THE BORDER REPORT

The biggest protest march Tucson has seen in 36 years degenerated into thugs inciting a riot, cops pepper-spraying teenagers and general mayhem that, frankly, sucked the soul out of an event that people should have been proud to attend.

The police acted dangerously, the organizers lost control of the crowd and the spirit of the whole day fizzled like a baseball rainout.

I’m sure there’ll be complaining by activist groups tomorrow when they see the media coverage focusing on the arrests, the Mexican flag-burning and the ensuing chaos instead of the “positive news.”

But what could they expect for allowing the march to fall apart into a screaming zoo?

And someone’s got to ask the cops, what in the hell were they thinking?

Tucson police arrested a girl who threw a water bottle at a group of protesters. Okay, fine, arrest her if she’s screwing around. In a crowd of 12,000 people with a group burning a Mexican flag, it’s not going to take much to lose control.

next should be reviewed by Chief Richard Miranda and turned into a training film of what NOT to do the next time there’s a crowd gathering.

Rather than have a police car sitting on Sixth Avenue to extract the girl and get her out of there, officers grabbed the girl in a huddle, hustling her two long blocks in front of a deranged crowd who started screaming and chasing after them.

That in turn led to pepper spray and five more arrests as an easily overwhelmed police force felt menaced and defended themselves.

Now, obviously, people are responsible for their own actions, but any basic course in crowd control is going to tell you to extract a person as quickly as possible – if you want to keep the peace.

If you want the crowd to go apeshit, then carry on, parade a crying girl down the street in front of 12,000 people and see what that gets you.

Then there were the Border Guardians, a group of seven illegal immigration protesters surrounded by 20 police officers 50 yards from the main event stage.

It’s tempting to say they were the cause of the riot. But they weren’t. They’d announced their presence and were at Armory Park before the marchers even arrived for the rally.

The rhetoric coming out of their megaphone must have taken hours to prepare.

Sporting a T-shirt that read “Este Pendejo sells drugs to our children,” Roy Warden ranted at the crowd for two solid hours. “Emiliano Zapata was a real man,” he yelled. “He stayed and fought in his country,” implying that the marchers abandoned Mexico.

Then another, this one an older woman, took the megaphone.

“You have no rights. We say you have no rights. You are not special. You are illegal and you will be deported!” she screamed.

March organizers circled the Border Guardians, holding hands.

“Turn your backs on them,” they yelled at the crowd. “Ignore them!”

Really?

What else were young protesters supposed to do? They’d bothered to take the day off work and school to rally together against unjust legislation and the only attraction offered was county supervisor Richard Elias and Isabel Garcia up on stage chanting about solidarity and how proud they were of everyone for attending.

For reasons I’m still not clear on, the Muslim and Jewish communities were represented onstage as well.

Border Guardian Russ Dove stood on top the Mexican flag for hours, sometimes swaying to the beat of the banda music coming from the stage, a piece of duct-tape over his bearded mouth.

“Don’t let them get to you!” We’re above them!” the organizers yelled at the crowd.

It looked that way for a few minutes and then the situation began to fall apart.

The jeering crowd threw the occasional water bottle.

The protesters protested the counter-protesters. Megaphoned taunts went back and forth.

Warden rambled on, threatening that Mexican priests “are now sodomizing our children,” and something about Cubans.

“You listen in on him and every once in a while, it’s I’m a vegetarian!,” said a high school girl standing in the circle surrounding the Guardians.

Finally, with a final shout of “we will burn a symbol of your oppression!” the Guardians lit the flag with a flourish of lighter fluid.

Except they poured on too much fluid because the thing went up in two seconds and then went out. That’s when the arrest went down.

Police grabbed the girl and fled down the street as young thugs in bandannas chased after them chanting, “Let her go! Let her go!”

The crowd chased the police. Police on bicycles formed a circle around the girl. Pepper spray guns came out. Young thugs with bandannas wrapped around their faces like Hamas swarmed around the police lines yelling.

Somebody jumped on a cop. Another cop fell off his mountainbike. Reporters were grabbed and pulled back. More young men stormed in.

“They fucking pepper-sprayed a 13-year-old girl man!” yelled Sochi, a grown man who got too close to the action and received a shot of pepper spray in the eyes.

“Hey fuck you! We like chile!” he yelled at the cops as he walked away.

The crowd turned ugly; the cops formed a circle and stared down the crowd.

“Now is not the time for this!” yelled an organizer trying to calm the young people down.

“Cuando then? When is the time?!” yelled a young man at her, his fists clenched.

Someone called for a “noche triste,” payback on the cops.

By the time the crowd calmed down, half the people had slipped away.

Seattle 2000, this wasn’t.

Cops stood on one side of Sixth, staring at the crowd. Marchers stood in the park, unsure of what to do. The Border Guardians were nowhere to be found.

Buses were called in to take people home.

With a 20 minute zoo, the entire affair ended.

The march itself was motivating. But the rally, going on for two hours, was deadly dull and the arrest offered itself up to the hyped-up crowd.

Why didn’t organizers know this was going to happen?

It’s s not as if there wasn’t plenty of enthusiasm for the protest from plenty of legitimate people.

Consider the hours before the march fell apart:

Carlos De la Vega took the day off work building homes in Tucson to bring his family down to the march.

“We have to show that we’re out here; that we count,” he said, holding his two-year-old daughter in his arms as he marched to Armory Park. He’s lived in Tucson 20 years and was proud to attend.

“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! 4437 has got to go!” chanted a group of high school kids before the rally. 4437, the Sensenbrenner bill, was passed by the House last month and is considered the toughest immigration bill out there today. It would make illegal immigration a felony (apparently it wasn’t before) and punish those who help illegal immigrants.

Mariah Adkinson, 14, knows her stuff. She was offended that Tucson media has been playing the high school walk-outs off as nothing more than an excuse to take the day off.

The Tucson High freshman seemed more educated than most adults, counting off on her left hand all the points she was there to make.

“4437 is supposed to send the illegal immigrants to jail and kick them out of the country. They want to arrest anybody that helps illegal immigrants. We’re all human beings,” she said.

Standing next to her, William Baker, 15, grinned.

“Since when is it illegal to help a human being, man?”

Tucson author Tom Miller, in his customary Panama hat, walked through the crowd, watching.

Not since Vietnam War protests held here in 1970 had he seen such a large gathering.

A popular Juanes song played onstage.

Across the street, four people protested the marchers.

“Both sides of the story need to be told,” said Belinda a woman afraid to give her real name because, she says, her job wouldn’t allow her to be there.

“This type of attitude only appeases employers who don’t want to pay fair salaries,” she said.

Hermenhildo Castro had a good day though.

The Mexican man made a killing selling $1.50 paletas to the crowd.

“It was a good day for business,” he said.