Source: The Los Angeles Times. September 22, 2008
Jesus Suarez, a Santeria priest, had slit the throat of one goat that June afternoon. He had three more goats, two sheep and 44 chickens to go.
But before he could finish the ritual sacrifice, Coral Gables police swarmed the house where he and about 20 other followers of the Afro-Cuban religion had gathered to worship.
The officers, Suarez recalls, pointed their guns at the devotees and screamed at them to freeze. Suarez could hear a couple of worshippers in the front yard yelling, "No dispare!" Don't shoot! Soon there were TV vans on the street. Suarez counted 25 police cars.
"Why are you violating our civil rights?" Suarez asked them.
Soon thereafter, word of the raid made its way to the great defender of Santeria in the United States. That would be Ernesto Pichardo: high priest, physical extension of the fire spirit Shango and co-founder of the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, the first incorporated Santeria church in the nation.