Supremacist Seeks Permit for 2nd Simi Valley Rally

A white supremacist whose June 6 parade in Simi Valley was halted because of a violent counterdemonstration informed city officials Tuesday that he plans to stage another rally in Simi Valley on Sept. 12.

In a letter to the city’s legal staff, Richard Barrett, a Mississippi attorney who heads the Nationalist Movement, applied for a permit to hold another “No King Over Us--Law & Order Parade and Rally.”

His letter called upon the city to request National Guard troops to protect him and other parade participants.

Like the June event, the rally is aimed at showing support for the four Los Angeles police officers who were acquitted in the Rodney G. King beating trial, held in Simi Valley.

“We’re going to have the pro-cop, pro-jury, pro-American parade and rally that was aborted the first time,” Barrett said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his office in Learned, Miss.

“We’re giving the city plenty of time to make adequate preparations and a clear pronouncement to the public that it will be a peaceful, safe and successful event for the pro-majority public wishing to attend and take part,” he said.

Assistant City Manager Mike Sedell said Simi Valley officials will not immediately grant Barrett a permit.

Instead, he said, the city will send him a new parade permit application that was recently revised because of a federal court decision concerning public gatherings earlier this year. When the application is returned, Sedell said, “we will consider it.”

Barrett has won several court cases against cities that have tried to stop his small group’s parades, and he has vowed to march in Simi Valley even if the city does not grant official approval.

He reacted with indignation when he learned that the city would not automatically grant the permit.

“We have a permit--it’s called the First Amendment of the Constitution,” he said. “I insist that the mayor stop playing games with the very serious rights of the American people to meet and to petition and to speak.”

The city did not grant Barrett a permit to march in Simi Valley on June 6. But it provided about 100 police officers and Ventura County sheriff’s deputies to protect him and six supporters outside Simi Valley City Hall.

When a few of the 300 counterdemonstrators threw soda cans, officers escorted Barrett and his supporters away and cleared the grounds. Two police officers and a free-lance photographer suffered minor injuries, and five counterdemonstrators were arrested.

Mayor Greg Stratton said Tuesday that he did not know whether the city would seek help from the National Guard on Sept. 12. “We will provide him with the protection he is constitutionally entitled to,” Stratton said. “But there are limits to that.”

The mayor estimated that overtime pay for deputies, police and other public employees on June 6 cost the city and county at least $50,000.

Stratton said Barrett thrives on public attention. “My hope this time is that people will heed my advice from the first time and ignore him,” he said.

One of the organizers of the counterdemonstration, Paige Moser of the Simi-Conejo National Organization for Women chapter, said she will consult with other groups and decide whether to protest against the white supremacist again on Sept. 12.

“I don’t know if anything will be done this time,” Moser said. But she added, “This stirs up such anger--and rightfully so.”