LOS ANGELES — On the night of August 14, cops showed off their months of anti-protest training for the Democratic National Convention. Police shot high-pressure water and pepper spray pellets at protesters on a peaceful, festive march through downtown Los Angeles, and later chased them on horses while beating them with batons.
The afternoon's events began at Pershing Square, less than a kilometre from the Staples Center, site of the Democratic convention. Thousands of people converged for a march organised by Global Exchange on the theme "Human Needs Not Corporate Greed". Speakers roused the crowd with speeches on issues ranging from labour rights to the prison-industrial complex.
The march finally stepped off at about 5pm. It resembled a joyous political parade, with three enormous balloons labelled "Star Wars = New Arms Race", a local salsa band playing on a flatbed truck, indigenous American dancers performing in beaded costumes along the route and hundreds of colourful puppets punctuating the crowd.
As the march wound its way to the Staples Center, the crowd swelled to several times its original size as waves of people showed up for a free concert by Rage Against the Machine.
They gathered in a paved lot which had been specially designated for protests during the week. With 4.5 metre high fences embedded in 60 centimetre thick concrete barricades surrounding the entire perimeter of the Staples Center, there seemed little possibility of the crowd posing a threat to the convention.
By the time Rage Against the Machine played, the lot was full, and onlookers estimated the crowd to be upwards of 50,000. The band played about half a dozen songs to an exuberant crowd, singer Zach de le Rocha, himself a well-known radical activist, shouting, "We have a right to oppose these motherfuckers" and directing everyone's attention to the convention centre, where thousands of delegates awaited speeches by Bill and Hillary Clinton.
When the band finished, speakers took the stage to express solidarity with the Uwa people of South America, Mumia Abu-Jamal and the protesters in Philadelphia.
A group of people began clustering against the fence on the north side of the lot, facing directly toward the Staples Center, behind which four rows of police stood in full riot gear.
While much of the crowd ambled off into the night, an estimated 4000 remained in the lot. A strange assortment of items found their way over the fence, including shoes, cardboard tubes, CDS, a handicapped parking sign, small bits of concrete and many plastic water bottles.
The police opened fire at least five times with pepper spray, which is shot in a capsule form that explodes on contact to emit a substance highly irritable to the eyes, nose and throat. In addition, they shot paint-gun pellets, rubber bullets and water from a high-pressure hose through holes in the fence.
A ranking police officer announced over a megaphone that the assembly had been declared unlawful, and that all those present were required to disperse or risk arrest. The protesters remained steadfast, holding signs against the fence that called for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader's inclusion in the presidential debates and an end to corporate welfare, among other things.
Two young people scaled the fence and straddled it, waving black flags. They made no attempt to jump down on the convention side of the fence. The police reinforced their lines several times. Even the police with paint-guns had tear gas pellets which they could load into their guns at a moment's notice.
The protesters made a bonfire in the street, played drums and chanted while the police intermittently attacked them through the fence. Dozens of people watched the events unfold from balconies of the convention centre, but only a handful of reporters from the establishment media were present at the time, since it coincided with the Clintons' speeches.
After about an hour, about 20 police on horseback charged at the remaining few hundred protesters, many of whom were trying to leave the area when they were cornered. The horses stamped on people and chased them as the mounted cops swung their batons and yelled.
At one point, four young Mexican-American men were thrown up against the fence by a cluster of horses while the mounted police beat them repeatedly with batons.
Amidst torrents of screams and youths running desperately in every direction, giant television screens on the exterior of the Staples Center broadcast President Clinton delivering his address. "America is more confident, hopeful and just, more secure and free", he said, "because we offered a vision and worked together to achieve it".
Once the area was completely empty, the convention let out and delegates saw no evidence of what had happened besides some water bottles on the ground and riot cops standing at attention.
BY JENNIFER BLEYER
[Abridged from <http://www.indymedia.org>.]