Several thousand angry demonstrators surrounded Los Angeles police headquarters yesterday, burning an American flag and shouting obscenities in one of the most dramatic confrontations of the Democratic Convention week.
Hundreds of police in riot gear ringed the Parker Centre police headquarters as protesters, who have complained fiercely about their treatment by police during earlier demonstrations, screamed slogans like "Fight the power" and "Shut down the racist system" as they waved a burning US flag in front of police.
The demonstration was loud but largely peaceful and police reported no arrests or injuries, but earlier in the day 37 people were taken into custody outside the department's scandal-plagued Rampart Station during a protest against police corruption. Some 700 people had marched on the station in the inner city's Hispanic district.
So far in the convention week, 189 people have been arrested on various charges. Many of those arrested were anti-fur activists hauled away for vandalism after banging on windows of downtown businesses on Tuesday and some 50 cyclists who tied up traffic in a "reclaim the streets protest".
Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union said it would sue the Los Angeles Police Department, and claimed that police "deliberately" shot journalists with rubber bullets and beat them with clubs in an effort to muzzle to the press while breaking up a Democratic Convention protest.
Protest leaders, lawyers and civil liberties groups accused the police of using heavy-handed tactics and called for an independent investigation. "I am convinced that the investigation will show there are hundreds of people who are victims of Monday night's arsenal of exotic weaponry that the police and security forces wanted to use experimentally, psychologically and physically against demonstrators," said State Senator Tom Hayden.