Peaceful Protest, Violent Response: LAPD’s Legacy Continues
A few months into our first year of high school, my friends and I made our way from suburban New York to our first solo trip to The City. We departed our bus at the Port Authority Bus Station and walked the few blocks to Madison Square Garden, our tickets to see the band Rush in hand.
Before entering we took the time to take in the busy atmosphere in the plaza in front of the famed arena. Mixed in with commuters rushing to catch their trains at Penn Station, which is located beneath The Garden, concertgoers traded with street vendors selling counterfeit T-shirts, ticket scalpers tried to unload unsold inventory, and political activists tried to recruit new adherents using Neil Peart’s lyrics as a hook.
Suddenly, the atmosphere took a negative turn as a fight broke out within the crowd. Out of nowhere, a large contingent of policemen appeared. They quickly focused on the problem, solved it, and then disappeared. Everyone returned to their previous activities.
When I moved to Los Angeles a few years later I quickly learned that the LAPD approached policing differently. Under Daryl Gates, the Department was regularly featured on local newscasts using its military hardware and “extreme force.” This included the Battering Ram, a six-ton armored vehicle that in its first, highly publicized use, knocked down a single-story home’s front wall to expose three young children eating ice cream with their mothers.
At one of the first concerts that I attended in my new home, Van Halen’s Monsters of Rock at the Colosseum, LAPD officers were not hidden out of sight like their New York counterparts. Instead, they did their best to intimidate the crowd, their contempt of the long-haired metalheads apparent in their interactions. One frisked me head to toe, even though I was wearing shorts. When the crowd got unruly during the Metallica portion of the show, the police cut the sound. When the band was allowed to start again, concertgoers struggled to hear the band over a hovering LAPD helicopter.
Decades later, little has changed about the LAPD’s approach to crowd control. As my family descended into the North Hollywood Metro Station on Saturday morning for the trip Downtown for the “No Kings” protest, we were met by a gaggle of LA’s finest. The parking lot was still mostly empty, but the LAPD officers were out in force, standing over the turnstiles as each person swiped their way into the system.
As we emerged from the subway on the other side of our trip we were met with a line of police vehicles parked along Hill Street. The number of officers far outnumbered the number of people walking along the street.
Interestingly, that would be the last we would see of the police for most of the time we spent at the protest. Armed National Guardsmen punctuated some street corners and a phalanx of them protected a driveway entrance to the federal courthouse that was already secured shut, but the only other LAPD officer we saw was a single patrol car parked on the 110 onramp that we marched past.
As we joined the crowd gathered at Gloria Molina Grand Park, we found the mood to be festive. Despite the horrors of the past week, with Trump unleashing fear upon immigrant communities and using the military against those who protest his actions, the thousands assembled in protest seemed to gather positive strength from being with others who shared their concerns. I openly wondered if Trump’s insurrectionists on January 6th, 2021, also had carried bubble machines or if they were content with their nooses and bear spray.
I suspect that the signs carried by the “No Kings” protestors were more creative than the ones used by their MAGA counterparts. Some made me think, others made me laugh, and the best did both. The most biting declared: “Elect a rapist, expect to be f###ed.”
As we stepped into the street to join the march we were propelled by music. The chants may have betrayed the anger that lay below the surface, but they were fun. At no time during the entire event did I fear for the safety of my family.
The sense of community was evidenced in the willingness of others to volunteer help to strangers. Facing the obstacle of a high curb along the route, a group came together to help my wife, who was using a wheelchair. Several people offered to help me push her up a steep hill.
Wanting to get lunch before we made the return trip to the Valley and knowing that continuing with the march as it passed the federal detention center carried some risk, we left the group before the violence that occurred later in the afternoon. From media reports it seems that the level of escalation lies at the hands of a police department that in times of crisis resorts back to its militaristic instincts.
When a few members of the crowd began throwing projectiles at police officers, the LAPD skipped over any de-escalation tactics at their disposal and immediately issued dispersal orders for the entire crowd, including peaceful protestors. They then proceeded to knock “demonstrators to the ground, [charge] into the crowd on horseback, [shoot] them with rubber bullets and [beat] them with long sticks.” Video clearly shows police officers inflicting this violence even as the crowd moves as directed.
Included among the victims of this violence was at least one reporter. According to the Patch, he was fired upon with rubber bullets at close range.
Reporters seem to be a favorite target of police during their response to these protests. Earlier in the week, an officer calmly aimed and shot an Australian reporter as she reported live on air. Politicians have expressed Susan Collins levels of concern over the incident but have not reported any action against the criminal actions by the officers. This does not seem like a department that is either interested in holding people accountable for committing violence or ensuring that people have a right to protest peacefully.
Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, and serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.