May Day 2007 Statement
Cop Watch Los Angeles

On May 1, 2007 (May Day), Cop Watch Los Angeles participated in the march and rally organized by MIWON (Multi-Ethnic Immigrant Workers Organizing
Network) in McArthur Park. Our role during the march was to observe and
document police harassment and brutality, and to defend the people in
the community as well, at the request of MIWON organizers. As the police
began their attack on peaceful protestors, Cop Watch Los Angeles and other
community members directed families to safety, acting as a buffer between police and the people.

At no point did Cop Watch LA provoke the mass beating and shooting of
demonstrators that occurred on May 1st. There is no justification for the actions of the Los Angeles Police Department. In some cases, community
members attempted to defend themselves as they were being brutalized,
acting on their human instinct of self-preservation, by throwing water
bottles or food; this level of defense is far removed from the injurious
rubber bullets, beanbags and tear gas being fired indiscriminately into a park filled with thousands of people, including families, children and elders.

The attack commenced when the police disturbed a sacred indigenous ceremony by plowing their motorcycles into the participants. Armed with only angry words, Cop Watch LA members and the community took on a defensive position during the assault and posed no offensive physical threat to the police’s weapons and technology. Cop Watch LA does not control the imagination and will of other young people who want to take any sort of action against the police, or imitate our organization in an undisciplined manner. Our role was to defend those people and stand with them. Members from Cop Watch LA were heard saying, “We need to get children out of here, the police are about to attack.” There is also video footage of members putting their bodies on the line for the people to get them out of harms way.

Many organizations and media outlets have begun to place blame on youth and anarchists, asserting that throwing trash necessitates a full-scale police assault on peaceful protestors and families. Video footage from numerous angles and at several locations clearly discredits those accusations – it is unmistakable that the police are at fault.

Contacts from the Mayor’s office have confirmed that the attack on protestors and the community of Pico Union was pre-meditated due to the desire to test out months of counter-terrorism training and last year’s embarrassment, when the LAPD could not stop the people from taking the streets.

The strategy by the LAPD, the media, and even some “progressive” organizations has been to focus on Cop Watch LA as the direct cause of the May 1st incident is an attempt to get the people on the side of the state and to isolate CWLA from the communities we live in and organize in. This is the same tactics that were used by COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) to destroy organizations like the Black Panther Party, American Indian Movement, and other groups who focused on making fundamental change
in society. Today as we live under the Patriot Act, these tactics of the police state continue to go after anybody who resists the status quo. We hope that organizations and individuals don’t fall into the divide and conquer methods of the state.

The scapegoating of anarchists today is reminiscent of 1886 Chicago Haymarket Square Massacre in the first May Day ever celebrated, where
police instigated a massacre during a worker’s strike. The state blamed the anarchist organizers and railroaded eight innocent people into prison and hung four (while the other committed suicide).

We must also hold the organizers, organizations, and individuals who are
falling into this accountable. We have to stand on the side of the people, not the police state.

The mayor Antonio Villaraigosa found himself in El Salvador, on a trip, while this attacked happened right in the middle of the biggest concentration of Central American people outside of Central America. Then he has the nerve to guarantee Chief William Bratton a second term. They are both responsible for implementing this type of policing and repression that our communities are facing today.

This attack is not unprecedented! It has happened before and will happen
again – until we put a stop to it. In communities where populations are predominantly working class or unemployed people of color, police abuse and harassment is an everyday occurrence. For years, our communities have
struggled to overcome oppression at the hands of those sworn to “protect
and serve.” Still, death tolls and brutality cases continue to climb in the neighborhoods of South Central, Compton, Watts, Pico Union, Maywood and Boyle Heights.

Cop Watch’s main goal is to put an end to the injustices that plague our streets and to oppressive institutions like the Los Angeles Police Department.

We stand on the side of the people and always will.

Cop Watch Los Angeles

May 4, 2007

¡Ya Basta!

Statement Signed and Supported by:
- Youth Justice Coalition
- The Southern California Library for Social Studies & Research
- Revolutionary Autonomous Communities
- Asians for Jericho and Mumia
- Unity Mission to Free the 8...

To be included as a supporter for this statement please contact us at:
copwatchla@riseup.org

COP 1 : "This has to be the biggest beating we've ever given to anyone." Cop 2: "Does that include the Little Old Lady we bashed while she tried to cross the Street?"

Where is the proof of the LAPigD beating women and children??? Do you watch the news? Read the paper? Listen to the radio? Check out YouTube for MANY vidoes of this taking place. Even your precious FAUX News was on the other end of the baton! THEY even reported the truth, for once. Except this wasnt started by "anarchists" like they say, it was an indiscriminate, yet very organized attack on a very peaceful march/rally.
It totally baffles me your complete and total ignorance when asking such questions as to the proof. The proof is readily available, including police radio recordings.
You sound like a cop, or at least a pig sympathizer. We can smell it.

It is clearly evident from first hand reports that neither Copwatch nor any other contingent comprised of youth in any way provoked the brutality and gross violence aimed at brown families with children. NO people from oppressed groups EVER initiate violence against the oppressor - the oppressed are, by definition,the _Products_ of oppressive violence, in the first place, and to claim otherwise in this instance is to fly in the face of the testimony of trained observers whose politics nd integrity are above reproach, like that of Ernesto Arce of KPFK news, who made it abundantly clear that events _began_with the police provocatively and deliberately driving motorized vehicles into a crowd gathered for a traditional, sacred, Native ceremony.

The members of Copwatch should be considered as nothing less than what they are - people who are among the bravest defenders of our people

Juan Santos