It's 2016 all over again in the Central Valley, where a group of entrenched bigots continue to want to hold annual "Straight Pride" events in Modesto to rile up the libs and get media attention.

You may recall when National Straight Pride Coalition leader, San Leandro-based chiropractor Don Grundmann, stood before the Modesto City Council in August 2019 arguing for why his group should be granted a permit for their event.

"We're a totally peaceful, racist group!" Grundmann proclaimed, in the most perfect of Freudian slips, garnering howls of laughter from the assembled citizenry.

Well, the event still went ahead in 2019, and then again in 2020, and as with so many things on the far right (and far left!), the messages have been very mixed and muddled! The organizers of this Straight Pride held their 2020 event outside the Planned Parenthood in Modesto, because the event has — apparently — become both a protest against LGBTQ people, and a protest against abortion rights.

As Grundmann said in 2020, obviously troublingly, "We know that our opponents will attack us, and they have the same tired thing of racism. It's very clear. We’re there to oppose Planned Parenthood killing 20 million Blacks."

(A quick glance at Grundmann's organization's website that shows in addition to advocating for "babies" and against the "Homosexual Movement," the group also advocates for the superiority of Western Civilization, and the idea that Caucasians are "the biological majority of the historical developers and founders of Western Civilization." Nothing racist there!)

A local LGBTQ pride organization, MoPride Inc., told local station ABC10 in 2020 that they sat out the first year's event, but they launched a counter-protest in 2020 because they didn't want to send a message to queer people that they weren't safe in the community.

That counter-protest to the annual demonstration has grown in size, and as KRON4 and the Modesto Bee report, counter-protesters outnumbered Straight Pride coalition members by about 5 to 1 on Saturday.

Holding signs that said things like "Lord forgive us and our nation," "Babies' Lives Matter," and "Normal. Natural. Healthy. Sane." the 30 or so Straight Pride folks were met with around 125 to 150 counter-protesters with signs like "Straight Pride is Hate Pride" and "Defend Abortion Rights."

Things quickly turned violent, and this became a seen like many around the Bay in 2016 in which counter-protesters and Proud Boys/militia types showed up to do street battle with each other. Because this is America.

Per the Modesto Bee, "A scuffle ensued as a Proud Boy attempted to push past the police, said a man who gave his name only as Richard. He said he watched the violence as a 'straight pride' supporter but did not identify as a Proud Boy himself."

Then a counter-protester threw a water bottle, and then there were more water bottles, and a firework went off — and it was off to the races.

Police declared it an unlawful gathering, and 25 officers in riot gear tried to quiet things down. Counter-protesters said that police beat them with batons, and many suffered from being sprayed with pepper-spray.

Modesto Police Department spokeswoman Sharon Bear tells the Bee that three people were ultimately arrested, including one counter-protester and two from the Straight Pride contingent, all for failing to disperse. Also, a smoke bomb caused a nearby bush to catch on fire.

The groups went their separate ways before the scheduled noon start time of the Straight Pride event, and the counter-protesters reassembled in a nearby park.

While at least one of the right-wingers tried to suggest that the counter-protesters were "antifa," pictures from the Bee just show a bunch of young people with rainbow gear — and a reporter spoke to a couple of young queer women from the Sacramento area who said they came down to protest the hate group.

Top image: SkySpider_/Twitter

Despite being denied a permit for a planned parade, a Modesto "straight pride" event on Saturday likely drew about as many supporters as it was ever going to — "a few dozen people gathered in a barn," according to the Modesto Bee. Meanwhile hundreds showed up for counter-protests and shouting matches.

Straight prider Don Grundmann has had ulterior motives in trying to launch this event all along. The San Leandro-based chiropractor may really hate LGBTQ people and believe they're all molesting children, but he also hates abortion, and a closed Planned Parenthood clinic was the second and only stop of his group's march on Saturday. There they could be heard shouting "build the wall" and "four more years," while the far larger group of counter-protesters chanted "Love not hate makes America great," per the Bee.

The two groups managed to keep things peaceful, according to Modesto police, and there was no street-fighting of the sort we saw two years ago when alt-right activists confronted antifa members multiple times in Berkeley.

State Senator Scott Wiener went to join the counter-produce Saturday, calling the straight pride event homophobic and transphobic.

As Grundmann told KRON 4 on Friday, he was not going to be deterred by the lack of a permit or threats of counter-protesters, and he just really wanted to exercise his First Amendment rights to say what he wants to say. "We're just peaceful people walking down the street," he said.

A group formed called the Modesto Nonviolent Collective to help organize protests of Grundmann's efforts.

The Bay Area Reporter shared the detail last month that the adopted son of Grundmann's main collaborator in Modesto, Mylinda Mason, is gay, and he sees Grundmann as a carpetbagger who's shifted his efforts to Modesto because he can't get enough support in the Bay Area. "Don Grundmann is a radical, right-wing fascist from the Bay Area," says Matthew Mason. "He is attempting to use Modesto as a launching ground for his political and cultural campaign of hate." Mason and his adoptive mother are now estranged.

Regarding Grundmann's "free speech" arguments, he says, "I'm sure the leaders of Charlottesville, Virginia, believed that they were protecting free speech by allowing the 'Unite the Right' rally. But they still allowed white supremacists the opportunity to kill Heather Heyer."

As the Modesto Bee reports, the event venue chosen by Grundmann's group, Durrer Barn, did not know the nature of the meeting, and its owners shut the event down once they were contacted and made aware that it was being streamed on social media. The 58 people who attended then shifted their attention to the Planned Parenthood.

Also, per the Bee, Matthew and Mylinda Mason have been invited onto The Dr. Phil Show, but Mylinda Mason has declined.

A Straight Pride parade with Milo Yiannopoulos as its grand marshal is still planned for September 12 in Boston, unless — as with so many things Yiannopoulos touches — the whole thing collapses at the last minute and proves itself to have been just a media stunt to get liberals worked up, and amuse people on 4chan.

Previously: Modesto Straight Pride Organizer: “We’re A Totally Peaceful Racist Group!”

Photo: Flipboard/Upsplash

We hate to give the Straight Priders a platform and publicity, but you simply must drop everything and watch this magnificent, chef-kiss self-own by the National Straight Pride Coalition co-founder.

There are precisely zero degrees of separation between the ascendant Straight Pride trolls and the white supremacy movement, as evidenced that Straight Pride was co-founded by Daly City native and avowed white nationalist Kyle “Stickman” Chapman. Chapman is away from the “organization” thanks to his extensive legal problems, so the leadership falls to San Leandro chiropractor and wingnut Don Grundmann. Grundmann is trying to organize a Straight Pride event in Modesto in late August, and to that end, came begging Modesto City Council for a permit Wednesday night. How effective was his rhetoric? Let’s have a look.

"We're a totally peaceful, racist group," Grundmann shouted, before realizing his error. But reader, it was too late. The audience was mocking him and roaring with high-decibel laughter worse than the time Spanky tried to perform Julius Caesar on Little Rascals. (But really, who among us has not accidentally described ourselves as racist, only to quickly backtrack and say ‘Wait, I didn’t mean to just call myself racist.’?)

SFist will also note that the above YouTube video page represents the first time we have ever seen a swarm of YouTube comments that were, by and large, quite witty and insightful. Seriously, read the comments! You’ll (mostly) not regret it!

All kidding and Our Gang comparisons aside, there are many heartbreaking and depressing aspects to this stupid saga. According to the Bay Area Reporter, security were using metal detectors over fears that gun violence could break out at the meeting. And on a human level, we can’t imagine anything more awkward than the position of openly gay pre-meeting vigil organizer Matthew Mason — whose adopted mother Mylinda Mason is a Straight Pride organizer per the Chronicle, but his biological mother Kristi Ah You sits on city council and was expected to vote on the permit.  

"I have personally heard [Mylinda Mason] use hateful, harmful rhetoric when describing the LGBTQ+ community and non-Christian religious communities," Matthew Mason said of his adoptive mother, who has since disowned him. "Don Grundmann is a radical right-wing fascist from the Bay Area who is attempting to use Modesto as a launching ground for his political and cultural campaign of hate."

The Bay Area Reporter reports that the council did not vote publicly Wednesday night, nor did they announce a decision. But for the time being, Straight Prider Don Grunmann might inadvertently replace Green Shirt Guy as the most viral amusing character on the internet.

Related: ‘When, Exactly, Did Pride Become A Party For Straight Teens? [SFist]

Screenshot: Modesto News via YouTube

@ModestoPolice @AnnCoulter 🇺🇸 Over 600 at the #AnnCoulter event in Modesto! Amazing evening!!! Many thanks to #ModestoPolice & #AnnCoulter! pic.twitter.com/TBLyUP4zSC

— Barbara Jensen (@BarbaraJensen1) April 29, 2017

It seems as though Ann Coulter managed to come near the Bay Area this weekend after all, if not actually into it, giving a speech Friday evening in Modesto Centre Plaza that drew "hundreds" of supporters according to the Modesto Bee. And, inevitably, there were also protesters, and Trump/Coulter fans on hand to shout down the protesters, as you can see in the video below. Coulter used her microphone time to talk about the possibility of a populist revolution, and to say that she wishes California would secede, lest our liberal immigration policies spread to the rest of the country.

The occasion was the annual Lincoln Day Dinner fundraiser for the the Republican Party of Stanislaus County, which paid Coulter's $25,000 speaking fee. And as CBS 5 reports, security was high, with private guards, Modesto police, Stockton police, Stanislaus County sheriffs, and California Highway Patrol all on hand. The demonstration turned out to be peaceful, however, despite the shouting.

It's unclear when the Modesto appearance was planned, or if it was planned in the course of the week in which Coulter's speech at UC Berkeley was ultimately cancelled after much back and forth with the university. Announcements of the appearance seem to have first appeared around April 19.

“It’s not just the governor,” Coulter said in the speech, per the Modesto Bee. “If I could push secession on you, I’d really be doing the rest of the country a solid.”

As KCRA reports, media cameras were not allowed into the event. But as you can hear in the video below, Coulter also spoke about keeping the US out of international conflicts in which we don't have a national interest.

Someone should tell Coulter, though, that Modesto is not in the Bay Area.

The event apparently raised about $50,000 for the Republican Party of Stanislaus County.

Previously: Ann Coulter Backs Out Of Berkeley Event After Student Groups Abandon Her

The horror show of Black Friday is over, and of course brawls broke out in various parts of the country as they always do. But things turned deadly Thanksgiving night outside a Reno Walmart when a road rage incident lead to a person being shot and killed. As ABC 13 reports, this was a dispute over a parking spot, and the suspect fled the scene. NPR is reporting that the person or persons suspected in the shooting have been "located" and the gun recovered, however no arrests have been made. Apparently both the victim and the suspect were armed with guns.

Meanwhile, a brawl broke out over a parking spot at a Houston shopping center, according to CNet. (There's video of that here.)

And a brawl between what appears to be a group of teens or young adults broke out at a Modesto mall, as CBS 5 reports. The fight doesn't appear to have been over any Black Friday deal items, and this occurred overnight on Thanksgiving night according to KRON 4. This happened around midnight at the Vintage Faire Mall, and as you can see in the video below, it spilled into a JC Penney.

A 20-year veteran of law enforcement in the Central Valley was shot and killed Sunday at point-blank range in what authorities are calling an execution. Stanislaus County Sheriff's Deputy Dennis Wallace was responding to a report of a suspicious van near a popular fishing spot outside of the city of Hughson, 10 miles south of Modesto, as the Associated Press reports. Upon running the plates on the van he discovered the van was stolen and called for backup, but by the time backup arrived on the scene, Wallace was dead.

In a press conference, Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said, "We believe that Deputy Wallace was killed outside of the car, and we know for a fact that the gun used in this crime was in direct contact with his head when the trigger was pulled twice."

Wallace was 53 and a resident of Hughson.

Christianson says that they have a suspect in custody, 36-year-old David Machado, who was apprehended after an attempted purse-snatching 150 miles south of Modesto in the town of Lindsay, according to CBS 5.

Per the AP, Machado is also suspected in a carjacking in the town of Keyes, near Modesto, after ditching the van there. Officers in Tulare County did not initially know that the man they apprehended in the purse incident was wanted elsewhere, but luckily they quickly discovered he was suspected in Wallace's murder, and contacted the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department.

News of Machado's killing comes just after a report of two San Jose officers being fired upon by an unknown assailant on Sunday night, for which the police union there is now offering a reward for information leading to an arrest.

Also, as the AP reports:

Wallace is the fifth law enforcement officer in California to die in the line of duty in the last five weeks.

The slaying comes after a deputy in Modoc County was killed while responding to a call about a disturbance, two Palm Springs police officers were shot to death during a domestic disturbance call and a Los Angeles County sheriff's sergeant was shot and killed in the high-desert town of Lancaster while answering a burglary call.

Nine people have been arrested, including a prominent lawyer and three CHP officers, in the 2012 murder of a drifter.

Frank Carson, a Modesto-based defense attorney, is the alleged ringleader of a conspiracy surrounding the death of Korey Kauffman, who disappeared in March of 2012. Kauffman's body was found almost a year-and-a-half later in August of 2013 in Stanislaus National Forest, just outside of Yosemite. According to the arrest affidavit (.pdf), Carson was trying to send a message to people who were stealing scrap metal, car parts and antiques off his Turlock property.

The others arrested on Friday include three California Highway Patrol officers, two brothers who own liquor stores in Turlock, and Carson's wife and stepdaughter. Robert Lee Woody, who Carson previously represented in a case, was arrested last year in connection with the case and has been in custody since.

According to authorities, Kauffman made his living by recycling scrap metal and frequently targeted Carson's property.

"The whole scrapper life, I didn’t approve of it," Tony Kauffman, the victim's father, told The Modesto Bee. "You know how fathers are with their sons, we tend to be harder on them. But he chose his own path. He was a good kid with a good heart and he didn't deserve what he got."

Kauffman was last seen in March of 2012, after he said he was going to steal pipes from Carson's property, reports KCAL. After he was reported missing, Kauffman's stepfather received a note that read, according to KCRA. "Heard your son was beaten, I hope he's not dead, I heard he was dumped in a dumpster in Modesto."

Hunters later discovered his body in the woods in August of the next year.

Carson faces charges of murder, criminal conspiracy, false imprisonment and two counts of soliciting a crime. His wife, Georgia Geanette DeFilippo, faces charges of first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy and false imprisonment, while his stepdaughter, Cristina Anne DeFilippo, was arrested on suspicion of criminal conspiracy and being an accessory.

According to the affidavit, Carson also enlisted the help of Baljit Athwal and his brother, Daljit Atwal, who own Pop-N-Cork liquor stores in Turlock. The brothers were arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy and false imprisonment.

Walter Wells, Scott McFarlane and Eduardo Quintanar Jr. are the three CHP officers who have been arrested in the case. Wells is charged with degree murder, criminal conspiracy and false imprisonment and no longer works for the agency. The other two have been placed on leave and charged with criminal conspiracy and being an accessory. "The California Highway Patrol is a very proud organization that values integrity... to hear news like this is devastating," said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow at a press conference.

According to Tony Kauffman, McFarlane was neighbors with his son.

Carson's defense attorney Percy Martinez says his client is prepared to fight the charges. Carson has been a vocal critic of the Stanislaus County District Attorney and unsuccessfully ran for her office last year. A civil trial against the county was scheduled to start earlier this week where Carson accused a county investigator of harassment—that trial was postponed and not rescheduled.

"Whenever Mr. Carson shakes their tree, they turn around and shake his tree," said Martinez.

On Saturday afternoon, after 3:30 p.m., Modesto police discovered the bodies of five female individuals, including three children, in a home on Nob Hill Court. This prompted a search for a person of interest identified as 30-year old Martin Martinez, who police say had a "past relationship" with one of the victims and is the biological father of one of the children found dead. According to the Modesto Bee, the children ranged in age from 6-months to 6-years old. Police said all five females are related.

Martinez was located and taken into custody by the San Jose Police, the Modesto Police Department tweeted early Sunday morning. He has since been booked on suspicion of murder in the Santa Clara County jail.

Police have not released any details on a possible motive or how the victims died. "This is quite a large crime scene, especially with five deceased," Modesto Police spokeswoman Heather Graves told the Bee on Saturday. "They're still analyzing the scene and getting information."

Residents say the crime was a shock for the normally quiet area. "It's really scary something like this happening," said neighbor Aruna Rao.

Valley Meat Company, located in Modesto, issued a major recall of ground beef today. A whopp(er)ing one million pounds of ground beef products were recalled "after seven people were sickened by E. coli contamination." The company sold the possible contaminated meat in California, Texas, Oregon, and Arizona. [KTVU]

Growl.

The world's sexiest uxoricidist (and infanticidist, depending on which side of the fence you're on) is out a whole lot of cash now.

It seems he's not entitled to the $250,000 life insurance policy he took out on Laci, his ex-wife/murder victim, a year before he did her in. (Honestly, is there a point to having money when you're in the clink indefinitely? Can you shop online when you're in jail?) "The Fifth District Court of Appeal in Fresno upheld a Stanislaus County judge's ruling that Laci Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha, the administrator of her estate, should get the insurance money," we hear.

He is currently appealing the 2004 conviction, saying that he's, like, totally innocent.