Mayor and Police Sweep Occupy LA Off the Streets

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright December 2, 2011
All Rights Reserved.                                         

               When street protestors occupied the Wall Street’s ZuccottI Park in Lower Manhattan Sept. 17, a new movement began, railing against the kind of rapacious capitalism that leaves a growing numbers of college graduates unemployed.  Organized by Canddian-based Adbusters, a handful of organizers orchestrated disenfranchised students and homeless to launch formal protest around the country.  Only hours after New York activists marched on the Brooklyn Bridge Oct. 3, billionaire media mogul and New York Mayor Michael Bloom cracked down.  It didn’t take long for the New York Police Department to sweep demonstrators off the bridge, citing traffic concerns.  Days later, activists in Los Angeles camped out at the park next to Los Angeles City Hall.  Instead of demonstrating, activists set up Oct. 2 a kind of homeless encampment in front of city government.

            For nearly two months, activists used City Hall as home base for street protests airing grievances about a wide variety of social and environmental issues.  Homeless activists and street people gravitated to City Hall at the Los Angeles encampment, serving as a magnet for legitimate demonstrators but also hosting homeless, hoodlums and garden-variety criminals.  Elected officials were eventually forced to deal with a public safety problem, opting to end the encampment and shift First Amendment operations to the steps of Los Angeles City Hall.  “This has been declared an unlawful assembly,” announced at LAPD officer just after midnight Nov. 30, giving protesters 10 minutes to disperse.  Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa insisted the dispersement order was lawful but produced no court order declaring the unlawful assembly by Occupy LA protesters.

            Demonstrators’ constitutional rights have to be weighed against risks to public safety, cited as the primary reason by city officials for dispersing the Occupy LA encampment.  “The world is watching last night,” said LAPD Chief Charlie Beck.  “What the world saw was an elegant operational plan that was brilliantly executed by America’s best police force,” said Beck, tooting his own horn but failing to see the real images broadcast around the planet.  TV viewers actually witnessed and ominous display of paramilitary force used to crush what appeared as a peaceful assembly.  Black and white-suited officers with truncheons, semiautomatic pistols and shotguns, clad in body armor, face shields, bulletproof vests and other riot gear, approached defenseless protesters with fierce authority before wholesale arrests and forceful evictions.  TV watchers saw a very different picture than Chief Beck.

            Watching LA’s “finest” move in with relentless force and pluck demonstrators off the streets kicking-and-screaming demonstrated not restrained and measured force but heavy-handed police tactics.  ”The activists fundamental rights were respected, and the result was a peaceful and orderly end to the encampment at City Hall,” said Villaraigosa, hoping to avoid the public floggings that resulted when the LAPD cracked heads and beat protesters with impunity at a peaceful-turned-violent MacAurthur Park rally for immigration reform May 1, 2007.  Former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton was forced to apologize profusely, discipline officers and pay out millions in damages for police misconduct.  While the LAPD avoided beating protesters, they still showed the world a brutal show of police force and hypocrisy of American tolerance for peaceful demonstrations.

            Arresting around 300 demonstrators last night, the LAPD deployed about 1,400 riot-control officers, showing the world how U.S. police departments deal with otherwise peaceful protests.  Preaching tolerance, peaceful protesting, civil and human rights around the globe, the U.S. is the first to condemn countries like Communist China for the crackdown at Tiananmen Square April 15, 1989 when the world watched the Peoples Republic of China roll tanks over pro-Democracy demonstrators.  Chinese officials must be gleeful watching the LAPD crack down on Occupy LA protesters, especially because they’re protesting capitalism’s most vile behavior:  Wall Street’s egregious manipulation and relentless attack on small investors.  “The people united will never be defeated,” roared the LA crowd while the LAPD swooped down and crushed otherwise peaceful street demonstrations.

            LAPD’s street cleaning operation last night showed the world the limits of peaceful demonstrations under the First Amendment. When city officials get fed up, they simply declare demonstrations “unlawful” and move-in with riot-equipped and crowd-controlled police operations.  Whether city officials had any valid court order to clear the streets is anyone’s guess.  Coordinated street-clearing efforts around the country, like the one in Philadelphia, suggest that the public health reasons cited by city officials were bogus.  Pro-Democracy protests around the globe, especially the one going in at Tahrir Square in Cairo, look to the U.S. for guidance.  When demonstrators around the world see peaceful protests squelched in the U.S., it hurts all pro-Democracy movements. Killing peaceful protests at home damages credibility overseas and makes the U.S. look weak and hypocritical.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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