Reporter:   "What's the police's excuse going to be?"
Witness:    "Besides racism?"

MACARTHUR PARK, May Day 2007--Police stormed a workers' and immigrants' rally at 5:30 p.m. this afternoon in MacArthur Park, sending thousands of families running in terror as they cleared MIWON Immigrant rally and festival with foam and beanbag bullets, batons, and tear gas.  The cops marched through the park in riot gear, indiscriminately clubbing down people in their wake.  Young people formed the front line against the onslaught, running in retreat for a few yards at each thud-like explosion of a teargas canister and then turning back to the cops, while older and younger people ran through the single open exit in fear that it, too, would be barricaded.

A few moments before, children had been playing on the hillside and dancing with puppet dragons.  A drum circle was beating out a rhythm, hot dog and shaved ice vendors strolled through the crowd, and speakers at the north end stage called out for solidarity among immigrant and and non-immigrant workers.

According to a witness, the melee began when someone in a crowd gathered on Alvarado Street between 7th and 8th Streets hurled something toward the police, as the Aztec danzantes performed for a group gathered on Alvarado.  The witness reported that the motorcycle cops nudged the audience, then cops on foot split the crowd in the street and stormed them.  

A National Lawyers' Guild observer, Sanjukta Paul, was beaten repeatedly, including a blow to the kidneys, as she attempted to separate the police from the crowd.  She had demanded that she had the right to be there as she tried to move people off the street, but a cop replied, "No, you don't," then clubbed her with his baton.

From inside the park, the first warning was a single thud.  Then a line of squad cars, sirens wailing, raced down 6th Street and turned onto S. Park View to 7th Street.  Crowds from the street began pouring into the south end of the park, as parents scooped up children from impromptu wrestling matches and pulled them out of trees where they had climbed.  Finally a helicopter overheard blared out the dispersal order, telling the crowd to leave the park and return to their cars.  Another round of cop cars tore down the crowded street.

"I've been in protests in the '50s, the '60s, '70's.  I've never seen anything like this," an elderly woman reported.  She had been on Alvarado when the cops had charged.  The people had lifted the woman over a fence onto private property, where the owner offered her sanctuary.  Her daughter, frantically seeking her child as she retreated, was batoned in the stomach three times by a pig who said she wasn't moving back "fast enough."

As the police entered the park, vendors at the entrance frantically tried to escape with their carts.  Organization members desperately tried to clear tables and literature in the path of the incursion.  Roughly eighty pigs formed a diagonal line and marched across the park, sweeping everybody into a shrinking semicircle.  

The police used foam and bean bag bullets against the people in the park.  At least one guy left with blood soaking through his white T-shirt and a massive bruise already forming.  Foam bullets carry the impact of a 95 m.p.h. fastball or a baseball bat.  Last month, David K. Maxson from McHenry County, Illinois died in a "justified" police shooting with a beanbag gun.

A slight breeze wafted much of the teargas away, but those in the park felt welling eyes and difficulty breathing.  One woman complained that the fracas had triggered an asthma attack.

The police arbitrarily fired on and beat those within range.  Several reporters were beaten, and at least one was taken in away in an ambulance for a wound to his leg.  One white-haired guy reported that his wife had been shot in the chest.

A few stray rocks from the park did little to slow the advance of the armed and firing pigs.  Someone in the retreating crowd smashed a brick on the sidewalk so that others in front of him could hurl the shards at the police, but no one did picked them up.   For a few moments some of the ralliers reorganized in a march on 6th Street and stopped traffic, but the cops ordered that they leave the area.  The marchers threw the rocks in their hands on the street in frustration as they left.  A number of people circled around the clock and came back down to the park on 6th Street, but the cops kept them at a distance, and a legal observer convinced them to leave the area.

By 8:00 p.m. the park was clear, but the Pico Union district was filled with people in the streets, sitting on stoops, and hanging out on street corners.  Last year's May Day march also ended with police violence in Alvarado Street.   The district was a hot spot during the 1992 Rebellion, and Pico Union is the home of the infamous Rampart Police CRASH unit, which cost the city millions of dollars for lawsuits involving drug dealing, perjured testimony, and framing innocent people.  A federal investigation of CRASH was suspended when it was revealed that the FBI was likely complicit in the unit's abuses of immigrants.

error

i personally saw a person with a golf-ball size welt on his back shoulder who was hit with a drum-shaped foam-rubber projectile fired at high velocity, and pictures of the projectiles taken by a protester. this is how the overworked, underpaid, and under-appreciated builders of america's ravenous culture of waste and pollution are thanked for their alienated labor -- police brutality when they affirm their existence!
the edifice of accumulated capital in america was built by refugees from the various countries western civilization has pillaged to desperation, and whenever they start to recognize their own power the state rises to the challenge with its characteristic irrational violence. the leaders and "organizers" also, as always, played their role in subduing the people's indignation and only facilitated the police work being done. what happened was that the police first ordered the crowd off the street, and into the park, and then ordered the crowd out of the park and back into the street, including a lot of people who were in the park before and hadn't even taken part in the demo. they resisted this condescending power game, and this was the flimsy pretext for the police riot that followed.
for too long we've been reacting defensively to the state, as in last year's (successful) struggle against the house bill to make it a felony to employ "illegal" workers. it's high time to understand that any reform handed down by power will only serve to consolidate its bureaucratic control, and of course to take credit for what the people themselves have built. it's high time we go on the offensive against this whole civilization; with a little coaxing the true colors of this authoritarian machine system come out quite plainly.
provoke the poverty-enforcers to panic!
disturb their false peace!
http://situationist.gq.nu

Sound familiar? It ought to.

See:

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/197806_comment.php#197833

To jim

What if you stop the fear mongering and stereotyping.
What if you present your observations instead of giving us "what ifs"?
The actions of the LAPD were unjustified no matter all the what ifs in the world.

The finger-pointing is happening all over the streets of L.A. Gangs, white anarchists, assholes. In our mad fury to find someone else to blame, we are all playing straight into the pigs' hooves. If we keep on like this, they will have a fall guy/girl. The whole f***ng city will breathe a sigh of relief, and not a damn thing will change.

The pigs were brutal, ruthless, violent mofos. Throwing tear gas bombs in the direction of children is not an appropriate response to a water bottle, no matter what. Beating people who were hanging out in the park enjoying the festival is racism at its baldest.

The pigs were doing everything they could to provoke what happened. If it wasn't the person with the water bottle, it would have been someone else--maybe me, or you. The pigs were pushing hard; someone would have gotten too close, looked at a pig the wrong way. It doesn't matter who threw the water bottle. THE PIGS STARTED IT. That much is clear, that's got to be the unified message.

DON'T GIVE THE PIGS AN EXCUSE. They had this planned, it was the same strategy as last year, and if we hand them anyone, they will get away with it.

The Big Pig is embarrassed and has called for an investigation. It will be a joke, a circus, but racist police brutality will stay in the news for a few extra weeks. If the pigs pick up a "perp," then it becomes all about anarchists, or gangs, or whoever they lock up.

BTW, my guess is that the pigs are wanting a gangster. They need fresh meat for Villaraigosa's public relations gang-busting strategy, V wants an excuse for being out of the country ("we were already working on the gang problem"). And anarchists are mostly white, so they won't let Bill and Tony blame the victims--the people of Mexican and Central American descent who's kids picked up a real-life pig encounter yesterday for their collection of childhood memories they can tell their kids about.

And finally, I'm very wary of anyone pointing at gang members, for the reason I just said. I was there, too. I saw people who fit the stereotype for gangsters. Maybe some were. There were tats, but I didn't check them out. But there were no waving colors (I saw a Lakers jersey, just like mine), no signs, no standoffs. If gangs were hanging, they played it cool, respected the families and the event. No trouble anywhere that would begin to justify what the pigs did.

Don't believe the hype!

Regardless of wether anyone instigated the cops. The police actions or reactions were inappropriate to say the least.

When an individual steals from a store, they arrest the individual responsible not all the potential customers. When a motorist evades police, they arrest the driver and the car's occupants, not everyone on the street or freeway.

Some of the images of people throwing objects and blocking streets ocurred after the police instigation, not prior.

But even if it is true that people (gansters or anarchists) threw objects at police before, and not as a result of the police's abuse of power, then the police needed to arrest those individuals, instead of attack the entire peaceful demonstration.

There is also not much to investigate. The video clearly shows protestors peacefully trying to obey police. The police assumed protestors knew what police wanted of them. Where they supposed to walk away? Run? Stay where they were? Put their hands up? March participants were not hear instructions on how to avoid getting hit by police batons and projectiles.

This incident occured in the LAPD Rampart division's territory, perhaps police from other parts of Los Angeles figured, "When in Rome (Rampart), do as the Romans (Rampart Police).

The police clearly abused their power. No investigation can justify their actions against innocent people.

The police are now being trained to make war on the American populace. They are gearing up for permanent Martial Law, and there is no doubt in my mind that many of these trained thugs are Free Masons who are bent on promoting their bosses goal which is complete subjugation of the average American citizen, upon the dismantling of the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution.

The 2nd Amendment will need to become an issue before too long. At the very least we will need to wear extensive protective gear whenever we attend anti-establishment demonstrations.

The police are now being trained to make war on the American populace. They are gearing up for permanent Martial Law, and there is no doubt in my mind that many of these trained thugs are Free Masons who are bent on promoting their bosses goal which is complete subjugation of the average American citizen, upon the dismantling of the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution.

The 2nd Amendment will need to become an issue before too long. At the very least we will need to wear extensive protective gear whenever we attend anti-establishment demonstrations.

sorry for the double post

I just saw the chief of LAPD on the news here in Atl. saying that maybe some of his guys were out of line and used excessive force. That smacks of cya.

Ok i'm not saying this didn't happen because i dont know but there is something wrong with this article because today is may 2 and it is only 4:58 P.M. obviously there is something wrong here if the person who wrote this can tell us the future before it happens.

this is the earliest article i could find on google, assuming the poster complaining about propecy was talking about my ealier comment.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269616,00.html
If he says "inappropriate", i'd read it as completely unprovoked.

es ridiculo la conducta de la policia de LOS ANGELES ,que tienen en la cabeza ahi estaban ninos madres embarazadas ,abuelos gente trabajadora no delincuentes , es imperdonable y el senor BRANSTON dice que va a revisar ,por dios son unos animales gracias ...

I'm sure the cops were videotaping. I'm also sure they know the gangsters in the area. So if these gangsters were fool enough to do anything, it'd be on tape. Get the guy on his 2nd or 3rd strike, and he's gone for a while.

The cops didn't care who did it. They know that by just standing there, they intimidate people. Their assertive stance arouses the fight or flight response in people, especially people who have endured previous police manhandling or clubbings. They understand the power of fear. It can cause someone to "fight", so they can stop feeling their own fear.

The children of the eco warriors in Britain will do their best to lead a peaceful Children's Revolution to overthrow the British governnment, and to try to set an example of how the same results can be achieved all over the world, to save the human race from being driven to extinction by global warming and climate change.

RE: "The police are now being trained to make war on the American populace. They are gearing up for permanent Martial Law......promoting their bosses goal which is complete subjugation of the average American citizen, upon the dismantling of the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution."

Except for maybe the "free masons" bit (in elipses) above, "Resist "is right on the mark. Like the US military sadist-perverts at Abu Graib and Gitmo (some of whom had or will have jobs in the US prison system), these, our fine jackbooted "fellow citizens" with their taxpayer financed cars, tazers and pensions are tacitly, if not explicitly, trained to err on the side of excess force, and for the long haul, by their masters.

With the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act and John Warner Defense Authorization bill as background, military and police authorities have explicitly stated that civilian police actions must converge with military operations, and that "civil disturbances" must be dealt with using military methods and means. This indicates that domestic political protests have become "training grounds" for more lethal and broad law enforcement operations to come.

Anyone care to look down into this pit? We are being "colonized", subjugated under a system of global full spectrum dominance within our own country. Democracy and the Constitution are already essentially jaded cliches, quaint and obselete notions.

Swift resort to brutal police actions also requires willing and efficient "instruments" to carry out such actions. Just as the military uses what are essentially "mind control" techniques to elicit maximum, predictable performance from its members, techniques like "enforced muscle memory", behavioral and even electronic and chemical methods of mind control are likely to be, or are already being, utilized to guarantee automatic, unquestioned obedience and performance from urban police forces.

Related, In this respect, are many disturbing questions surround the actions, timing and strategic ramifications of the young killer at Virginia Tech.

Events of police brutality like in L.A. can be deemed dress rehearsals for "the real thing" which we can assume has been long anticipated among "Homeland Security", FBI, NSA, NRO et al. aided by telecoms, Internet providers etc. This eventuality has certainly been conveyed to urban and local police authorities as the "clampdown" on domestic dissent and immigrants intensifies. It will be "justified" as resistance to the increasingly disproportionate use of force by military and police becomes widespread.

Having learned from the Nazis and Pinochet "final-solutionites", US Corporate-financial and state elites and their media and law enforcement organs will scapegoat any one or several groups--immigrants, anarchists, gangs, Black militants (Jews, communists, gypsies...)--handy and useful fodder with which to stoke public hysteria, disinformation and social control.

But now technology has enhanced corporate-state elites' arsenal of repression beyond anything the average person can imagine, everything from ELF, RFID, GWEN to narco-hypnosis have been under intense experimentation for decades and some of these technologies are already in play.

As with Blacks in Loundes County, Jackson and Selma up through the 60s, US immigrants, Muslims, the poor and middle class white dissidents alike, any who defy the new US fascist maximum security state, will "catch hell" as Malcolm X put it.

Meanwhile, urban police forces will do what they are paid and trained to do. Have no doubt that they will kill you when their masters so instruct.

I understand the goal in writing this article, but referring to police officers as "pigs" is simply not necessary and makes the acount seem less reasonable and accurate than it actually is. "Police", "cops", "Officers", etc will do just fine.

It came off about as polite as saying "A bunch of spics protested in the park today": Factually accurate, but open to being easily denounced and not taken seriously.

where is the freedom of speech? we are the rights of the people?, this cannot be happenin in this country and all of those who support that kind of actions from the police are a bunch of racists that cant understand that immigration is not a crime and at the end we are all immigrants, if there is anybody who can say that this country belong to them is the native americans...racist ignorants

quit the fraud about gangsters and other unsubstantiated posts about "the gangsters started it"

And you can complain to the management all you want.
#rd hand 'information' that merely supports the LAPD with out any backing evidence will be view as disinfo..
Join the collective and complain all you want.

This babbling baboon, Jim _Anarchrist_, is likely Jim _Gilchrist_, reduced to posing as the world's dumbest human being here at LA Indymedia after he, an accountant, got outted by his own people for massive theft and fraud against the minutemen.

Or maybe he's such stupid stupid minuteman that he thinks it's clever to borrow, "disguise," and (further) disgrace Gilchrist's name here. If you believe anything, even one purported "fact," this goof says, search on L.A. Indymedia for "anarchrist." and read what he's said. Start with his first post here. He calls gang members "chulos." Take it from there.

His pro-U.S., white supremacist rantings are straight out of the Minuteman handbook, and the big picture of his writings is downright silly. He's barfing up spiel about anarchists insulting gangsters, "glass bottles, batteries, plastic bottles full of piss" (a quote he borrowed from some rightwing rag, I'm not going to waste my time looking is up), anarchists moving to L.A. to gentrify downtown, his "experience" in the park. The point is a transparent third-grade effort to divide with disinformation.

FYI, "anarchrist" = without christ. Jim, you really shouldn't blaspheme your god like that.

Even through nonviolent communication and protest we are and have been the enemies of the state for wanting to expose and erradicate injustices. They are trained like soldiers to shoot at lifesize targets so when they get out into the field they want to apply what they have dedicated so much time lto earning. I saw this documentary called the Ground Truth. I found out about it when I was working alongside some Veterans for Peace down in New Orleans and they (the vets for peace) use this doc as a counter recruitment video. It shows exactly how this method of training people to kill without any emotional attachment turns good people into bad.(labels open to interpretation). Psychological research shows that when people feel less or no responsibility for their actions (e.g. when they are under the ommand of another) they are more likely to do things they ordinarily wouldn't. (An off duty police officer or soldier probably wouldn't approach or shoot at a guy in turban unless they were they had a higher authority to tell them to do so). Do they even know what they are fighting against? If they were able to think and question for themselves what it is they are against (fair wages, healthy/safe working conditions, open borders?) instead of allowing the greater system make those decisions for them, usurping their own capabilities for using their individual mental processes, creativity and imagination. What would a utopia look like to these people (no crime? no mexicans? no jews? NO SOCIALISTS and ANARCHISTS! to usurp their master plan of mass exploitation for the main objective of profiteering for a few.) I am sure many police and soldiers are a big fan of coexistence and no human being left hungry (given there is already surplus natural nutritional edibles) but they have forgotten how to act and think through what they believe.
Cops and soldiers are people too. We were born into a species that has some beautiful attributes such as rationality, imagination, creative and abstract thinking, and the ability to express compassion in a myriad of ways. Some are trained to leave these parts of themselves idle and dormant so they can work for someone else. Is giving up your mind worth feeding your family? If that is the only way to sustain oneself (because surely many police and soldiers would not be in the occupational position they are if they didnt have to), then many are unconsciously taking value and potential away from themselves and their capabilities to feed themselves. That is not fair!
So they are failing to do their jobs as people (open to interpretation) by failing to use themselves to their full potential. I hate the machine/robot analogy but its true. Are they doing their jobs as cops? as soldiers? as people as killers? as freedom fighters? do prisons do what they are intended to do? No, no, no, yes, no, no.
Police officers and soldiers are US laborers. They are under the same system for individual enterprise as the rest of us, but WHERE ARE THE POLICE LABOR UNIONS? WHERE ARE THE UNIONS FOR SOLDIERS? it is very dangerous and sticky work to be a police officer or soldier. your mind power is snatched and that to me is total violation of humans' natural biological rights. They too are under the threat of mind control. they may get nice salaries and benefits but what about the individuality that is stolen from them?
It's nearly impossible to change someones mind. That's something they have to figure out for themselves. It's such a shame how they place themselves on such a high pedastol and everyone who is not with them gets labled savages, uncivilized, unpatriotic, criminal, and threatening by their politics.
Fucking the police wont teach the police. It is unrealistic to think that one day we wont have police because we wont need them (although we can dream), but there can be a day when police and citizens without badges and clubs are not seperated by the threat of the other. Prolific essayist and professor Robin kelley, says how we must learn to bridge the gap between our wildest dreams and everyday realities. Imagine a society that is worth struggling for. THINK! IT'S NOT ILLEGAL YET

I think that the author of this article needs to stop downing the police department. They were all justifiable in what they did and how they went about doing it. I would like to see you in a police uniform against a riot of people throwing rocks and debris at you and see how you would handle it, for all of those people that are downing the department.

Uhh... it's more like a peaceful demonstration attacked by American Nazis with truncheons and riot guns and teargas under the color of law. For no reason save the expression of power and repression.

Actually it's more like a crowd of people who have entered the US illegally demanding that they not be required to obey the laws like every one else has to and expecting US citizens to surrender American sovereignty to them and the handful of neo-Marxist and/or anarchist provocateurs they allowed themselves to be maniupated by and expressing outrage that LAPD dared to call them on their rock and bottle throwing

You now are trying to say yet again that the LAPD were not in fact criminal in the violent actions they took, with the as yet unfounded rumor of anarchists having started the riot.
Very clear. You're another lap dog for the LAPD.
Or any other number of fascists. You're always here to support them.
And usually ending up in the hidden zone with the other garbage.

People have been driven to enter the U.S. because of North American economic policies which oppress the poor, enable corporations to pollute and rape the land with impunity, and dump subsidized food into foreign economies, destroying local farming so utterly that people (20 million corn farmers from Mexico--post-NAFTA, in fact) are driven to migrate to the hub of the Capitalist imperialist system that has shattered their indigenous and local lives.

To the fool who said "I'd like to see you in a police uniform" or some such thing, I would never don one, because I would patriarchal, mysoginist, hegemonic, homohobic, racist class of oppressors who protect the state and honor private property and the ruling class over the needs of the people--not always because they want to, but because they have decided to commit to inflicting this misery on their brethren to feed their children.

No, we do not "have to," nor is the state capable of making us. The vast, overwhelming majority of what the state considers to be "crimes" are never even detected, let alone punished. Propaganda to the contrary, like the cops shows on TV, are merely psy-war, aimed at scaring you into submission. Don't fall for it. Real life is not like TV. In real life, as long as you keep your mouth shut, and don't display your "ill-gotten" gains, your chances of being caught are minuscule.

To further educate yourself about this, a good place to start is Crime as Work by Peter Letkemann

Holy cow you guys -- what were you thinking? You know the environment in LA. It has not changed since 1962. They know what will happen at each one of these things -- why don't you? That is why they show up in riot gear. You show up thinking that you can speak against the system and not feel any repurcussions? You people need to read your history. I know some of you pine for the good ol' days of the Weathermen and the SDS and the Freedom Summer-type events and people like my man Stokely (well, he's not my man) You love to have your pariahs and martyrs to get behine the mike and cry and get all extemporaneous about. It is obvious that you have not realized that that time is past. The system -- passive representative democracy and partisan politics with the special interest groups and networked influences -- is even stronger now than it was then. And you are "shocked" when the "pigs" (when will you stop using that anachronism?) force you out of your -marijuana-groove-love-peace cycle! Less amazingly, while you say it smacks of oppression, it really indicates your lack of education. Get back to school so you can learn about how these things work without getting your melon knocked! Or -- hey get a job and raise your kids to be smarter than yourselves! If you think there is room for resistance in today's America (or "Amerikkka" if that is what your hippie mother taught you in your home-school commune), then you are wrong. When the world is the system, you can't change it from the outside. And you are definitely on the fringe.

Holy cow you guys -- what were you thinking? You know the environment in LA. It has not changed since 1962. They know what will happen at each one of these things -- why don't you? That is why they show up in riot gear. You show up thinking that you can speak against the system and not feel any repurcussions? You people need to read your history. I know some of you pine for the good ol' days of the Weathermen and the SDS and the Freedom Summer-type events and people like my man Stokely (well, he's not my man) You love to have your pariahs and martyrs to get behine the mike and cry and get all extemporaneous about. It is obvious that you have not realized that that time is past. The system -- passive representative democracy and partisan politics with the special interest groups and networked influences -- is even stronger now than it was then. And you are "shocked" when the "pigs" (when will you stop using that anachronism?) force you out of your -marijuana-groove-love-peace cycle! Less amazingly, while you say it smacks of oppression, it really indicates your lack of education. Get back to school so you can learn about how these things work without getting your melon knocked! Or -- hey get a job and raise your kids to be smarter than yourselves! If you think there is room for resistance in today's America (or "Amerikkka" if that is what your hippie mother taught you in your sacred-canopy home-school commune), then you are wrong. When the world is the system, you can't change it from the outside. And you are definitely on the fringe.

-not realized that that time is past-
Indeed it is. No longer held in the grasp of a controlled media, herded into the usual division of class and privilege, mankind can now find answers to a world criminality, 'educated' to work within the shadows of the security state with its attendant agents for the status quo. That's the kind of 'work' some do to serve the masters.