Freedom rally draws 100 vehicles in Santa Barbara
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - About 100 vehicles rallied to reopen the economy in Santa Barbara on Friday at 12 p.m.
Waving American flags and honking horns, they circled De la Guerra Plaza by City Hall and then paraded up and down State Street for about an hour.
Organizer Naomi Van Dyk said, "we have been shut down long enough. Our numbers are low in California, it is time to reopen for the sake of our businesses. Do we stop driving cars because there's a car accident? No."
Santa Barbara police monitored the rally with patrol officers and said it was orderly.
Most people were in their vehicles. Those outside kept their physical distancing spacing.
Many similar rallies were held throughout Southern California.
Below is the full statement Naomi Van Dyk's provided to our newsroom in a video message:
"My daughter and I, we wanted to plan this rally today on May Day because our city and state has been shut down long enough. We have been shut down for six weeks and our numbers are low. And so we feel like it's time to get back to work, to get back to life. Our heart goes out to our small businesses, our big businesses, and our city's not going to be able to survive being shut down this any longer. So the hospitals, they're ghost towns, so we know we can handle this if our numbers were to rise, but we did this shutdown because the hospitals supposedly were not going to be able to handle the number of patients, but now we know that's not the case. In Santa Barbara, on average there's 250 deaths in a month, with COVID there's been 7 deaths yet we shut down our city? It just doesn't make sense. There is no reason why we need to stay shut any longer. Are we going to stop driving cars just because there's car accidents? No, so we just wanted to come together as fellow patriots in our city and say open up our city, let's do it safely. If you are immune-compromised, then stay home. But the rest of us, we need to get back to work. And so my daughter, she made this sign, what does it say?"
"It says 'We Need Freedom.'"
"We need freedom, so open up our state!"
Naomi Van Dyk and her daughter
