May Day !
Could the LAPD handle Burning Man?
By Ron Garmon
To Angelenos cherishing any corkscrew kink of anarchy, the news that local cops are breathing easier after this May Day must afford a flicker of exhilaration. Back in the bad ol’ days of rambunctious proles, police throughout the Western world sweated the International Worker’s holiday balefully – and it spells bad news yet in those few precincts left with an energetic labor movement. In Los Angeles, however, May Day laurels go to the LAPD for the heroic continence of not going batshit crazy and attacking random citizens at this year’s march.
You can see the vid on YouTube recorded by onlookers at last year’s MacArthur Park fracas: scores of J.Q. Laws in riot gear shoving their way through the park, clubbing and firing tear gas into crowds of families. This incident was widely televised and universally condemned, with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann – a man little given to understatement – calling it part of local law enforcement’s “long, complex and less-than-happy relationship” with the city they police. For a haul of nine arrests, off-the-leash cops injured and gassed hundreds of citizens and journalists, outraging what’s left of the civil liberties community and dismaying Chief William J. Bratton, another man not inclined to half-measures.
An LAPD Board of Inquiry fingered 29 as-yet-undisciplined officers and more than 200 damage claims are left unsettled, but the city thankfully bought no such trouble this year. Somebody put fear of the smokehouse into police assigned to the march, with the L.A. Times hyping the changed attitude in the days before the march. One long, well-informed story told the public of departmental preparations at Dodger Stadium, with Deputy Chief Michael Hillmann making sure officers understood procedure and chain-of-command, with no room for misinterpretation. “Last year, it just wasn’t organized. It was a disaster,” he was quoted as saying. “It was as if the people involved went into it with the idea that the event would work itself out. Crowds do not manage themselves.”
The deputy chief has obviously never been to Burning Man, or even Coachella, where I’d caught the nasty flu still wracking my frame on May Day. Determined to cover the impending massacre, I tottered down to Olympic and Broadway, where a sizeable festival crowd had already gathered by noon. I passed a knot of old men, dignified and serene in the heat. They were braceros: veterans of the racist contract-labor program of the 1940s-1960s that swindled and exploited tens of thousands of Mexican migrant workers. Their signs, in English and Spanish, were pleas for citizenship, with the homemade banners held by nearby kids detailing the fear and disrespect shown their brown skins by pretty much everyone in power. Other kids held placards telling of returning home from school to find their parents had been hauled away in a federal ICE raid.
As the crowd thickened inside the cordon, vendors pushed carts through the crowd and a chant of “¡Si se puede!” (“Yes, we can!”) went up. Volleys of air horns and high-pitched shouts competed with the mariachi band in the sound truck. There was a sea of American and Mexican flags, as well as banners from Salvadoran, Filipino and other workers’ organizations. Attendees did a fine job of policing themselves, as officers kept their distance and micro-managed traffic.
The clock on the eastern tower read something after 2 when the march finally crept forward. Scores of smiling, friendly police officers slowly guided this now-immense worker’s parade down Broadway, where it met with another massive procession at Fifth Street before proceeding to City Hall. Estimates vary as to size, with organizers claiming vague “tens of thousands” in turnout, while the Times lowballed attendance at 8,500. All noted the amicable, festive nature of the event, a good-time vibe that flourished and spread luxuriantly in the absence of tear gas.
Published: 05/07/2008
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