Mark Oshiro shot camera phone video of cops beating protestors. he said:

Here are some video clips from LA today, including footage of police beating protestors in MacArthur Park. I just got back to my office about 30 minutes ago, which is directly next to MacArthur Park, the main site for the LA Immigration/May Day Protests. This began around 8:50PM and I managed to score some pretty intense footage on my phone. The quality isn't stellar, but it is more than enough to see the brutality with which the LAPD used on innocent, peaceful protestors.

video one video two video three video four video five video six video seven

The Devil (Bush): "Bash those Dirty Immigrants For Big Business and Country."

I think that we must remember first and foremost that we are still living in the belly of the beast USAmerikkka. Another thing that I have not heard and commentary is that crime is actually down especially after 9-11. Furthermore, the police are just waiting to use equipment that they already use for people who are incarcerated (i.e. WAYSIDE, Chino). It is very unsetting to see this video knowing that the past marches in a place such Los Angeles where i was also born and raised have been pacifist. More over, that guy Bratton needs to leave and should have never been chief of police in the first place. I think that cops want another April 29th Florence and Normandie to occur and it's about time. Let's not for get 1968 Watts, and let's not forget 1943 and what the U.S. sailors did to Chicano youth who sported Zootsuits. Meanwhile the SAME LApigD just watched. The thin blue line needs to be the next target for protest...ops I almost for got to mention RAmpart and that scandal. We need better policing because there was reason that ICE T wrote "Cop Killa" and NWA wrote "FUCK The Police". There needs to be change.

the march was a great success. many american flags, with spatterings of other flags. many wore white shirts. many walked with their kids. we all walked from macarthur park to la brea. our voice was heard

as my family and i returned from la brea to our car around 6 pm, we noticed near macarthur park there were several kids wearing che guevarra t-shirts, had paint on their face, ski masks, and bandanas over their faces. many were in black (anarchists?).

many of these kids seemed to be instigating the police who were standing on the street. the police (lapd) warned them to dispersed. i noticed as this exchanged progressed, many shaved head hispanics in gang attire showed up. it was dusk nearing darkness, many marchers had gone home.

i believe the 'riot' was not against the marchers per se, but the lapd's reaction to the student/activist/inciters who were heckling the cops, plus the gangsters who mostly stayed in the background who were throwing rocks and bottles at the police (but mostly hitting other protesters).

i'm not from los angeles, but i don't think racism was the driving force here. i believe the police just feared the group i described above were going to run amok, and hence needed to be dispersed.

but, as far as the actual marchers being there, i'm confident that most of them had already gone home. most of who i saw were teenagers who were laughing at the cops, who by the way were mostly hispanics.

Usually, at the end of these big events, there's some kind of standoff or tense situation, and occasionally, it explodes. Sometimes, I think it's manipulated by the cops, to justify their overtime pay (and budgetary line items like pepper spray). Someitmes, it's undercover cops who instigate the situation -- though I'm sure there are many situations where they aren't involved.

Logically, if one person or two people get in a cop's face, the solution is to immobilze the individuals and arrest them. What seems to happen at some demos is that a phalanx of cops move into a crowd, and then go after a lot of people. The crowd panics, and some flee, but many are caught in the "trap" and the cops get an opportunity to hit a lot of activists with various weapons. Then, several are arrested (and often, later released).

Cops volunteer for riot squad duty. Obviously, this demo was an opportunity for anti-immigrant cops to volunteer to do some "crowd control", knowing there could be a standoff at the end of the demo. If a standoff happened, and if it escalated (for whatever reason, be it "the angry mob", gangsters, wingnuts, or undercover cops) these political enemies would have an opportunity to assault their nonviolent adversaries without fear of arrest, or even administrative discipline.

Oh yeah, remember, "the cop is the one who offers to buy the dynamite."

Remember the LAPD is our police force. They work for us. The LAPD is one of the youngest police force in the nation. Of the 9,300 cops, 6,000 work in the field everyday. Compare that to 40,000 from NYPD, and 30,000 from Chicago PD.

We in Los Angeles have a better chance of establishing DIALOGUE with the new generation officers. Many, as we saw in MacArthur Park, were probably just in Junior High when the whole Rampart scandal broke. Our fight is systemic, and those who benefit from the system. It is so easy to demonize the police, and it makes for great photo op to drive our point of Subjugation and Control.

The harder battle is to actually open a working relationship between us and the new generation of cops. You could hardly do this in the 1970s, because the officers were well into their 30s or 40s. But, today we have a chance. Instead of looking in from the outside, do some VOLUNTEER work in one of the stations and educate some people, And understand that you in turn will come out a wiser person.

I've seen enough of these situations. A lot of times, it's the cops overreacting. They create the self-fulfilling prophecy of a mini-riot. They serve as a focal point, and their threat of violence becomes, for some people, a kind of challenge to defy authority.

I think political protests can tolerate a lot more tension than other crowds. The anti-SOS demo in Alhambra, and a mass response to pro-war folks in Alhambra were, by LA standards, underpoliced. In each situation, things could have blown up, but they didn't. There was internal discipline on all sides. (These were demos with opposing sides, unlike the big march which was one-sided.)

Also, the assertion that activists want to smash store windows didn't apply in this situation. At all the big demos post-Seattle, activists have maintained internal efforts to prevent vandalism in working class communities like Macarthur Park. The windows smashed at this event were clinic windows. No activist would have that as a goal.

""many of these kids seemed to be instigating the police who were standing on the street. the police (lapd) warned them to dispersed. i noticed as this exchanged progressed, many shaved head hispanics in gang attire showed up. it was dusk nearing darkness, many marchers had gone home.""

i was there and what you are saying is just pure bullshit... kids were standing on the streets and the cops was instigating that the truth. the battles the rocks and everything that was throwed at the cops had a reason we were tired of watching the cops hiting marchers just because, one of the police hit one kid and he fell so hard on the floor that he got knock out. They closed almost all the exits, cops were standing on the metro stairs we had no place to go we were traped. All we did was defend ourselfs and show them that we are not scared of them. Besides, what happened that day was going to happen either tomorrow the next or some day and we all know it.

GANGSTERS WERE THERE!!! and they (along w/ Anarchists) threw bottles and plastic bottles full of urine. Because most of these items hit other marchers, although aimed at the police. And that's a fact, jack!!!

ANARCHISTS ARE ALWAYS RUINING PROTESTS FOR THE REST OF US, WHO JUST WANT OUR VOICE HEARD. FOR EXAMPLE: WE JUST WANTED TO SHOW SUPPORT FOR OTHER IMMIGRANTS.

The misconduct of the lapd yesterday in macarthur park deserves more attention than it's getting. Don't let the LAPD get away with yet another crime against the citizens of Los Angeles. We all know the investigation by the police chief will lead nowhere. It's time for an uprising.

Just in case you didn't know, around half the self-described anarchists in LA are of Mexican descent. At early immigrant defense demonstrations, numerous red and black flags flew. The spirit of Zapata lives on.