Immigrants, supporters score victory against racist LAPD

On Feb. 4, members of the Los Angeles City Council unanimously agreed to pay $12.85 million to immigrant rights activists and bystanders injured or mistreated by members of the Los Angeles Police Department and SWAT officers during the May Day 2007 immigrant rights march and rally at MacArthur Park.

LAPD cops in full riot gear brutalize immigrant rights demonstrators, Los Angeles, May 1, 2007.

A total of 42 people, including nine journalists, were injured at the May 1, 2007, rally. LAPD officials alleged that a group of “anarchist agitators” set off a scuffle, which led to the full-out police riot.

The march that converged at MacArthur Park was the second major action in Los Angeles that day. Los Angeles was one of numerous U.S. cities holding May 1 mass actions for immigrant rights, with tens of thousands of people participating in marches and rallies across the country.

By all accounts, the march was peaceful—that is, until the cops began their coordinated attack on the participants. Soon after thousands of marchers arrived at the park, a police motorcade forced its way into a large circle of people who were enjoying the Aztec Dancers perform an Indigenous ceremony in Alvarado St. near the southeast corner of the park. The cops violently pushed numerous people to the ground, including Aztec Dancers and children.

Cops on bicycles rushed through the crowd demanding people evacuate the area. They were followed closely by LAPD “shock troops” on foot, who forced people from the area by hitting them with batons. Many in the crowd, outraged by the unprovoked and violent police attack, hurled empty water bottles and fruit at the police.

That incident and countless others have made police brutality against oppressed communities in Los Angeles the norm, not the exception. The same holds true for poor, working-class communities across the country.

This widespread, systematic violence cannot be explained by pinning the blame on a handful of “bad cops.” The capitalist state has the police and the military at its disposal to repress any popular forces—such as the immigrant rights movement that surged forward in 2006—that challenge the interests of the tiny capitalist ruling class.

This important legal victory, spearheaded by the National Lawyers Guild, underscores the power of a strong people’s movement in the fight against racism and police brutality.