"Today we say to America: We've come here to work: We clean your toilets!"

Thursday, May 03, 2007

"Something Went Wrong" Tuesday

More blowback following the near riot at the MacArthur Park pro-illegal immigration rally on Tuesday.

The LAPD is being severely criticized for an alleged use of "excessive force" by firing 240 rounds of foam bullets and using batons to clear pro-immigration protesters and media members from MacArthur Park.

LAPD Chief William Bratton - who was supposed to join Mayor Villaraigosa in El Salvador and Mexico - is still in town dealing with the mess. Not a good time for Bratton who was coasting to a renewal of another five years on his contract; indeed the Chief has admitted that some officers' actions may have been "inappropriate."

A two-phased internal investigation will be conducted to determine if Los Angeles police violated policy Bratton said. The Chief met with members of his command staff last night after seeing news footage showing officers in riot gear knocking protesters and some media members to the ground with batons.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, asked Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley to conduct an independent investigation into the officers' actions. City Council President Eric Garcetti said the Police Commission will also conduct its own probe of the incident.

Councilman Herb Wesson said the clash reminded him of confrontations between police and civil rights protestors in the South during the 1960s. "If there were dogs available, I would have thought that this great city of Los Angeles had been transported to Mississippi during the late `60s.'' Wesson told reporters "Something went wrong yesterday."

A number of television reporters including KTTV's Christina Gonzalez and KCBS/KCAL's Mark Coogan allege being attacked by police officers. The Society of Professional Journalists issued a statement expressing "grave concern" over how police officers acted towards members of the media. And yes, even La Voz de Atzlan had something to say.

And of course bloggers had plenty to say. Of course they wonder - as is everyone else - why did the Mayor leave the country just prior these turn of events?

5 comments:

Louis (Video Louis) Elovitz said...

I'M SORRY FOLKS, I TOLD YA!

Yes, I said MAY 1st is COMMIE DAY.

You and all those people

were fooled by the

"immigrant" moniker given to these

demonstrations.

Once YOU realize EVERY MAY

1st is "Intl.WORKERS DAY", an

annual Communist brainwashing,

then just MAYBE you might know

Communists are the agitators in

our Democracy which they want to

end, for their lame ideologies.

Central American radical anarchists

with their neighborhood gangs

of the Pico Union District

colaberated to create the violence

they have brought to OUR part of

America.

Oh, I do know the police have force

and when they say go, I do.

Anonymous said...

This should be on the front threat.

Antonio being the coward he is knew the violence was starting cause he was going to speak and decided not to around 4pm to get out of dodge. Gutless, spineless, balless asshole. Sid Garcia of Chan. 7is the only one stating the facts. He is saying how the cops were being assaulted with frozen water bottles, filled beer cans, rocks, bottles, and boards being thrown at them. You can kiss off any new recruits coming to LA when you have moron city council members speaking out instead of keeping their mouths shut before anything is complete. You have illegal lover Fabian also speaking out for his illegals. Then add to the fuel illegals are now demanding Bratton be fired. Only in LA can illegals who are breaking the law get away with this type of bullshit.

Anonymous said...

here's my Youtube report, including Herb Wesson, and council comments.

I've edited their hour long discussion down to 4 minutes, plus news footage and my public comment.

Anonymous said...

Why isn't anyone putting at least some of the blame with the organizers? Didn't they have some responsibility with the people knowing the violence was starting and didn't say a word to them to leave? Now Antonio's girlfriend Maria Elena is in the mix and the illegal supporter that she is making up shit. Does anyone know why Laura Chick N Shit is with Antonio in El Salvador? That dyke should be here doing her job auditing corrupt depts.

Anonymous said...

2001 - 2007: LAPD's Reign of Terror Unchecked

The brutal rampage by LAPD in McArthur Park on May 1, 2007 was culmination of a 6-year old secret but intricate policy by the Bush administration and local forces of the extreme right in reversing attempts to reform LAPD after Rodney King Beating and Rampart Corruption Scandal.

Los Angeles, May 3, 2007 -- In early 1999, the US Department of Justice under then-US Attorney General Janet Reno began an aggressive plan to impose reform upon LAPD. By the time the LAPD's Rampart Corruption Scandal became public in 1998, the Clinton administration knew that previous attempts to reform one of the largest police departments in the World had largely failed.

In June 1999, rumors began to circulate within the ranks of the LAPD and its powerful union (Police Protective League - PPL) that Bill Clinton and Janet Reno were about to implement drastic anti-corruption measures against LAPD. At the time, the LAPD and PPL alleged that these acts represented the federal government's attempt to "violate the LAPD’s 10th amendment rights" and interfere in LAPD's "internal affairs." These rumors, however, were not baseless. During 1999, Janet Reno's US Attorneys in Washington, D.C. were busy drafting a historic federal civil rights lawsuit against LAPD in which the Clinton administration was charging LAPD with "endemic corruption and systematic violation of constitutional rights of residents of Los Angeles." Additionally, at US DOJ headquarters at 950 Pennsylvania Avenue serious discussions were taking place about using the federal funding of the LAPD as leverage in imposing anti-corruption reform on LAPD.

Sensing the warning of the tsunami coming from Washington in their direction, the LAPD and its PPL began to brace for a defensive position. The LAPD and PPL knew that first they needed to secure the local front. They needed to get rid of Gil Garcetti, the Los Angeles County District Attorney who had begun to prosecute LAPD officers for corruption. In September 1999, LAPD and PPL funded and fielded Steven Cooley, a Republican, as their own candidate for the LA District Attorney position. LAPD and PPL knew too well that if they took over the District Attorney's office, they would at least be shielded from criminal prosecution on state charges. They remained, however, gravely concerned about what Bill Clinton and Janet Reno had in mind for LAPD.

In September 1999, the Republican Cooley began his PPL-funded campaign to unseat DA Garcetti. PPL was vehemently against Garcetti's criminal prosecution of LAPD officers. In his 1999-2000 camping against Garcetti, Cooley received more than $1 million from PPL while publicly speaking against police corruption in Rampart Corruption Scandal and criticizing Garcetti for not being forceful and efficient enough in his criminal prosecution of corrupt officers. Of course, Cooley was engaging in blatant public deception since he knew that he had received the $1 million from PPL to try to unseat Garcetti and shield LAPD officers from any further criminal prosecution.

On the federal level, significant developments were taking place. Janet Reno and Bill Clinton were putting their final touches on the draft of the federal civil rights lawsuit against LAPD. On October 11, 2000, then-governor Bush made the following statement in his televised debate with Al Gore in North Carolina: "One of my concerns, though, is I don't want to federalize the local police forces. I want to -- obviously in the egregious cases we need to enforce civil rights law, but we need to make sure that internal affairs decisions at the local level do their job and be given a chance to do their job. I believe in local control of governments, and obviously if they don't there needs to be a consequence at the federal level." Bush, however, knew that the LAPD's "Internal Affairs" was a source of corruption in itself.

On November 2, 2000, Janet Reno filed her historic anti-corruption lawsuit against LAPD in federal court in Los Angeles. LAPD was charged with systemic violations of civil rights, including, "having a pattern of arresting residents of Los Angeles without probable cause." SEE page 2 of the Complaint at: http://www.freemarje.com/US%20Fed%20Lawsuit%20v%20LAPD%2011-03-00.pdf

Necertheless, two historical events followed which reversed the course of anti-corruption attempts at LAPD for the following six years. In fact, these two events resulted in empowering and expanding the forces of corruption in the LAPD on a gigantic scale. On December 12, 2000, George Bush was declared as the new President of the United States. On November 7, 2000, Republican Cooley, with substantial backing from PPL, defeated Gil Garcetti. Cooley became the new District Attorney of Los Angeles on January 1, 2001. Within two weeks after taking office, he disbanded the special investigation office within the DA office Garcetti had set up to fight LAPD corruption through criminal prosecution of corrupt LAPD officers.

The above two historical events had drastic and severely detrimental consequences for the people of Los Angeles. On the federal front, the Bush administration brought the federal litigation against LAPD to a screeching halt. The management of the Federal Consent Decree by Ashcroft and Gonzales became a practice in public deception. All federal efforts to reform LAPD were abandoned and the Bush administration began to turn its face the other way as LAPD became more aggressive and emboldened in its rampage against those who came into contact with its unconstitutional and brutal forces. With full support from the Bush administration, police brutality, misconduct, deception, fraud, perjury, fabrication of evidence, and criminal activities by police officers achieved new high marks in the history of Los Angeles.

On local level, Cooley shielded corrupt LAPD officers from any and all criminal prosecution. No more LAPD officers were prosecuted. Even when an LAPD officer fired multiple shots at a 13-year-old boy backing a car at 2 miles per hour, the prosecutor Cooley refused to prosecute the liable LAPD officer for murder. When a disabled black teenager (Donovan Jackson) was beaten up by white LAPD officers on national TV, Cooley and LAPD conspired to prevent a Rodney King type of reaction from the public by deceptively putting the officers on a circus-style criminal trial while at the same time undermined the chances of conviction by removing a seasoned prosecutor and assigning a young lawyer with no experience in such prosecutions. By botching the trial, Cooley guaranteed that LAPD officers Jeremy Morse and Bijan Darvish would not be convicted. Cooley proved to be a loyal puppet of LAPD. He was aggressively bringing criminal charges against victims of police misconduct, knowing that winning criminal convictions against victims of LAPD misconduct prevented them from filing future civil rights lawsuits. In his reelection campaign in March 2004, Cooley received more than $1.5 million in campaign contribution, mostly from the LAPD's PPL. His closest opponent had collected $25,000. Cooley won his reelection to a second-term as the LA’s District Attorney.

During the 2001-2007 Bush-Cooley's reign of terror in Los Angeles, hundreds of victims of police brutality and police misconduct cases were charged with baseless and fabricated criminal charges. Cooley and LAPD worked together on fabrication and manufacturing of false evidence against victims. At the same time, LAPD's PPL had begun to finance the reelection of those state judges whom Cooley and LAPD enjoyed to work with. Hundreds were convicted and sent to prison. State convictions guaranteed that LAPD was shielded from future civil rights lawsuits. During the above period, no LAPD officers were ever charged with any crime arising from fabrication and false manufacturing of evidence.

An example of this policy of terror and criminal conspiracy is in the case of a Swedish woman and mother who was held in pretrial detention for more than four years (2002-2006) based on evidence fabricated by Cooley's DA office and LAPD. Despite four years of incarceration, the woman refused to plea guilty to the charges fabricated by LAPD and Cooley. The case had begun as a police misconduct case when LAPD officers had entered the woman's home without a warrant and by mistake had arrested her while she was unconscious from a wrongly prescribed medication. The officers had wrongly assumed the woman was suffering from an illegal drug overdose. Cooley filed criminal charges against the woman in order to cover up the LAPD misconduct. Further information on this case can be viewed at www.freemarje.com.

What happened in McArthur Park on May 1, 2007 was the culmination of LAPD's reign of terror under Bush-Cooley policy during 2001-2007. During the above period, the residents of Los Angeles were left defenseless against forces of the extreme right which implemented their policy of deception, fraud, and criminal conspiracy.

The events of May 1, 2007 showed that LAPD with the help of its financed puppet DA Cooley and under the protection of the Bush administration has succeeded in establishing a police state in the largest county of the United States, a jurisdiction ruled with the iron fist of a police junta composed of the LAPD, Cooley, and an army of 600 mostly corrupt judges who owe their reelections to financial contributions from LAPD's PPL. These judges know that without LAPD's money, they would not be reelected. For further information on how various intricate components of this police junta operate, see pages 19-26 at http://www.freemarje.com/Federal%20Complaint%20Filed%20Against%20Defendants.pdf.