Oceanside resident and anti-illegal-immigration advocate James Chase said this week that he will be a featured speaker at a rally in Baldwin Park on June 25, as the organizing group protests a monument inscribed with language group leader Joseph Turner calls "seditious and anti-American."

On May 15, the organization, Ventura-based Save Our State, held a similar protest, in which an angry crowd of about 300 people counterprotested SOS' presence in their predominantly Latino city.

More than 50 police officers kept the opposing groups separate during the event, in which a Murrieta woman has alleged a counterprotester threw a bottle at her head, sending her to the hospital.

Officials with groups on both sides of the issue said Wednesday they are concerned that this month's event could turn violent.

Turner is calling for city officials to remove by July 1 wording from the arch —— erected 12 years ago —— that says: "This land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is and will be again."

City spokesman Adan Ortega said Wednesday that Turner and his group have failed to understand that the monument, which carries many other inscriptions, "celebrates the very freedoms that we have in this country and chronicles that over time, attitudes change."

Police officers will do everything necessary to protect public safety and property, Ortega said, including calling in reinforcements from neighboring cities' police departments, if needed.

Chase, the founder of Oceanside-based United States Border Patrol Auxiliary, said he has accepted Turner's invitation to speak at the event. He added that he is concerned about possible violence at the protest but that he is going to stand up for his and others' First Amendment rights.

Ortega said that Turner has requested a permit for the protest. While some thought was given to denying the permit, city officials will most likely issue it because of concerns the city will be challenged in court, he said.

"Even if you were to deny them, they could go to court and get an injunction to prevent the city from denying the permit," Ortega said. "Cities have effectively been challenged in court on the constitutional right to free assembly."

For UC Riverside ethnic studies professor and human rights activist Armando Navarro, the decision by Save Our State to hold another protest in heavily Latino Baldwin Park is nothing more than a provocation —— one that could incite more violence.

"They are dealing with forces they cannot control," Navarro said of Turner's group. "They are creating a fertile ground for conflict."

The director of UCSD's Center for Comparative Immigration Studies said Wednesday that Turner is being "consummately irresponsible" by holding a protest where there was violence before.

"This is part of the same game plan (as the Arizona Minuteman Project) of staging events that will garner a lot of media attention," said Professor Wayne Cornelius.

Turner said that he knows the potential for violence exists, but any acts of violence will not be committed by him or members of his group. But regardless of the risks, he feels he has to stand up for his First Amendment rights, Turner said.

And he won't do it quietly, he added.

"I have a street fighter mentality," the 28-year-old man said. "We are very aggressive about going into the streets and confronting the opposition."

Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426, or wbennett@nctimes.com.