street action

[Doug Millison]

If you need a Pynchon angle, think of Frenesi on the streets in Vineland.


                                  FAIR-L
                     Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
                Media analysis, critiques and news reports





ACTION ALERT:
Media Unconcerned as LAPD Attacks Peaceful Crowd, Harasses IMC

August 16, 2000

On Monday, August 14, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) stepped up
its assault on free speech rights, using the pretext of a bomb scare to shut
down the Independent Media Center's (IMC) satellite cast and, later the same
night, turning a peaceful, legal concert and rally into what the American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has called "an orchestrated police riot."

Cops Crash Newscast

There has been virtually no mainstream coverage of the LAPD's interference
with the IMC's "Crashing the Party," a live independent news show hosted by
Laura Flanders which is being broadcast nationwide via satellite during the
convention. According to Free Speech TV, one of the groups producing the
show, Monday's broadcast of "Crashing" was prevented when the LAPD closed
the parking lot outside the IMC and evacuated the show's satellite van,
ostensibly in response to a bomb threat.

Representatives from the IMC point out that the police action began just as
"Crashing" was about to air and ended 10 minutes after the satellite
broadcast window for the show had closed (Village Voice, 8/15/00). According
to a report on the IMC web site, police told a member of the National
Lawyers Guild (NLG) that they had received the bomb tip that morning. Yet
police did not take action until late afternoon, just before the show was
scheduled to begin. The IMC report also states that the NLG's Ben Rosenfeld
witnessed the county police searching the van "without waiting for the bomb
squad to arrive," and that "for a time, the bomb squad refused to come to
the scene, citing insufficient evidence."

This incident raises serious questions about whether the LAPD was targeting
members of the independent media for harassment, and should ring alarm bells
for journalists everywhere.

The Raging Machine

Similarly, mainstream media response to the police violence after Monday
night's Rage Against the Machine concert has been, by and large, dangerously
misleading.

Eyewitnesses from the IMC, the ACLU and the NLG report that the gathering of
8,000 to 10,000 concert-goers and activists was peaceful until a few people
on the fringe of the crowd began throwing debris at police. The IMC's
Jennifer Joos witnessed the incident from the balcony of the Staples Center,
and estimates that no more than 15 to 20 people out of several thousand were
involved in throwing objects. "They were isolated and not inciting the rest
of the crowd," says Joos.

According to the ACLU, rally organizers tried to defuse the confrontation
and offered to end the concert themselves. Police refused their assistance,
instead declaring the assembly unlawful, ordering the crowd to disperse, and
eventually firing on the crowd with a variety of weapons, including
rubber-jacketed bullets, pepper spray and "bean bag" guns.

The ACLU has called the events a "police riot" characterized by "extreme use
of force and undifferentiated attacks on a crowd of people" Though the exact
number and severity of injuries to civilians is still unknown, the ACLU
reports that "numerous legal observers and members of the media were
assaulted by the LAPD," and that the LAPD dispersed at least one team of
legal observers "for no other reason than to eliminate witnesses to LAPD
misconduct" (ACLU letter to the Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney, 8/15/00).
The ACLU filed suit today against the LAPD for singling out members of the
media "for attack" on Monday night.

This very serious evidence of police misconduct has been obscured in many
mainstream reports by references to the "violence" of protesters and
misinformation about the size and nature of the disturbance that the police
responded to with such force.

In one article, the Washington Post (8/15/00) referred to Monday's peaceful
marches as "a rollicking daylong siege" and falsely stated that "a few
hundred protesters" were involved in throwing debris at police officers
before the LAPD opened fire on the crowd. The Post article does not mention
any complaints that the police action may have violated civil liberties. In
fact, the article's only reference to protesters' criticism of the police is
the paper's contention that earlier in the day "demonstrators tried to
provoke officers... into showing less restraint" by chanting "pigs" at them.

Likewise, USA Today incorrectly reported that "several hundred people" threw
objects at the police (8/15 and 8/16/00). Describing the incident as a
protester "rampage" in one report (8/16/00), the paper claimed (8/15/00)
that "the downtown peace was kept largely because of the enormous presence
of police."

The Associated Press made the same error and even compounded it, stating in
several stories that "hundreds of demonstrators threw rocks and fired steel
balls from slingshots at police" (8/15/00). Garrick Ruiz, an organizer and
spokesperson for the D2K coalition, witnessed the incident and has been
collecting reports about it; he says he neither saw nor heard any evidence
of any steel balls or slingshots being used by protesters.

The New York Times was more accurate in its account of the number of people
throwing debris, but repeated the claim that "ball-bearings" were shot at
police (8/16/00).  The Times did note that the LAPD has been criticized on
civil liberties grounds, but states that "early reviews [of police
performance] are mixed," though the only positive reviews the paper cites in
its two most recent articles on the subject are from the LAPD itself and a
Gore campaign aide. No representatives of the ACLU have been quoted by the
Times, and articles have focused on the challenges faced by the LAPD, even
noting that "police had to contend with second-guessing on the street"
(8/16/00).

The New York Times (8/16/00) also featured an article headlined "Protesters
With No Message Except, 'Let's Not Go Home'," which characterized events
after the Rage concert as "a standoff between police officers who want to go
home and young people who don't." Dismissing the activists as "excitable
rock fans" who make trouble because they "want to be entertained," the
article called police attempts to handle the situation "ingenious."

ACTION
Please contact national and local media and ask them to cover the LAPD's
interference with the IMC's satellite cast. Urge them to seriously
investigate charges from the ACLU and others that the LAPD has committed
numerous civil liberties violations, and to correct any inaccurate reports
they have run about protester violence.

As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if
you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair at fair.org with your
correspondence.

CONTACT

Washington Post
mailto:ombudsman at washpost.com

USA Today
mailto:editor at usatoday.com

Associated Press
mailto:info at ap.org

New York Times
mailto:letters at nytimes.com

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