LA Protests Are Latest in a History of Street Battles

LOS ANGELES (Sept. 8) -- Two nights of violent street demonstrations over the police shooting of a Guatemalan-born day laborer is the legacy of long-simmering distrust between residents in an immigrant neighborhood west of downtown and a police department trying to shake off a dark legacy, experts said today.

The clashes in Los Angeles' Westlake neighborhood involved several hundred residents throwing rocks and bottles from the street and rooftops at police in riot gear, who responded by firing nonlethal projectiles and arresting at least 22 people. No deaths were reported, and the number of injured was unknown.

The melee was reminiscent of a larger confrontation three years ago at Westlake's MacArthur Park when thousands of marchers demonstrating for immigrant rights clashed with police, who were later faulted for their reactions -- which included clubbing journalists covering the event.

And it was in keeping with Los Angeles' long history of civic unrest, from the Watts riots of the 1960s through the Rodney King riot in 1992 to occasional rambunctious, window-breaking street demonstrations that come with Los Angeles Lakers victories in the National Basketball League championship.

This week's protests began with the shooting death of Manuel Jamines, 37, around 1 p.m. Sunday by one of three bicycle-riding officers responding to reports that a man was threatening people with a knife. The Los Angeles Times reported that Jamines had been drinking. Police said one of the officers, Frank Hernandez, a 13-year veteran, fired twice at Jamines when he refused demands in English and Spanish to drop the knife and instead raised it over his head and moved toward the officers.

Whether the shooting was justified was almost an irrelevancy for the protesters in a neighborhood with a history of complaints about alleged police harassment. The killing, and the violent street confrontations, took place in the city's Ramparts Division, where corruption by some officers -- including the planting of evidence on innocent suspects -- helped lead to the 2001 imposition of a federal consent decree requiring dozens of reforms in how the Los Angeles Police Department works.

That decree was lifted last summer over the objections of such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union, which said there were still many reforms to be made, and Los Angeles social activist and former State Assembly member Tom Hayden, whose own history of street protests goes back to the Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s.

Hayden said this morning that the Westlake shooting and street protests raise "the question of whether or not the LAPD is truly reformed enough to have the consent decree lifted. There is anecdotal evidence that a lot of people still feel mistreated in that community."

Hayden believes the federal oversight was lifted prematurely and had more to do with politics than with policing.

"The pressure to end the consent decree was overwhelming, despite evidence that was worrisome," he said. "The city's politicians tend to go along with the police, and they seek police endorsements. In general, LA lacks checks and balances."

A Harvard study of changes in the LAPD before the decree was lifted found significant improvements, he said, but it also found lingering issues.

"As I recall, there was a huge increase in 'stop and frisk' both of pedestrians and car stops in that community and other inner-city communities," Hayden said. "That does not happen in Brentwood. It does not happen in Westwood," both well-to-do enclaves near the UCLA campus in west Los Angeles.

The study, conducted by Christopher Stone, Todd Foglesong and Christine M. Cole, did find improvements and reason for optimism, as well as continuing problems.

"We found persistent differences in the experience of policing among Hispanic residents of LA and more so for black residents," the report said, adding that two-thirds of Latino and black residents liked the LAPD's recent performance. "Yet a substantial minority within each of these groups remains unsatisfied with the department, and 10 percent of black residents report that almost none of the LAPD officers they encounter treat them and their friends and families with respect."

Such feelings of social estrangement and political disenfranchisement often propel street protests, said Clayborne Carson, a Stanford University history professor and director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute.

Carson, who lived in Los Angeles for a decade and took part in 1960s street demonstrations, said protests and riots have been an integral part of American political history. The nation began in protest, endured a Civil War, experienced sporadic street riots over everything from racial tensions to lack of food and jobs, and continues with protests both violent -- the Westlake confrontations -- and nonviolent -- the recent tea party gathering in Washington.

"There is a kind of historical amnesia over how much strikes and boycotts and street demonstrations and terrorism and lots of other forms of what I would call political activity [has influenced and] is still trying to influence the political system," he said. "But it's by no means conventional. It's a recognition that conventional politics is not adequate. It does not resolve all conflicts."

And the demonstrations, he said, are evidence that those engaged in the protests often feel as if the political process does not respond to their demands.

"Most people don't sit around thinking, 'When is the next protest I can participate in?'" he said. "When you become frustrated with the normal ways of conducting politics, you begin looking for alternatives. Often the case is that that protest is a quicker and more effective means of getting your voice heard than waiting for the next election or writing to your congressman. If those 300 people [in Westlake] had a million dollars, they wouldn't be out on the street. They would have the means of expressing themselves politically."

David O. Sears, director of the Institute for Social Science Research at UCLA, sees links between this week's protests and the riots that ravaged Watts a generation ago. Both seemed rooted in tense relations between residents and police in neighborhoods with high unemployment, though Sears sees this week's showdowns as less political expression than frustration.

"It's kind of the same picture of chronic conflict between the police and minorities, and the perception that it's a little over the top in terms of police behavior," Sears said. And given the economy and high joblessness in low-income neighborhoods, that past could repeat itself. "It is a potentially explosive situation," he said.

Here's a selected list of Los Angeles street confrontations over the past half-century:

August 1965: What should have been a routine traffic stop in Watts escalated into six days of rioting in which 34 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured.

Nov. 12, 1966: In a much more subdued showdown, music-loving youths on the Sunset Strip protested a curfew law and the closing of music venues, leading to rock and bottle throwing, the attempted arson of a city bus and numerous arrests. No one was killed, but the incident spawned the rock classic "For What It's Worth," written by Stephen Sills for his band the Buffalo Springfield.

April 29, 1992: An all-white jury in Simi Valley, Calif., acquitted two white police officers in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King, sparking impromptu protests that turned into three days of civil insurrection in which 55 people were killed, 4,000 were injured and 12,000 were arrested. Property damage surpassed $1 billion.

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August 2000: Demonstrators protesting outside the Democratic National Convention and on nearby city streets had a series of run-ins with police, several of which led to injuries and lawsuits.

May 1, 2007: Scores of people -- including journalists -- were injured during a violent May Day showdown with police in MacArthur Park, just west of downtown. The city later spent more than $13 million to settle claims by the injured -- including a $1.7 million civil jury award to a television camera operator -- that the police overreacted.

June 18, 2010: Several injuries were reported as boisterous fans took to the streets after the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Boston Celtics to win the NBA championship. Los Angeles police fired at least two volleys of nonlethal rounds to try to disperse the rock- and bottle-throwing crowd.