16 Aug 2000-- Hundreds of heavily armed police rioted outside the Democratic Convention Aug. 14, attacking peaceful demonstrators and concert-goers as President Bill Clinton delivered his nationally televised speech to the delegates.

The police assault was a further escalation of the government's war against the new anti-capitalist, anti- racist youth movement following the arrests of more than 450 protesters during the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.

While Clinton praised himself and Vice President Al Gore inside the plush Staples Center, police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and concussion grenades at 10,000 youths and others who gathered outside to hear a free concert by Rage Against the Machine and Ozomatli.

Between 10 and 15 people were reported arrested. Paramedics treated three dozen for serious injuries. Many more suffered head wounds from rubber bullets, the effects of tear gas and other injuries.

"Scores of people [were] hit by rubber bullets or other projectiles," reported the Aug. 15 Los Angeles Times. "Many of those who were hit were bleeding or displayed deep, silver-dollar sized bruises."

The police "fired indiscriminately for more than an hour," according to the Times.

There was no condemnation of the LAPD brutality by Clinton, Gore or other Democratic leaders.

"All along the media have been praising the so-called 'restrained, peaceful' role of the Los Angeles Police Department," said Workers World Party presidential candidate Monica Moorehead, "especially during the Aug. 13 demonstration demanding a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

"Tonight the police showed their true colors," she charged. "The LAPD is a repressive force against workers, the oppressed and young people.

"This kind of blatant police repression won't stop us from protesting," she added. "It will only serve to make this new movement more determined and militant."

LEGAL ASSEMBLY

The Aug. 14 concert was the culmination of a day of protests against capitalist globalization, the National Missile Defense program and economic injustice. The actions converged for the concert, a legal assembly, in the fenced- off "protest pit" outside the convention center.

Earlier, police attacked a 2,000-strong street protest targeting Gore's ties to Occidental Petroleum. That Big Oil monopoly threatens the sovereignty and environmental safety of the Indigenous U'wa people in Colombia. Ten people were arrested.

The crowd at the concert was multinational, including many Latino youths. There were young Nigerians working with the Service Employees union and a Korean drum corps. The Chicano students' group MEChA, the Filipino group Bayan and the U.S. Out of Colombia Committee hoisted banners.

There were also hundreds of youths and community people who came just to hear the music, not expecting a confrontation with police.

Rage Against the Machine performed songs of protest and solidarity with political prisoners and international people's struggles. The band led the audience in chants of "Free Mumia!"

Then the East LA band Ozomatli took the stage.

Imani Henry, a national coordinator of Rainbow Flags for Mumia, described what happened next.

"The police got on the loudspeaker and said, 'This is now an illegal demonstration. You have 15 minutes to disperse.' But they didn't let people disperse.

"The band was defiant. People in the crowd started putting up banners. Many people left marching and chanting," Henry said.

'OVERWHELMING FORCE'

Richard Becker, West Coast co-director of the International Action Center, described what followed as "overwhelming force" by "teams of 120-150 cops in military formation."

The cops appeared to have timed their riot to coincide with Clinton's speech, when the fewest TV cameras would be trained on the protesters outside, he said.

"The main orientation of the police was not arrests, but punishment," Becker said.. "This attack was intended to create the idea that if you go anywhere near the Staples Center, punishment will be inflicted on you."

As people tried to leave the concert site, riot police on horseback charged the crowd, splitting it in two.

The largest group marched up Olympic Avenue and was eventually able to disperse.

However, hundreds of people trapped inside the protest pit found themselves under siege.

"Everyone was being funneled out between concrete posts when we were told to disperse," recalled Linda Young, a youth activist with the San Francisco IAC chapter. "A friend and I were following instructions and trying to disperse. But when we were about to exit, the mounted police charged through and almost crushed us.

"We got through another exit," Young told WW, "and people were being pushed down Figueroa Street.

"Suddenly the police opened fire with rubber bullets. I was shot twice and my friend was shot four times.

"Everyone started running. Then some people started saying we should slow down, running will make it worse. So we started walking and tried again to disperse. There was no way to disperse because the side streets were all blocked off. If you tried to go back, you ran right into these charging police.

"The police continued to charge us. They followed us for awhile and then started shooting again.

"This continued for over an hour," Young said.

Eventually the group on Figueroa Street was able to escape through the Pershing Square Metro train station.

"Even in the face of tear gas and rubber bullets, people were organizing to try and get everyone to safety," reported Forrest Schmidt, an activist who was caught in the police riot.

"I saw many people who had been hit in the back of the head by rubber pellets," Schmidt said. "The police were firing high as the crowd was running away. They were aiming at people's heads, not their legs.

"One woman I saw was hit directly in the eye," he said. "The entire side of her face was swollen and she couldn't see out of that eye. I saw another person severely trampled by a horse."

Besides rubber bullets and pepper spray, Young said, the cops fired "big cork bullets, half-dollar-size and very thick.

"Some guy had the back of his head split open by one," she said.

The Los Angeles Times reported that homeless-rights activist Ted Hayes was struck in the chest with a "beanbag" projectile. Hayes was knocked to the ground gasping for breath. He had to be taken to the hospital.

Schmidt said the cops seemed to target legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union. The progressive lawyers had helped protest organizers hand the LAPD a defeat by winning a court injunction permitting marches to the convention site.

Not even Democratic Party delegates were safe. Police outside the convention center reportedly manhandled Los Angeles County AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Miguel Contreras. New York Public Advocate Mark Green and some other New York delegates were also treated roughly.

Throughout the night LAPD spokespeople offered several excuses for their riot.

First local television stations reported that police had been angered by "one or two bonfires" lit inside the concert area.

Then the cops claimed that 10 to 20 people at the edge of the concert were throwing chunks of dirt, rocks and bottles at them--over a 13-foot-high chain link fence.

Another story had it that two youths who scaled the fence holding a black flag were "endangering" the riot-gear-clad LAPD.

The Southern California ACLU quickly condemned the LAPD. Spokesperson Dan Tokaji said, "Had the police cooperated with rally organizers, the night could have ended calmly and smoothly.

"Instead, the police response tonight created huge risks. When people see batons raised, riot gear and mounted police clearing the area, a tense situation becomes a volatile one."

"I was there in the middle of all this, enjoying the sound of Ozomatli, when all of a sudden the plug was pulled with the excuse that people would not get off the 'security' fence," wrote Cisco, a concert-goer who posted a personal account on the Los Angeles Independent Media Center Web site. "People got angry, and rightly so."

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