UPDATE

Demonstrators Hire Guards for Protection During Protests



By MARGARET RAMIREZ and RICHARD WINTON, Special To The Times<

Demonstrators this morning hired security guards to protect them from police, but there was no recurrence of the violence between officers and protesters that erupted Monday night at a rock concert outside the Democratic National Convention.

"I think there is definitely a concern about the violence that happened last night," said Adalia Garcia, a third-year Loyola Law School student and one of the protesters.

Garcia said about two dozen security guards were hired to flank 500 protesters who marched up 1st Street to the downtown Ronald Reagan State Building. Among the group were college students, young women who might be especially vulnerable to physical assaults by police, she added.

"I did feel that police response last night was excessive," said Garcia, 25. "I was hit twice with rubber bullets while I was trying to leave the area."

The demonstrators shouted "schools, not jails!" as a reggae band played from the back of a truck that accompanied the group. One of their demands was to shift spending from prisons to education.

Another demand by the group was that authorities forgo building schools such as the downtown Belmont Learning Complex, a half-finished, $200-million high school that has been shuttered because of environmental problems. The ghostly looking structure has come to represent ineptitude in the 700,000-student urban system, the second largest in the country.

Wearing T-shirts that said "Justice for Youth," many in the crowd danced around a giant puppet of California Gov. Gray Davis.

Ramon Martinez, a first-grade teacher at Utah Street Elementary School in Boyle Heights, about two miles east of downtown, said the group of mostly teenagers and young adults wanted to end "the racist setup" of public education in California.

When four women draped a banner over a downtown overpass of the 110 freeway, police ordered them to remove it. The women quickly whisked the banner off and hustled off the bridge. The sign said, "Justice For Youth."

California Highway Patrol spokesman Stan Perez claimed the banner was part of an unsuccessful attempt to close down the freeway, "which is exactly what our intelligence said they would try to do at exactly this day and time."

Perez said the CHP had hundreds of officers stationed throughout the metropolitan area to prevent something like that from happening.

Andrea Castelli, 24, of San Francisco, was one of the four young women who held the banner over the freeway. She had been at the rock concert that turned violent Monday night.

"I think they're [police] more apt to be violent today," Castelli said of police.

But Rashead Price, a muscular 30-year-old from Los Angeles who watched the demonstration at the state building, commended LAPD officers for "keeping their cool."

"I believe in a nonviolent approach," he said.

In a second demonstration this morning, about 200 people gathered at Pershing Square, the city's downtown park and rallying point, to hear speeches before taking to the streets to march on behalf of women's issues.

"We grow most of the world's food and then cook it," said marcher Margaret Prescod, in a voice gone hoarse after Monday night's chaos. "We give birth to the whole world's population and then we raise it. . . . Women are producing $16 trillion worldwide. That is $16 trillion that is stolen from us by the multinational corporations."

The crowd at Pershing Square ranged from "raging grannies" to young women in tank tops. They held signs that said "Stop the War on the Poor," "Economic Justice for All Women" and "Everyone Who Works Deserves a Paycheck."

Demonstrating against racism, a third protest group marched from MacArthur Park, about two miles west of downtown Los Angeles, to the Staples Center convention site.

Clementina Sanchez, one of the 350 demonstrators and a mother of five, listened as leaders of the Bus Riders Union decried the inadequacies of Los Angeles bus service before the march got underway.

"They don't care about Latinos, blacks and poor people," she said in Spanish. "I'm old, I'm tired. The buses are no good. Service is no good. Sometimes, they're broke. Sometimes, they're late."

Los Angeles police and their critics disagreed this morning over the appropriateness of the forceful police response to Monday night's melee outside the opening session of the convention. The fracas broke out as President Clinton was speaking inside Staples.

Ten people were arrested and several people--including an American Civil Liberties Union attorney and homeless activist Ted Hayes--were injured when police fired rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear gas during the violence that erupted after the Rage Against the Machine concert. Hayes and an unidentified 21-year-old man were hospitalized overnight.

The trouble began in the protest zone across from the Staples Center convention site after a small group of people began throwing rocks, chunks of concrete and bottles at police. A few people tried to climb a security fence and others started several minor fires.

"The LAPD displayed incredibly poor judgment in their response to the illegal behavior of a handful of attendees at the concert," the ACLU said in a prepared statement. "Protest leaders acted swiftly to try to stop that illegal behavior. . .

"The police intervened with a heavy hand, shutting off the event's power and entering the protest zone on horses and in riot gear to disperse the crowd using batons and shooting rubber bullets and tear gas. Had the police cooperated with the rally organizers, the night could have ended calmly."

James Lafferty, executive director of National Lawyers Guild in Los Angeles, said during a downtown news conference that Monday night's reaction by the LAPD "demonstrated once again why it has the reputation in this country of being the most corrupt, the most brutal, the most unprofessional and--we must add to that--the most cowardly police department."

However, LAPD officials said they were pleased with their officers' performance Monday night. LAPD Chief Bernard Parks said the ACLU wasn't being objective in its criticism.

Parks called Monday's police tactics "a measured strategic response, undertaken with consideration of the safety and security of all involved.

"The response was conducted with absolute regard for the constitutional rights of all the participants in this incident . . . and [it was] appropriate for the situation," Parks said.

Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, a longtime police supporter, agreed.

"I think they acted with restraint," he said. "They didn't use deadly force."

Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who was an activist and protester in the Bay Area during the 1960s, wondered whether police had given Monday night's demonstrators enough time to disperse before moving against them.

"There is concern about anybody being shot [with rubber bullets], because it could have been avoided," Goldberg said.

LAPD Cmdr. David Kalish, a spokesman for the department, emphasized that, before the clash, police and protesters had largely coexisted peacefully.

"As we look at the last couple of days, we saw first on Sunday a large demonstration and march that lasted for several hours and there were few incidents," said Kalish. "Yesterday, we had three marches with close to 10,000 individuals . . . and there were only nine arrests."

"Unfortunately, at the end of the day, things changed. . . . Large pieces of concrete were ripped out of the ground; large metal street poles ripped out of the ground, reportedly some slingshots were fired. People threw containers filled with some sort of caustic chemical. . . . Some reported bottles of urine thrown at officers. And also, as you all saw, some of the individuals started to light fires in the area.

"They began climbing over the fence. As you saw, they tried to unravel the fence. Finally, it required the police to respond," he said.

"The decision to disperse the crowd was based on the level of violence in the crowd."

Other convention-related events scheduled for today include an "Education in America" discussion in Beverly Hills; a women's health-care luncheon at trendy Spago restaurant in West Hollywood; a rally opposing sanctions against Iraq at the protest zone; and a downtown ride-by from Critical Mass, an environmental bicycle group protesting the use of automobiles.

There are fun and games too. Democrats on the House and Senate Commerce committees have been invited to Dodger Stadium to dine on hot dogs and take a few swings at home plate.

Inside the convention hall, the theme will be "You ain't seen nothing yet." Featured speakers include the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley and Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. of Tennessee.