Police Assault on Today's Immigrant Rights Demonstration

(Use the lacity Web link to tell Mayor Villaraigosa how you feel about this attack by his police on a peaceful gathering).

A very peaceful day of marches, demonstrations and public speaking was just winding down, and maybe 20 percent of the original crowd was still present. Suddenly the police helicopter that had been buzzing the park for hours made some kind of a garbled amplified announcement that everyone must leave the park immediately (or maybe the announcement came from the ground, but it sounded like it came from the copter). There was no apparent reason for this request.

About two minutes later, riot police who had massed at the corner of Alvarado and 7th started exploding things. Some of those explosions were rubber bullets. But there were flashes along with some of the explosions, and, although I did not smell any tear gas, others said later on that there had been some tear gas used, so the flashes must have been tear gas grenades.

Everyone, including me, started running North on Alvarado toward Sixth. The police formed a line across Alvarado and advanced toward Sixth, firing rubber bullets into the retreating crowd as they went. Something skittered past me from behind that must have been a rubber bullet.

There were small children running with their parents all around me when this occurred (you can see some of them in the video). I did not see anyone actually get hit, but later, I met up with a woman leaving the demonstration area who showed me a wound where a rubber bullet had grazed her leg (see picture, below).

As I left the area, I saw an ambulance headed down Sixth in the direction of the park.

Why did they do this? My guess is as a way of re-asserting their territorial control. Having all of those people on the streets all day long just saying exactly what was on their minds must have really gotten on their nerves. But your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that as a person exercising free speech rights (which, by the way, fall to citizens and non-citizens alike under our constitution), I was outraged to see what our public money is paying for.

The first video covers when we were all running up Alvarado toward Sixth. The second is looking back from Alvarado and Sixth at the line of police advancing northward in full riot gear (not a very clear shot of the police, I'm afraid, but this view is clearer in some of the still photos).