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  1. #1
    Senior Member Dixie's Avatar
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    Clashes erupt with LAPD during evening immigrant rally at Ma

    Clashes erupt with LAPD during evening immigrant rally at MacArthur Park

    Tuesday, May 01 2007 @ 08:28 PM PDT
    Contributed by: Collin Sick
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    Tuesday's protests were generally peaceful most of the day, but the calm was broken by run-ins between police and demonstrators during an evening rally in MacArthur Park. Just after 6 p.m., some of the few thousand participants still in the park started throwing plastic bottles and rocks at police, said Mike Lopez, spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. Then, several dozen riot police, clad in helmets and carrying batons, started clearing the park, firing a few dozen volleys of rubber bullets into the crowd. No one appeared to be hit. A reporter saw at least three people struck by police batons.

    Tens of thousands of advocates for immigrant rights took to the streets in Los Angeles and the rest of the nation today, hoping that passion would offset the smaller turnout from last year's demonstrations.

    As they did last year, demonstrators waved U.S. flags and declared their desire to flex economic muscles despite their sharply lower numbers at a time when immigration issues continue on the Washington agenda.

    Tuesday's protests were generally peaceful most of the day, but the calm was broken by run-ins between police and demonstrators during an evening rally in MacArthur Park.

    Just after 6 p.m., some of the few thousand participants still in the park started throwing plastic bottles and rocks at police, said Mike Lopez, spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. Then, several dozen riot police, clad in helmets and carrying batons, started clearing the park, firing a few dozen volleys of rubber bullets into the crowd. No one appeared to be hit. A reporter saw at least three people struck by police batons.

    Several marchers and police officers were injured, Lopez said, adding that arrests were made but it was not known how many.

    A helicopter flew low over the east side of the park about 6:30 p.m. and sirens blasted as police ordered people out of the park, telling them they would be arrested if they didn't move out.

    The police formed a riot line across the park on the east side, forcing the crowd to move west in a big mass. Some of the participants were yelling at police, "You can't do this."

    About 6:45 p.m., police ordered the last people out of MacArthur Park, mostly news personnel and some marchers filming the police actions, declaring an "unlawful assembly."

    One of those at the scene, Hamid Khan, executive director of the South Asian Network, termed the police action "absolutely an atrocity" and said officers "overreacted." The police action had cut short several speeches, he said, as people left when the confrontation began.

    A police car blazing its lights about 6:50 p.m. -- still well before nightfall -- was bombarded by bottles and clothes as it passed. The line of police fired several volleys of the 37-millimeter to 40-millimeter "less-lethal munitions" from wide-barreled launchers resembling shotguns. People started running, while also throwing things -- from plastic bottles to palm fronds -- at Metro buses. One took a piece of wood and hit a bus.

    More police cars streamed north on Rampart and west on Sixth. In Lafayette Park, several police jumped out with batons and tackled some in the crowd, arresting someone in the big pile. They chased reporters away.

    Along with marches in California, demonstrations were reported in New York, Chicago, Detroit and Phoenix as protesters demanded a path for citizenship for an estimated 12 million to 13 million undocumented workers as well as other changes being negotiated within a Democrat-controlled Congress.

    In Los Angeles, a morning demonstration started on Olympic Boulevard at Broadway with a handful of protesters, but by midday at City Hall the crowd had grown to more than 25,000 people shouting "Si, se puede!" or "Yes, it can be done!" the Latino rallying cry for political power.

    "We have to show Congress that we're good people," said Blanca Duenas, who joined the crowd with her husband Jose. "We're here and we're not leaving."

    Los Angeles construction worker Andreas Meza, 41, was on his back earlier waving an American flag. A sign saying "Legalize Now," was pasted on the banner.

    "Government likes to have me like this. I don't want to be like this," said the illegal immigrant, who came from Mexico nearly 20 years ago. "I have necessities."

    The first of today's two demonstrations gathered steam through the morning as it moved along Broadway, yet even at more than 25,000 strong it remained far smaller that last year's demonstration, when about 650,000 poured through the streets of Los Angeles in the largest demonstration in the nation.

    "It's smaller than we anticipated," Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Louis H. Gray Jr. said at about 11 a.m. "Last year at this time, I'd say there were at least 300,000 to 400,000 people."

    Officials last year were caught off-guard by the size of the demonstration and were determined not to be surprised again. Plans were made to close roads, the police presence was beefed up and some owners closed their stores along the march route.

    The economic impact of the boycott was limited, though some stores in the area did less business than usual.

    Los Angeles is crucial to any national turnout because Southern California is home to more than 1 million illegal immigrants.

    Manuel Nunez, 40, a member of the Asociacion de Fraternidades Guatemaltecas, a network of hometown clubs that raises money for public works projects in Guatemala, said that last year all immigrants were encouraged to participate in the May 1 march.

    But this year, Nunez, an illegal immigrant who works in the construction business, said people were told to participate if they could "but not to risk losing their jobs."

    Last year's protests were emotionally fueled by Los Angeles students -- united in an electronic web of cellphone text messages and e-mails. They fled their classes to march and clog roads.

    This year, city, school district and church leaders urged students to stay in school, and the pleas seemed to have been heeded.

    About 600 students had walked out from less than a dozen Los Angeles Unified School District campuses -- far fewer than had been anticipated, the district reported.

    The largest group, according to district officials, came from Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, where about 150 students left. Students from all schools were being escorted by either school district police or school administrators and there were no reports of any altercations or accidents involving students.

    If needed, school buses will be sent downtown later in the afternoon to provide students rides back to their campuses, said district spokeswoman Monica Carazo.

    March organizers said part of the reason for the low turnout was confusion over the starting time. Originally, the march was called for 10 a.m., with a rally two hours later at City Hall. Some people thought the march wouldn't begin until noon.

    A second march began this afternoon at Vermont Avenue and 3rd Street and proceeded to MacArthur Park. More than 5,000 people were present.

    Cardinal Roger M. Mahony spoke briefly in Spanish to the crowd, which loosely lined the bowl-shaped park. Fifteen minutes after the cardinal's speech, a large portion of the crowd began to dissipate and 45 minutes after the start of the rally, the park was perhaps a third full.

    U.S., Mexican and Salvadoran flags whipped about in a strong cool breeze. The tinkling of ice cream vendors' carts mingled with the loud speaker harangues from the stage and the blasts of air horns from the crowd.

    In recent days, national organizers have been lowering expectations of this year's protests, saying that nothing could match last year's 1 million to 1.5 million demonstrators across the country.

    Last year, Congress was considering a draconian law that would have punished undocumented workers and those who help them. While there is no agreement on immigration reform this year, none of the proposals are as harsh as last year's.

    Organizers also say there was a growing fear among illegal immigrants to express themselves, caused by federal raids across the country.

    Immigration has divided the government and the nation for years.

    At the center of the issue is an estimated 12 million undocumented workers; some sources place the number at as high as 20 million. Many U.S. conservatives oppose what they call plans for amnesty that would involve those workers getting a path to citizenship. A coalition including some unions and businesses favor some form of legalization.

    Immigration reform failed last year in the Republican-controlled Congress, and the outlook is uncertain this year even with the Democrats in charge. President Bush has strongly backed immigration reform, often putting him at odds with lawmakers in his own party.

    The Senate is expected to debate immigration at the end of the month with the House debate coming later. There has been no agreement on the contents of a bill, but there is agreement that immigration should be decided this year before it gets stuck in the presidential election.

    The impact of today's demonstration was unclear because the numbers were lower than last year.

    In Chicago, tens of thousands of demonstrators were reported. As many as 10,000 to 15,000 turned out in Phoenix, while in southwest Detroit, which has a large Latino population, hundreds wore red and white and carried American flags to a rally.

    Hundreds of people gathered for the May Day rally in New York's Union Square. Some wrapped themselves in American flags as they held up signs that read: "Stop Raids and Deportations."

    Two hours before the march in Los Angeles, one of the busiest places in Little Tokyo was the Starbucks at the corner of 2nd Street and Central Avenue. The large number of parking enforcement officers and LAPD bike patrol officers boosted the crowd, but a sizable number of downtown residents were also waiting in line for their morning caffeine fix.

    David Morin, who moved to L.A. two days ago from Quebec City, Canada, was reading about the demonstration plans in the morning paper. Morin was among the lucky ones -- his new job is at a downtown ad agency only a few blocks away. To beat the crowds, he said, his boss told him to come in early -- before 8 a.m.

    The crowd kept Gabriela Grajeda, a 25-year-old Starbucks barista, from getting an early departure to her classes at Cal State Los Angeles, where she is majoring in child development. She usually travels by bus to school but today she arranged to ride with a friend in case the demonstration disrupted mass transit.

    Grajeda marched last year, but this year "I have classes and I don't want to miss them," she said.

    Staff writers Tami Abdollah, Jill Leovy, Michael Muskal, Charles Proctor, Sam Quinones, Joel Rubin, Molly Selvin and Daniel Yi contributed to this report. Staff writer Erika Hayasaki contributed from New York City.

    http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... -headlines

    http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.p ... 1202801508
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  2. #2
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    Contributed by: Collin Sick
    His parents were smoking something....
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  3. #3
    geekindapink's Avatar
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    Oh man, that is just great. I love it. John and Ken were having soo much fun today. Why can't they do these every day.

  4. #4
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by geekindapink
    Oh man, that is just great. I love it. John and Ken were having soo much fun today. Why can't they do these every day.
    Listened to John and Ken also. What a show! They had a reporter down there at the park where the trouble broke out. Sounded like it was due to those masked goons, who are they anyway? They show up at every event in CA it seems.
    The reporter also said Mayor Villaraigosa was expected to come speak but didn't and some were angry about that.
    Turnout was low here. Last year around 51,000 student protested but this year it was around 1,000.
    And traffic was normal so the roads weren't open like last year.
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    Senior Member pjr40's Avatar
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    The local TV networks in LA reported the marchers numbered between 5 and 10 thousand. A tiny fraction of last years carnival.

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  6. #6
    geekindapink's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jean
    Quote Originally Posted by geekindapink
    Oh man, that is just great. I love it. John and Ken were having soo much fun today. Why can't they do these every day.
    Listened to John and Ken also. What a show! They had a reporter down there at the park where the trouble broke out. Sounded like it was due to those masked goons, who are they anyway? They show up at every event in CA it seems.
    The reporter also said Mayor Villaraigosa was expected to come speak but didn't and some were angry about that.
    Turnout was low here. Last year around 51,000 student protested but this year it was around 1,000.
    And traffic was normal so the roads weren't open like last year.
    The Bandana people are the Socialist Anarchists. They are usually bused in from other parts of the city. They show up for all the immigration stuff, and are really the only bad seeds in the protests. I think had these idiots not made police use the riot tactics, the news coverage would be much more pro immigrant. Instead news reports are actually reporting the low turnout and the violence at the end.

    The Best part of John and Ken was when they played the tape of the mexican guy who went on an anti John and Ken rant Priceless.

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