Police Riot in MacArthur Park

William Bratton, a man who brought his own special style of police unaccountability with him from New York, now is facing what looks like the aftermath of a police riot in one of LA's most famous parks.

According to a report at KNBC.com "Bratton: 'I Won't Sugar-coat It. It Is What It Is' " Bratton is blaming attacks on news people covering the event on the fact that they didn't know they were news people.  He thought they were just some jerks with cameras and microphones.

"Among those injured in the melee two nights ago, you see Fox reporter Christina Gonzalez and Telemundo reporters and anchors," Kovacik said. "We asked Chief Bratton what happened to cause a member of the LAPD to push and shove a Telemundo photographer, clearly an impartial bystander, a man with a camera on his shoulder."

"We're going to move very quickly beyond this," Bratton responded. "I have 9,500 officers. There are two squads of officers engaged in this action. You in the media have many colleagues on the police department. You understand (that) unfortunately, things happen, and that ... we'll try to find an explanation for what happened, but I don't see this as damaging the working relationship between the working press and police officers."Kovacik also reported on Telemundo anchor Pedro Sevcec's description of what happened to him during a live report Tuesday evening."One minute I was live, and the next minute I was running for my life," Sevcec told Kovacik. "Suddenly, I got a police officer pointing one of those shotguns at my face."Bratton told Kovacik that there were many uncredentialed members of the media present at the event, some with their own cameras, and some who antagonized members of the police force."Chief Bratton said we need to sit back and remember what took place during the Democratic National Convention, when there were new rules put in place to keep credentialed media in and other people out," Kovacik said. "As technology has advanced, so many people were in that park with cameras, Chief Bratton said it was difficult for those officers to identify who should have been carrying a camera."

 No explanation of how the uncredentialed cameras antagonized the police.  Maybe the cops thought they were going to end up on YouTube shooting rubber bullets into demonstrators.

BTW, though labeled "nonlethal" rubber bullets did kill one young woman at an anti-war protest a few years back.  Photograps of the effects of rubber bullets on the human body show that though they might not kill a majority of time they can easily cause blindness and do cause extreme pain.  

Click here for Common Dreams report on the use of rubber bullets and picture of their effect on the face of a young lady. 

The NeoCon mainstream press can be courted and ultimately controlled, but you get people all over the place with cameras and the truth is going to get out.  That's a terrible prospect to a guy like Bratton. 

The AP report posted at CNN "LAPD's rubber bullet barrage probed " shows an the CA Speaker of the Assembly drawing an even more frightening conclusion:

John Mack, president of the five-member Police Commission, said he was "deeply disturbed and very disappointed" by the news images.

"This was not a pretty picture. This incident raises serious concern regarding the use of force by some individual officers," said Mack, who is one of Bratton's bosses.

Democratic Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, who represents the park district, also asked Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley to launch an independent investigation into the officers' actions.

He said police deliberately led troublemakers back to the peaceful marchers before beginning their assault.

"The only logical conclusion I can come to is that somebody wanted it to bleed into the march so that they can do some target practice on some of the immigrants that were marching," Nunez said.

News organizations also condemned the Police Department for its use of batons and riot guns against members of the media.

"We are sorry for what happened to our employees and find it unacceptable that they would be abused in that way when they were doing their job," said Alfredo Richard, spokesman for the Spanish-language network Telemundo, whose anchor and reporter were hurt.

Bratton promised to investigate the treatment of reporters.

"We should never be engaged in attacking anyone in the media," Bratton said.

If course not.  They handle the neocon controlled mainstream by schmoozing their guts out.  Their fat cat owners and advertisers will do the rest needed to keep them in line.

See this AP report at SFGate.com for quotes about the riot.

 "Finally at one point, we weren't moving fast enough I guess, some cop takes a club and jabs Carl hard in the ribs with it. He goes flying in one direction, the camera goes the other — it bounces on the lawn. As he's trying to get up, I go over to the camera to try and pick it up and I've got it in my one hand and as I'm starting to get up the cop hits me in the back and I go down nose first in the grass. About this time I get up and ask who's in charge of the operation here and nobody's talking." KCAL-TV reporter Mark Coogan. 

tags: william bratton  lapd  los angeles  police riot  

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