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


Two arrested during immigration protests
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
February 11, 2007

Two people were arrested Saturday when marchers supporting two jailed Border Patrol agents clashed with counter-protesters for immigrant rights on Hollywood Boulevard.

Police said they separated the two groups, which totaled several hundred people, after members of both sides began shouting expletives and shoving.

A man in his 20s was arrested for throwing a bottle that struck someone in the head, and a teenager was arrested for challenging a police officer to a fight, according to the Los Angeles Police Department's Hollywood Division.

Authorities said they did not know which groups those arrested were associated with.

The march was organized by several anti-illegal immigration groups, including The Minutemen Project and Save Our State, to encourage President Bush to pardon two agents convicted of shooting an unarmed man who fled after being caught smuggling 743 pounds of marijuana into the U.S.

Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean were sentenced last year to 11 and 12 years, respectively, for assault with a deadly weapon and violating the smuggler's civil rights.

Counter-protesters from the pro-immigrant group ANSWER accused the marchers of being racist and anti-immigrant.