I just tried to contact the La Habra PD for more information on the 9/11 memorial which was apparently trashed by peace protesters. Only their PR department is giving out information, and there were four other callers ahead of me, so I'll try later.

Lord knows, I'm no big fan of peace protesters, but it's always good to keep an open mind. Did the cops really witness this act of vandalism? Did they just let it go on as described? Did they really make such "interesting" comments as "For this to be vandalism, there had to be an ill-will intent" (La Habra Police Capt. John Rees)?

I tend to believe that he actually said that, since it was printed in the Whittier Daily News. However, is there the possibility that those who put up this memorial would have trashed it themselves to get publicity and sympathy? From what I've heard, it was put up by an OC soccer mom, and that wouldn't seem to fit her M.O. Could gangs or teenagers have done it? Well, then why would they put up a Bob Dylan quote? Was it some fringe group like BAMN? Could it even have been a COINTELPRO type of thing, designed to make peace protesters look bad and get traffic for certain unspecified bloggers? Enquiring bloggers want to know.

UPDATE: The John and Ken Show is trying to raise money for the memorial. Just click on the link to the La Habra RV Center here. HereticalIdeas posts an email from another skeptic. There's a report based on the Whittier Daily News article here.

UPDATE 2: Apparently the owner of the property on which the memorial was constructed is willing to file a complaint. However, the police don't have an idea who the perps were, and are looking for help finding them.

Then there's this:

I just spoke to Debbie Pfeiffer [author of the Whittier Daily News article] on the phone, hoping to clarify what the police actually saw. Apparently officers witnessed relatively minor vandalism on Saturday afternoon, but did not interfere. The major destruction was committed Saturday night, and the police were called back more than once, but made no arrests. Whether they saw anything on those occasions isn't clear. Debbie wouldn't comment on who it was who saw the police watching during the afternoon -- reasonable enough for a reporter to protect her sources -- and wasn't aware of any photos of the events. She did reiterate that "free speech" was in fact the reason given by the police for refusing to protect the display or charge the vandals.