May 5, 2007 5:26 pm US/Pacific

MacArthur Park Rally Draws Few Protestors

(CBS) LOS ANGELES A demonstration planned at MacArthur Park Saturday claimed about 30 police officers, soccer games, picnickers and strolling couples – but few protestors.

More than 100 persons inside the park were enjoying sunny and warm skies despite a threat from some anarchist group members to stage a "Retake The Park" rally at the busy greensward.

Police said one known activist was in the park with a bullhorn, but no disturbance was reported. Several persons who identified themselves as communists were passing out leaflets at the adjacent subway station entrance.

The peaceful day in the park unfolded as the president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League released letters blasting state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and City Councilman Herb Wesson for their criticism of police tactics during the May Day rally, when police opened fire with rubber bullets and clubber members of a largely-peaceful crowd protesting immigration laws.

Union President Robert Baker singled out Nunez for telling reporters that police officers had "wanted to do some target practice on some of the immigrants that were marching."

"Your words were dangerous and unethical," Baker chided in a letter released Saturday. "Fomenting crowds to distrust the LAPD encourages more of the kind violence that already plagues your district."

Baker also called on Wesson to apologize for comparing Tuesday's police tactics to Mississippi in the 1960s. "Police bashing that erroneously insinuates racial bias is not innocuous, even if it seems to temporarily mollify crowds of voters," the police union president's letter said.

Wesson's district includes the crowded Pico-Union and Westlake districts around the park, where the clash occurred.

The pamphleteers, from a radical bookstore in the Pico-Union District, said they had been temporarily prevented from handing out papers by the Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies who patrol Metrorail facilities. Deputies left the men alone after a few minutes.

"We're telling people we denounce this brutal attack from the police on protestors on MacArthur Park on Tuesday," said Tony Vargas, a Los Angeles man handing out the fliers.

On Tuesday, at least 10 demonstrators and credentialed members of the media and 15 police officers were injured in a confrontation that occurred in the park toward the end of a day of otherwise peaceful protests.

In the aftermath, the mayor and even Police Chief William Bratton criticized the behavior of the police who charged through a line of peaceful rally participants, after a few people on the fringe of the crowd began pelting officers with bottles and rocks.


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