Yesterday me and Cherry Pasión attended “Average” Joe Ontiveros’ preliminary hearing. He was really glad to see a couple of supporters out in the seats and thanked us quietly a couple of times. We all (most of us) miss him being out on Euclid every day in front of Jollibee’s with his hybrid US-Mexican flag, cowboy hat, whistle, and Fuck Ice v-neck. I wrote a little about Joe when he was arrested last month, but I didn’t know all the details of the Jan. 27 incident that landed him in jail, I didn’t have the video that I’ll post below, and none of us knew why his bail was so high ($150k at first, then $100k.)
So, here’s the video of what happened Jan. 27 around 11:30 am. But FIRST, I gotta tell you what happened before: Earlier in the morning, an angry lady pulled over and threatened Joe with a bat; the Starbucks workers across the street started yelling at her and she went away.
But it was a big morning for passersby being triggered by Average Joe, triggered by his hybrid flag and outspoken shirt. Because a little before 11:30 a 63-year old gentleman named Daniel Arbgast drove by slowly and started yelling at Joe. Arbgast took grave offense at everything about Joe, and opined he should go back to his country (not on video.) Joe angrily shot back that he’s a citizen who had served in the Army for four years. Arbgast (what a great name) shot back that in that case Joe should be PROUD of America, not be waving a half-Mexican flag and not be proclaiming Fuck ICE.
Arbgast allegedly drove around the block several times railing at Joe (it’s a large block, he probably went into the parking lot and came back out on Euclid) before finally pulling into the Jollibee’s lot and getting out of his car, resolved to face this small Mexican menace up close. NOW you can watch the video!
OK, what do you see and hear? When Joe sees Arbgast drive up and exit his car, he calls out, “You’re past your prime old man! You’re past your prime! You can’t dictate what’s an American!” The two angry men start to approach each other, and Arbgast is hollering other stuff including “You’re not an American!” Joe responds, “I’m not?! I’m gonna pull my Wyoming f-ng license out and show you what an American is!” By now they’ve got as close as they can, practically “bumping chests” as tough guys do. Let’s pause here:
Two archetypes facing off. 62-year old Arbgast glaring down at what’s gone wrong with his country, the uppity immigrants who have taken the place over and won’t just behave and comply. 40-year old Joe glaring up at what’s been oppressing him and his people their whole life – the old white guy who tells him he’s not American and has gone out of his way to insult him while defending Trump and ICE.
According to Joe, Arbgast pushed him and spit on him – you can’t see that on the video, but with two guys yelling at each other that close, There Will Be Spittle. Joe yells “Hit me! Hit me!” and Arbgast answers, “You hit me first!” (Joe’s defense attorney Fred Fascinelli contends that at that moment, when they both dared each other to swing first, they were legally in a state of “mutual combat” as described in CALCRIM #3471, and Joe’s coming punch should not be considered assault/battery; Judge John Zitny wasn’t buying that, we’ll see if a jury does.)
And Joe’s fist flies up to Arbgast’s jaw and Arbgast drops. And Joe marches back to his corner with his flag while Arbgast moans on the ground – NOT because of the punch, but because he cracked “several ribs” falling on that curb the way he did. Hence, the “grave bodily injury” included in the battery charge against Joe.
After a moment Joe realizes he lost his cowboy hat in the scuffle and goes back to recover it. “You shouldn’t-a pushed me,” he tells Arbgast, who bellows back, “I didn’t touch you you motherfucker! I didn’t touch you!” Joe replies, walking back to his corner, “Welcome to America. We got it on video, I’m not worried!”
At first Arbgast wasn’t gonna press charges, but when an Anaheim cop visited him a few days later in the hospital he had second thoughts. And a few days after that they arrested Joe, who is being held on $100k bail. And yesterday Fred Fascinelli was unable to get that bail reduced to something more reasonable.
Why $100k bail?
Basically due to the one violent felony / strike on Joe’s record, although that is from nearly 20 years ago, and he completed his probation on that long ago. As Fred airily told me and Cherry before the hearing, “Well, he DID fire a gun at his wife’s lover!”
But when Fred described that in court later, there was a lot of extenuation: Joe, a military veteran working in security and legally carrying a firearm, came home at 3am to see someone fucking his wife on the couch – he at first thought his house was being burglarized and his wife being raped! He fired his gun toward the guy as he ran away. The court even let him get away with probation for the whole thing. But it was a felony, a violent felony, a “strike,” and so no reduction in bail.
Is the system picking on Joe, being unfair because he loudly and proudly says “FUCK ICE” every day all day on the street? It’s hard to say. But Arbgast sure pursued Joe for his constitutionally protected FREE SPEECH as Fred will remind us, and if Arbgast was the victim here he was just as much the INSTIGATOR.
The pre-trial will be in Central Court C5, March 25, 8:30 AM and we will be there!
It may be hard for a jury to judge this case impartially without being swayed one way or the other by the FRAUGHT NATIONAL ISSUES that led to this fracas.
We hope Daniel Arbgast is healing and feeling better, and has learned that he’s too damn old to be going out seeking out fisticuffs.
We hope Average Joe Ontiveros learns to control his temper better, and is free soon, free and back on the street, specifically EUCLID STREET.
And above all, FUCK ICE!
ICE that had just killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, that had just shot out the eyes of two of our protester friends, killed 38 in custody, torn apart thousands of families and communities and thrown thousands of our immigrant friends into prison camps – Joe’s simple message remains as timely as ever, and people like Arbgast need to slink back into their lairs.
Over the years, I frequented ten ten seafood, Chris and Pitt’s and pho in that parking lot.
Stop the presses.
Fred Fascinelli is a good guy. OJB has endorsed him once or twice in previous elections. This will not help him win any future election in Villa Park, but he has his priorities straight!
Yeah I knew his name was familiar. He actually ran against Brahim Baytieh – what a night and day difference that was!
Good old Brahim. Part of the Joe Felz cover up as I recall. So bad even Spitzer had to get rid of him.
AT THE SAME MOMENT AS HE WAS ELECTED JUDGE THOUGH! Over Fred. And as far as I know he’s still a judge.
And unless he shoots his wife and she dies, he always will be one.
Judge Israel Claustro finally got fired too if you noticed. Another Spitzer crony. He finally got busted about a YEAR after I (and others) wrote about his Medicare fraud that happened before he was elected judge.
https://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2025/05/weekend-open-thread-harper-to-take-on-gracey-tammy-busted-lyin-young-kim-cautious-lou/
https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/orange-county-judge-agrees-plead-guilty-knowingly-paying-convicted-doctor-work-workers
Free Joe!!!
I’d love to be on that jury. I figured Joe had a rap of some kind by the bail amount but I hate it when the cops/DAs drag out a history that has no bearing on the facts of the case.
Lumpy old dude (5 years younger than me) went waaaaaay out of his way to cause a confrontation with Joe and he got a receipt for his purchase. He was fighting way below his class, too. How embarrassing.
To put things in perspective Nelson, Baytieh and Gascon were my law school classmates. Baytieh was our class president. This was while I was eating at places like Chris and pitt’s and pho 94 and ten ten seafood there on Euclid.
Ah – NOW it all ties together like a Joycean ephiphany!
“Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.
“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”
I was going to go for Proustian. Ah, the madeleine. What times!
The pho! Memories of young Baytieh…
It more compelling than this story about average
Joe the violent felon.
LOL just teasin
I almost miss the Winships.
Eh.
What happened to the average Joe March 25th update, Vern?
Or, better yet, what new re Albert Arzola, Jr.
I slept in that morning, I’ve been so busy. With rent control and music. I understand Joe’s trial will be in May. We like him and his protests but we see how he needs some anger management – maybe he can go with Mr. Fink, LOL!
Arzola? The APD messed with the wrong family. A lot of educated and outspoken people who don’t give up; there are at least a dozen of them at every Council meeting, and the Police Review Board (which had been nearly moribund.) They are being stonewalled. We still don’t know the names of the cop who killed Albert (for no apparent reason) OR the cop who blasted the other kid in the head sending him to the hospital with a brain injury. It’s unprecedented in recent OC history not to know the cops’ names yet. The family (Like the rest of us) has only seen partial, redacted video cam footage. With the excuse there are still “investigations” going on. I’m not sure what the lawyer Mr. DeSimone is doing to help, but this is not going away.
Somehow the funky gun made the trip to the place the cops dragged the body, right?
Oh yeah the excuse for not releasing the cops’ names is that they are being “threatened.” We don’t believe that for a second. They are copying ICE, which pretends that their “officers” need to wear masks for their safety.
You claimed “we will be there” Vern!!
Best-laid plans and all… I’m told I didn’t miss much though.