They say there’s a first time for everything.

For me, Monday was the first time in more than 11 years of reporting for the San Antonio Express-News that I returned from lunch to find a scrum of people on the front steps loudly calling me “racist” and chanting for my termination.

These weren’t just any protesters. These were supporters of Manuel Medina, some of them the same who stood by Medina in December on the steps of City Hall when he announced to the press that he was exploring a run for mayor, then stood by him again a month later in Main Plaza when he announced to the press that he indeed was running.

Medina was at the center of the scrum again on Monday, railing to the television news cameras arrayed before him.

The chairman of the Bexar County Democratic Party had summoned the press once again, this time to capture his response to “a column … implying that Manuel Medina was a Mexican Native pretending to be a Patriotic American and questioned (sic) the validity of his American citizenship,” according to the news release.

“We are here today because Brian Chasnoff simply said that I’m a Mexican and that I pretend to be an American,” Medina told the cameras. “That is way out of bounds. Putting the campaign aside, and putting the politics aside, he is questioning my patriotism, and more importantly, he is questioning the patriotism of every single naturalized citizen of the United States.”

In fact, my column simply questioned Medina’s truthfulness to voters. His manufactured protest only proved my point.

From the column in question: “(Medina) became an American citizen in September 2009.”

Medina asserting to voters that I accused him of “pretending” to be an American is a lie.

Also from my column: “Whether Medina lived in Mexico as an adult is not a campaign issue in itself. The question with bearing on the race is whether Medina is being honest with voters about his continuous residence here.”

When Medina applied for a place on the May 6 ballot, he swore under oath in his notarized ballot application that he has lived continuously in Texas for more than 24 years and in San Antonio for more than 20. On the campaign trail, he has made his immigration story the centerpiece of his biography, recounting how he came here at age 3 with his mother and has lived and prospered in America ever since.

My column noted that public records from Mexico suggest a different timeline.

According to the records, Medina was employed at a university in Torreón, in the northern Mexico state of Coahuila, from 1997 to 2008; ran for public office in Torreón in 2005; and divorced and remarried in Torreón in 2006.

Medina did not attempt to rebut these facts when I interviewed him on the day I wrote the original column.

Instead, he defended himself that day by claiming he had worked at the Mexican university only sporadically; that he ran for public office in Mexico only “to get more clients” for his political consulting firm; and that he had merely “spent time” in Mexico while residing in Texas.

At Medina’s press conference on Monday, I asked him whether anything in my original column was inaccurate. He did not answer or acknowledge my presence, at one point turning his back on me and San Antonio Express-News Staff Writer Josh Baugh to face the news cameras.

“This atmosphere that we saw last year in the presidential election,” Medina told the cameras, “when the issue of immigration was front and center, has created an atmosphere that some believe was anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic, and Brian Chasnoff is simply feeding off that to score political points for his favorite candidates in this race for mayor.”

Linking a columnist to the campaign tactics of President Donald Trump is ironic, to say the least, for a local candidate who has done more than anyone else to embrace Trump’s needy, abusive relationship with the press.

Later, as Medina’s supporters began to disperse, I agreed to be interviewed by some of the media outlets that his campaign had summoned to the newspaper.

Among the reporters, one man with video equipment asked questions that clearly favored Medina.

“Will we see similar pieces for both of the other mayoral candidates?” he asked. “What mindset were you in when you wrote the initial article for Manuel but decided not to necessarily chase down any prospective leads, any articles about the other two candidates?”

Later, I learned from Baugh that this man was working for Medina. I tracked down the man’s phone number and called to ask if Medina’s campaign was paying him.

“Give me one second,” he told me.

After a pause, he said, “I’m going to have to call you back.”

He did not call me back.

In 11 years of working as a real reporter, that wasn’t a first.

bchasnoff@express-news.net