Los Angeles, California, Aug. 16— Outside of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) this past week, thousands of demonstrators from around the world took to the streets to march, demonstrate, and protest against a party many of them say is politically indistinguishable from the Republicans. The demonstrators represent what many are saying is a growing groundswell of contempt for a democratic process that has been “hijacked by corporate influence.” On Monday evening, as President Bill Clinton smiled and spoke to an adoring crowd of Democrats, LA police attacked thousands of people who had gathered outside of the Staples Convention Center to watch the band Rage Against the Machine give a concert in support of the demonstrations. Numerous injuries were reported from the baton blows, tear gas, pepper spray, concussion grenades, and rubber bullets fired on the crowd of almost 9000 people.

The festivities began on Wednesday when protesters tried to march into a local Democratic Party headquarters with a list of civil rights demands ranging from stricter environmental standards to amnesty for illegal immigrants, but security guards blocked them from entering.

“How many corporations have been turned away from the (Democratic Party’s) doorstep today?’’ activist Kevin Rudiger asked. “It’s no secret that our politicians are bought and paid for by corporations.”

The next day an LA judge issued a restraining order preventing police from raiding the headquarters of activists who were planning mass street protests during the next week. The temporary restraining order forbade police from entering the “Convergence Center” without a warrant and from seizing giant puppets, posters and placards that dozens of activists had been making inside. Just two weeks previously, FBI and Philadelphia police had, without warning or legal justification, made such political crafts-making illegal, and arrested over eighty activists in a police raid and round up.

Sunday, August 13 saw an over 5000-strong march through downtown LA for death row prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal and a call for an end to the death penalty. Gloria La Riva of the International Action Center noted that Texas Gov. George W. Bush is set to execute 10 more people before December.

“Gore and the Democrats are just as responsible for every execution in Texas,” La Riva said. “President Clinton signed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which is what has prevented Mumia and others on death row from gaining a new trial.”

Other speakers linked the prison system’s brutality and injustice to US policy abroad.

The US government “kills women and children in Iraq and kills people in the United States, even if they are mentally disabled or under 18, even if malfeasance and mistrials are horrendous,” actor Edward Asner said. “Until Mumia is granted a new trial, we will continue to watch the Al Gores laugh up their sleeves while the George W. Bushes inexorably march the young, the disabled and quite possibly the innocent to their deaths.”

“Of 3,600 people on death row, 70 are juveniles,” Abu Jamal’s lead attorney Leonard Weinglass said. “The US is the only country of the world to execute its youth.”

It is only poor people who end up on death row, added Steve Rohde, president of the Southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“They call it capital punishment, because if you don’t have the capital, you get the punishment,” Rohde said. “Over one-third of those on death row never had a lawyer.”

The following day was a festival of protest with numerous marches, speeches, rallies, panel discussions and entertainment. The festivities appropriately culminated outside of the Staples Center as demonstrators and non-demonstrators alike came to hear a set of the band Rage Against the Machine while the delegates to the DNC came to welcome the president. After the band performed their set and the next band was about to begin, the scene outside became chaotic with thousands of people running amok, fleeing an intensive barrage of police weaponry, with many cops storming through the crowds on motorcycles and horseback.

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People caught up in the melee say cops didn’t give the crowd enough time to clear the area before opening fire with rubber bullets. The American Civil Liberties Union is now threatening legal action over the incident.

Currently in dispute is the cause of the police action. Cops claim that they were provoked by concert attendees who police say hurled water bottles and stink bombs at them. Still, many eyewitnesses have reported that the police were already noticeably anxious before their assault, and that they were looking for an excuse to herd people away in time for the Democratic delegates to leave the convention center. Video of the incident taken by the Independent Media Center shows that just 14.5 minutes after the final warning, riot police advanced on the crowd, firing rubber bullets, canisters of pepper spray, and beanbag pellets.

“They came in blazing,” says Devin Asch, a 20-year-old photographer who was documenting the concert for the IMC. “There’s no way people could have gotten out before the gassing began.”

Scores of protesters and numerous innocent bystanders were struck. Among those injured were homeless advocate Ted Hayes, who was hopitalized after being struck in the chest by a rubber bullet at close range, and an 11-year-old boy who came to the concert with his father.

Also caught in the crossfire was Tracy Robson, a 34-year-old social studies teacher, who came to photograph the demonstrations for her class. “I was walking with a group of 20 or 30 people with our hands up to show that we were leaving peacefully, and the next thing I know, I got hit,” says Robson, displaying a bloody, golfball-sized welt on the back of her shoulder. “It felt like being hit by a baseball thrown by a major league pitcher.”

“This is what a police state looks like!” a protester shouted at the police.

While 200 or so anarchists attempted to hold their ground, witnesses say many other concertgoers were pinned in the protest zone as mounted police and scores of armed riot cops advanced from opposite directions.

“We had a right to be here,” says Paul Belosic, 26, of Los Angeles. “Instead, it was chaos, with children being shot with rubber bullets.” Belosic says he was struck on the back with a baton after police cornered him and several other demonstrators under a freeway overpass, five blocks outside the protest zone.

Becky Johnson, a 46-year-old homeless advocate from Santa Cruz, says she was struck on the back by a baton after buying a hot dog outside the convention center. According to Johnson and witnesses who observed the incident, Johnson was struck as she lay on the ground after falling down a small flight of stairs near the hot dog stand. “We couldn’t move quickly enough,” says Johnson. “I was trying to leave and got hit and fell down.”

Kevin Marin, a 42-year-old systems engineer from nearby Chino Hills, says he rode his bike to the concert to take pictures for his kids. “I was listening to Clinton’s speech on my radio, and suddenly, it was bang, bang, bang,” says Marin, who was struck on the back with a rubber bullet as he and his bike got tangled in the fleeing protesters. “I’m surprised. I’m not happy about it. Everyone got shot in the back.”

The Reverend Jesse Jackson and state senator Tom Hayden denounced the police, who told the press they had acted according to proper procedure. The next day, an LAPD spokesperson maintained there had been “no injuries” during the incident other than to a police horse.

But Kirk Murphy, a medic working with the D2KLA collective reports over 100 injured, including people who were “trampled by horses, trapped in police raids, clubbed in the parking lot, and gassed with chemical weapons.”

Throughout the street melee, delegates within the Staples Center, on the floor and watching the President’s speech were blissfully ignorant of the events outside. When asked what he thought of the night’s festivities, one floor volunteer remarked only that he thought that it was a fine speech.

The next day the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California announced it would file suit in federal court against the LAPD for its alleged attacks Monday night on members of the media. “Instead of arresting the law-breaking few, the LAPD wielded its batons and turned its guns on the peaceful many,” says Michael Small, the group’s chief counsel.

The police assault came at the end of a day of protests that were largely peaceful. However, nine people were arrested in an earlier incident after several hundred protesters blocked a downtown intersection.

On Tuesday afternoon, Los Angeles Police officers clad in riot gear arrested a group of bicyclists protesting Al Gore’s ties to Occidental Petroleum, and blockaded the Metro Blue line, stranding rush hour commuters for about forty minutes.

Ariela Gottschalk, who was not part of those originally arrested, said her group had been on a “critical mass” bike ride when without warning a squad of motorcycle cops forced the group off the street.

“We were promoting bicycle-friendly laws for cities, but only a few of us even had signs,” she said, before the police came across the street to where media were interviewing her and placed her under arrest along with the approximately 30 riders.

By 3pm, Wednesday afternoon, 500-1000 protesters converged by the Parker Center at 1st and Los Angeles in solidarity with the arrested protesters inside.

Compiled from the Independent Media Center, Associated Press, Village Voice, and other news wires.

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