LAPD Blinks in the Face Off With Immigrants

“The immigrant reform movement managed to do something that no one in Los Angeles had seen or even believed could happen. It forced the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles city officials to back down. The brutal, and widely broadcast, assault by LAPD tactical squad officers on news reporters, innocent family members and bystanders at the May 1 immigrant rights rally at L.A.’s MacArthur Park drew an agitated LAPD Chief William Bratton to express grave concern over the police action. He called the level of force the officers used inappropriate, urgently requested an FBI probe, and promised to do everything he could to try to patch things up with immigrant rights organizations.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who until the clash, was Bratton’s biggest cheerleader calling him the finest police chief in the nation, cut short his Central American junket and scurried back to Los Angeles. The officers who brutalized the crowd, he vowed, would be punished. Along with Bratton, the sharp and angry reaction of L.A. city officials and top LAPD brass was in stark contrast to the way the LAPD has handled past violent clashes with protestors. They almost always duck and dodge culpability, blame the demonstrators for the violence, and mount a massive PR campaign to sell the public and city officials that the department did everything by the book and was guilty of no wrongdoing. Each time, compliant city officials rally round the department and praise its exemplary professionalism.
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