Genoa police unit trained by U.S. sheriffs

ROME (Reuters) - An elite Italian police unit which carried out a
bloody raid against protesters at a Group of Eight summit in Genoa
was trained by U.S. police chiefs, an Italian newspaper reported
Tuesday.

For four months, 70 specially selected officers were trained by two
Los Angeles police sheriffs. A larger number of police also received
a week-long training course from the Americans, according to the
Communist daily Liberazione.

"The prime responsibility of the two Los Angeles sheriffs was to
train the men from the special unit in the use of American aluminum
batons," an unidentified policeman who took part in the one-week
course was quoted as saying.

"From the start, they openly criticized the way in which Italian
police carry out public order," he said.

Not only is the use of foreign expertise likely to cause
consternation, but the fact the officers came from Los Angeles, a
city scarred by mass riots in 1992 following the police beating of
black motorist Rodney King, also raises serious questions.

In a midnight assault on a school which was acting as a headquarters
for protest groups during the July 20-22 summit, 62 people were
injured and 93 arrested. Many were laid out on stretchers with
blood-stained faces.

Reporters who entered the school soon afterwards saw blood stains on
the walls and broken teeth scattered on the floor. At least one
protester has since undergone brain surgery.

Allegations of police brutality have flooded in and three top police
officials have been transferred by the interior minister, who has
faced calls for his own resignation.

The Interior Ministry declined to make a comment at this time on the
involvement of the American sheriffs.

As well as brutality, there were also allegations that police
sexually assaulted female protesters. Two weeks after the summit,
nearly 50 demonstrators are still in prison. Many say their human and
civil rights have been violated.

The police source told the paper the American sheriffs had said
repeatedly that "in Los Angeles all we need is a nucleus of 20 cops
to disperse hundreds of demonstrators because we can fire rubber
bullets which wound, but don't kill."

On the first day of the Genoa summit, a 23-year-old protester who was
attacking a police vehicle was shot and killed by an Italian
paramilitary policeman.

The source also said that the week-long course he had been assigned
to was more like a military boot camp.

"We marched, learned how to form shield defenses and how to jump
through fire or out of a moving vehicle," he said.

"It was more like a medieval tournament. In the end we were doing
purely military training. There seemed no difference between police
officers and soldiers."

13:40 08-07-01

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Hey just a note to IMC folks. I think y'all are doing a great thing. However no where in this article does it mention the LAPD. It says LA Sherriffs which are a different beast all together. The headline on the main page is the only place the LAPD is mentioned. True there all part of the same machine but I think its important we be as accurate as possible, especially on Indy Media. Keep up the good work.

Here's the electronic version of Liberazione:

http://www.liberazione.it/giornale/07-08mar/PRIMA/PRI-1/PRIMA.htm

> Istruzioni dagli Usa
>
> Un agente di polizia confida a Liberazione: «Sono venuti i poliziotti di Los
> Angeles per addestrarci ad usare il manganello di alluminio». Per circa quattro
> mesi, a Ponte Galeria, gli uomini del settimo nucleo del primo reparto mobile
> di Roma, quello che ha fatto l?irruzione nella scuola Diaz, hanno seguito i
> consigli e i metodi degli agenti americani: «Voi italiani siete troppi, da noi
> negli Usa bastano venti poliziotti per disperdere centinaia di manifestanti,
> perché possiamo sparare i proiettili di gomma» Alle pagine 8-9

An approximate translation has been posted to:

http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=14397

The full original Italian + approximate English translation of the full
version is now at

http://italy.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=14397

A few key points:

> * This was an experiment intended to test the "Los Angeles model".
>
> * The experiment was carried out at the Diaz school.
>
> * The 70 members of the 7th squad were "scrupulously selected" for
> their four month training course. They can't be written off as just a few
> bad apples in the barrel: they were the *best* apples in the barrel,
> according to political choices of "best" for Italian policing for G8-Genoa.
>
> * The training of the 7th squad is *not* stated. Was the (anonymous)
> policeman afraid? Was Liberazione worried about defamation?
>
> * The one week training for the *other* mobile units was "marching,
> tests and proofs of bravery like passing through fire and jumping
> down from a car in motion... like ... tournaments of the Middle Ages."
>
> Is *this* the Los Angeles police idea of 21st century crowd control?
>
> * The big question remains: what was the training given to the 70 members
> of the Diaz attack squad (7th squad) by sheriffs Crick and Crock from LA?



> corrector 2:58pm Thu Aug 9 '01
>
> Hey just a note to IMC folks. I think y'all are doing a great thing.
> However no where in this article does it mention the LAPD. It says LA
> Sherriffs which are a different beast all together. The headline on
> the main page is the only place the LAPD is mentioned.

Agreed: we should aim for maximum accuracy.

The printed words are "due sceriffi".

However... the only original source here seems to be one newspaper
(Liberazione) quoting what one anonymous, mostly likely
non-native-English-speaking policeman said. Try learning a foreign language
and you'll realise that you'll be excited once you can understand and can
talk about the difference between a policeman and a post office...

Either the policeman interviewed or the interviewer or the Editor or the
proofreader could have thought "sceriffi" was the general word or a better word for US
policemen, having seen lots of "sheriffs" in US movies, and substituted
"sheriff" for the more boring word "policeman". (Don't think that Liberazione
is like Indymedia ;-). )

Only independent sources can get further on this. (Anyone in LA??)

News is coming out that it was the Sherrif's, not the LAPD.