- ◄
-
The Laws are Clear
By Richard Buffum, Los Angeles Times, California
February 21, 1969, North America
If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, as it has been said, then a lot of religion is more so. It can get you tossed into the Costa Mesa jail these days.
Fourteen members of the activist Light Club Teens for Christ were jailed and arraigned early this week for socially unacceptable activities on the sidewalks adjacent to the Maude B. Davis Intermediate School and the Costa Mesa High School.
The young Christian zealots, ranging in age from 18 to 22 (four are girls), were passing out religious tracts Monday and trying to convert students to the Gospel as they departed the schools. Some of the rebels for Christ carried crosses, Bibles and waved placards, urging unqualified acceptance of their favorite revolutionary who got Himself into deep trouble with the authorities nearly 2,000 years ago.
However, I hasten to add that the unbecoming activities that landed them in the …
-
Jailed Teens Work at Saving Cellmate!
The Daily Pilot, California
February 20, 1969, North America
Jailed, but free from cares of the secular world, 16 members of Huntington Beach’s militant Teens for Christ group today are campaigning to convert other fellow prisoners, with 38 days to work at it.
Efforts by Public Defender James Lang to win release of the four girls and 12 men on a no-bail promise to appear for jury trials April 1 in Harbor District Judicial Court were rebuffed Wednesday.
Judge Calvin Schmidt refused to reduce the $65 bail set for each of the defendants, aged 18 to 22, arrested Monday while demonstrating at Maude B. Davis Intermediate School in Costa Mesa.
“That Judge Schmidt seemed to have a hardboiled attitude towards us the minute we entered the courtroom,” said Uncle Dave Berg the 49-year old Teens for Christ spiritual advisor whose son, Paul, 21, is among those held.
Judge Schmidt ordered all 16 returned to Orange County Jail until they …
-
Mesa Nabbed 17 Christ Teens!
By Arthur R. Vinsel, Daily Pilot Staff, The Daily Pilot, California
February 19, 1969, North America
Hymns of courage and faith in adversity rang through the Costa Mesa City Jail Monday night, as police booked the biggest crowd since last summer’s celebrated Hessian motorcycle gang roundup.
Refusal to obey orders after being warned once led to the mass arrest of 17 members of Huntington Beach’s Teens for Christ, loudly evangelizing at two adjacent school campuses.
Crowds of children who had been listening to the self-styled Christian revolutionaries preach jeered a team of police officers commanded by Sgt. Bob Ballinger as the militants were led away.
The five girls and 12 men—four of them actually seniorteens in a sense—were booked on suspicion of all or combination of, two penal code offenses and one education code violation.
“The thing that some people just refuse to understand is that we aren’t arresting those people for preaching or picketing,” Police Chief Roger Neth said today.
Refusal to disperse, willful and …
- ►