Omar Navarro, a perennial political candidate who has already been convicted of attaching a tracking device to his wife’s car, was outside Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Saturday and warned that the coronavirus vaccines being distributed there were part of a mind control project.
“What they are doing here is massive, massive indoctrination. They basically want to hurt people because this vaccination is definitely not good, ”said Navarro in a Facebook Live video, telling viewers the location of his protest. “Basically, what the left is doing is using Dodger Stadium to vaccinate people en masse.”
Navarro was one of about 50 people who protested the vaccination outside the stadium, one of the biggest venues of its kind in America, this weekend. The group temporarily blocked access to the site – although officials said the move was purely a precautionary measure.
Its ranks were filled with marginal figures who had also recently participated in other far-right actions, such as attacks on masks in shopping centers and the January 6 demonstration that preceded the attack on the country’s Capitol. Los Angeles’ anti-mask events, in particular, have drawn criticism when opponents contrast the police’s light response with the force directed at racial justice protests last year.
Officials, including Los Angeles Fire Department officials, temporarily stopped admitting drivers in response to the Saturday afternoon protest, a police spokesman told The Daily Beast. They added that none of the protesters broke the law and that no arrests were made.
Still, people waiting for the vaccines described the demonstration – in which protesters waved misinformation-rich posters about masks and vaccines, both proven to be safe and effective – as the latest complication in the administrative nightmare of securing a shot.
“Antivax protesters approached the entrance to the site. The LAPD has already closed the gate. We’ve been sitting here for about half an hour. Nobody is moving, ” tweeted indie rocker Mikel Jollett, who was on site accompanying his mother.
Do you know anything we should about anti-mask or anti-xxxxx activity or Capitol Riot? Send an email to [email protected] or securely at [email protected] from a non-work device.
Before the protest, advertisements circulated on Facebook’s anti-vaccination pages, including a notorious for leading unmasked attacks in Los Angeles stores, called Shop Mask Free Los Angeles. The group was one of the first to publicize the action, the Los Angeles Times previously reported.
This group was at the center of other demonstrations that made headlines, including a maskless raid on a Los Angeles shopping mall in early January, during which participants knocked on doors and demanded entry to the mall’s stores while masked workers tried close them.
Among the various pamphlets promoting the vaccine event on Facebook’s anti-vaccination and anti-blocking pages was a request for participants to actively hide their pro-Trump inclinations.
“Dress code”, one read. “As much as it saddens me to ask, please avoid wearing Trump / MAGA costumes, as we want our statement to resonate with the sheeple. No flags, but welcome information signs! “
Shop Mask Free Los Angeles administrators did not return a request to comment on whether they had organized the event at Dodger Stadium. Bryna Makowka, a California resident who attended the rally but declined to organize it, told the Daily Beast that the event was organized by a man in a top hat, whose name she did not know.
This man, Jason Lefkowitz, was one of the first to promote the event on Facebook. On Twitter, where he claimed to have called the police in advance to notify them of the demonstration, he has already hinted that he organized an anti-mask shopping event in December. (He did not return a request for comment.)
Another rally participant, Asefeh Shirafkan, shared a video of herself in a series of marginal events, including the protest outside Dodger Stadium, a maskless confrontation inside a Target and the January 6 rally that preceded the Capitol attack from United States. Shirafkan, who does not appear to have entered the Capitol, recently tweeted a photo of her in DC with Vincent Beetle, a man that many QAnon conspiracy theorists falsely believe is JFK Jr. in disguise.
Sought to comment, Shirafkan texted The Daily Beast “fuck it” and asked to watch a video about Bill Gates.
Actor Siaka Massaquoi, who did not return a request for comment, also filmed himself outside the Capitol (which he does not appear to have entered) and at the Dodger Stadium rally. “Great time protesting against sheep running to get a vaccine you don’t need !!” he wrote on Instagram. “So much so that the authorities closed the entrance because they were afraid of ‘storm’.”
Navarro – whose campaign office did not return a request for comment – got 32,000 views of his video outside Dodger Stadium.
“The real virus is the Democrats,” he said on Facebook Live. “This is the real virus, folks.”