took part in an extended and energetic street-corner theological debate.

Bolanos, who wears a crucifix and said she attends Guardian Angel Catholic Church in Pacoima several times a month, said the conversation touched on a range of topics, including how God can allow starvation in Ethiopia and the relative merits of Catholicism versus Protestantism.

But she said she talked with the street preachers only because they were irritatingly persistent and ignored efforts by the teen-agers to end the conversation. Her boyfriend is a Catholic but “told them he was an atheist so they would leave him alone, but they wouldn’t,” she said.

‘We Respected Them’

“We respected them up to a certain point. We told them to go away, we were talking privately.”

Bolanos said she was offended when the Chacons criticized Catholic practices such as confession and made comments insinuating she was a “street kid.”

“If I go to church, why would they say I’m lost?” said Bolanos, who said her behavior on weekend nights is wholly respectable. “We just park the cars so they look nice and hang out,” she said. “We don’t even cruise.”

Patricia Chacon denied that her group said anything derogatory about Bolanos or Catholicism. “We’re not out there to condemn people, we’re there to comfort them,” she said. “We’re sharing personal testimonies.”

Words gave way to blows at the end of the discussion, both sides agreed, when one of the born-again Christians told Bolanos that he was going home to his father in heaven, referring to God, and added: “Who are you going home to?”

Bolanos said she felt the question was insulting and she hit Chacon because he laughed at her when she said she was going home to her mother.

“I told him, ‘Don’t you dare laugh at my mom,’ ” Bolanos said. “I hit him with my sandal.”

Along with different versions of the melee, the antagonists came away with different conclusions.

Bolanos said: “It’s false advertising. They’re not peaceful people. I was born Catholic, raised Catholic and I’m gonna die Catholic.”

The Chacons said they will give tensions a chance to cool, then resume their spiritual mission among the cruisers of Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

“There’s a lot of persecution of us out there,” Patricia Chacon said. “It’s in the Bible that we’re going to be persecuted. We’re stepping into spiritual warfare, that’s what I tell myself.”