RitcheyRch
05-06-2007, 01:55 PM
Looks like we might need a few more police officers.
http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_126170230.html
Members of an elite Los Angeles Police squad have been ordered to "stand down" and have been taken off the streets while Chief William Bratton and three other separate investigations try to find out what went wrong last week, when journalists and peaceful rally attendees were roughed up in MacArthur Park.
Bratton told journalists Sunday that some of the officers of the Metropolitan Division's B' Platoon "in all likelihood not be returning to the Metropolitan Division, as a result of our findings." As many as 60 members of the elite unit are no longer in the field as a result, the chief said.
"There will be no scapegoats here," Bratton told a packed conference room full of journalists at a Hollywood TV station Sunday. The chief said that any imposition of permanent disciplinary action will await the completion of the LAPD's self-examination, which is due to be presented to the City Council May 30.
Bratton has said numerous departmental procedures were not followed at the May Day Immigration Rights rally. Some 240 rubber and other soft-material projectiles were fired at a crowd that Bratton said was peaceful and lawful.
Videotape shown around the world shows LAPD officers, including members of the B Platoon, apparently violating numerous LAPD policies, Bratton said. The use of a helicopter-delivered announcement in English to disperse people who speak Spanish, and the treatment of reporters and photojournalists doing their jobs, will be examined.
Ten different associations of journalists met with the department's top brass Sunday to ask why LAPD policies towards the news media, that had been worked out after reporters were assaulted by police officers during the 2000 Democratic National Convention, were ignored.
The Metropolitan Division is the city's premier police squad, made up of experienced, career officers and given the benefit of extensive training and modern equipment in crowd control tactics, the police chief said.
Mary Grady, the department's civilian spokeswoman, acknowledged that news media were not given "a designated safe spot" at MacArthur Park to cover the events last Tuesday. Such an arrangement was called for in the 2002 agreement with media organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union, and such provisions were made last year when an immigration rally six times larger than Tuesday's was held.
"There appears to have been here a failure to communicate" by LAPD officers in charge at MacArthur Park, said Press Photographers Association local president John McCoy.
While Bratton was meeting with journalism associations leaders at KTLA's Hollywood studios, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke at the Cathedral Our Lady of the Angels, where Cardinal Roger Mahony was celebrating what was billed as a mass of consolation and healing for those who were hurt or frightened by the violence Tuesday.
Outside the cathedral, Villaraigosa said "it is important for us in these moments to remember that we must come together, work together, to insure that what happened on May 1 doesn't happen again.
"The only way we can do that is to ensure that those responsible for the decisions that were made, that caused the violence, on May 1 be held accountable," the mayor said. Villaraigosa said that chain of responsibility starts with him.
The mayor said he plans to spend his Sunday afternoon walking around MacArthur Park, and said he wants to listen to the "people who marched on May 1," whom he described as "families ... hard-working people."
Four separate agencies are investigating what went wrong at MacArthur Park, including the FBI.
http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_126170230.html
Members of an elite Los Angeles Police squad have been ordered to "stand down" and have been taken off the streets while Chief William Bratton and three other separate investigations try to find out what went wrong last week, when journalists and peaceful rally attendees were roughed up in MacArthur Park.
Bratton told journalists Sunday that some of the officers of the Metropolitan Division's B' Platoon "in all likelihood not be returning to the Metropolitan Division, as a result of our findings." As many as 60 members of the elite unit are no longer in the field as a result, the chief said.
"There will be no scapegoats here," Bratton told a packed conference room full of journalists at a Hollywood TV station Sunday. The chief said that any imposition of permanent disciplinary action will await the completion of the LAPD's self-examination, which is due to be presented to the City Council May 30.
Bratton has said numerous departmental procedures were not followed at the May Day Immigration Rights rally. Some 240 rubber and other soft-material projectiles were fired at a crowd that Bratton said was peaceful and lawful.
Videotape shown around the world shows LAPD officers, including members of the B Platoon, apparently violating numerous LAPD policies, Bratton said. The use of a helicopter-delivered announcement in English to disperse people who speak Spanish, and the treatment of reporters and photojournalists doing their jobs, will be examined.
Ten different associations of journalists met with the department's top brass Sunday to ask why LAPD policies towards the news media, that had been worked out after reporters were assaulted by police officers during the 2000 Democratic National Convention, were ignored.
The Metropolitan Division is the city's premier police squad, made up of experienced, career officers and given the benefit of extensive training and modern equipment in crowd control tactics, the police chief said.
Mary Grady, the department's civilian spokeswoman, acknowledged that news media were not given "a designated safe spot" at MacArthur Park to cover the events last Tuesday. Such an arrangement was called for in the 2002 agreement with media organizations and the American Civil Liberties Union, and such provisions were made last year when an immigration rally six times larger than Tuesday's was held.
"There appears to have been here a failure to communicate" by LAPD officers in charge at MacArthur Park, said Press Photographers Association local president John McCoy.
While Bratton was meeting with journalism associations leaders at KTLA's Hollywood studios, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke at the Cathedral Our Lady of the Angels, where Cardinal Roger Mahony was celebrating what was billed as a mass of consolation and healing for those who were hurt or frightened by the violence Tuesday.
Outside the cathedral, Villaraigosa said "it is important for us in these moments to remember that we must come together, work together, to insure that what happened on May 1 doesn't happen again.
"The only way we can do that is to ensure that those responsible for the decisions that were made, that caused the violence, on May 1 be held accountable," the mayor said. Villaraigosa said that chain of responsibility starts with him.
The mayor said he plans to spend his Sunday afternoon walking around MacArthur Park, and said he wants to listen to the "people who marched on May 1," whom he described as "families ... hard-working people."
Four separate agencies are investigating what went wrong at MacArthur Park, including the FBI.