LAPD Beatings End Concert

Monday, August 14, 11:30 p.m. -- What began as a peaceful, festive march through downtown Los Angeles became violent tonight as police officers shot high-pressure water and pepper spray pellets at protesters, and later chased them down on horses while beating them with batons.

The afternoon's event began at Pershing Square, about half a mile from the Staples Center, where thousands of people converged for a march organized by Global Exchange around the theme "Human Needs Not Corporate Greed." A variety of speakers roused the crowd with speeches on issues ranging from labor rights to the prison-industrial complex, until the march finally stepped off at about 5:00. The march itself resembled a joyous political parade, with anti-nuclear group Peace Action carrying three enormous missile balloons labeled "Star Wars=New Arms Race." A local salsa band, East L.A. Sabor Factory, played on a flatbed truck, while indigenous American dancers performed in beaded costumes along the route. Hundreds of colorful puppets punctuated the crowd.

As the march wound its way to the Staples Center, the crowd swelled to several times its original size, as waves of people showed up for a free concert by Rage Against the Machine. They gathered in a paved lot only a few hundred yards from the Center which had been specially designated for protests during the week. With fifteen-foot high fences embedded in two-foot thick concrete barricades surrounding the entire perimeter of the Staples Center, there seemed to be little possibility of the crowd posing a real threat to the convention. The mood was generally one of joyous celebration and pointed, informed protest.

By the time Rage Against the Machine played, the lot was full and onlookers estimated the crowd to be upwards of 20,000, making it the largest protest so far during the Democratic National Convention. The band played about half a dozen songs to an exuberant crowd, with singer Zach de le Rocha, himself a well-known radical activist, shouting, "we have a right to oppose these motherfuckers" and directing everyone's attention to the convention center where thousands of delegates anxiously awaited speeches by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

When the band finished playing, a series of speakers took the stage to express solidarity with the U'wa people of South America, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the protesters in Philadelphia who have sat in jail since the Republican National Convention two weeks ago. A group of people began clustering against the fence on the north side of the lot, facing directly toward the Staples Center, behind which four rows of police officers stood in full riot gear, holding batons, pepper spray guns and other tactical equipment. A few people threw plastic water bottles over the fence, which popped on the ground and sprayed the officers.

A standoff that lasted at least an hour then ensued. While much of the crowd ambled off into the night, an estimated four thousand remained in the lot. A strange assortment of items found their way over the fence, including shoes, cardboard tubes, CD's, a handicapped parking sign, small bits of concrete and many plastic water bottles. In retaliation, the police opened fire at least five times on the protesters with pepper spray, which is shot in a capsule form that explodes on contact to emit a substance highly irritable to the eyes, nose and throat. In addition, they shot paintgun pellets, rubber bullets and water from a high-pressure hose through holes in the fence. A ranking police officer announced over a megaphone that the assembly had been declared unlawful, and that all those present were required to disperse or risk arrest.

The protesters remained steadfast, holding signs against the fence that called for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader's inclusion in the presidential debates and an end to corporate welfare, among other things. Two young people scaled the fence and straddled it, waving black flags that symbolize anarchy. They made no attempts to jump down on the convention side of the fence.