GM Workers Claim Excessive Force Used in Police Raid Outside Plant

The arrest of several dozen General Motors employees outside the company’s Van Nuys plant prompted complaints from workers Friday that Los Angeles Police used excessive force and that the magnitude of the raid was unjustified. But police said a large crowd of workers had heckled and thrown bottles at officers trying to make the arrests Thursday night.

At about 9:30 p.m., Police Sgt. Joseph Brazas said, about 75 officers responding to complaints of rowdy behavior among the auto plant workers arrested 46 people near the corner of Blythe Street and Van Nuys Boulevard, where about 200 workers on the plant’s night shift were milling around during their break.

Forty of the arrests were for drinking in public, Brazas said. Those people were cited and released on the spot pending Municipal Court hearings, he said. One person was arrested on suspicion of possessing cocaine and another on suspicion of possessing marijuana. Others were arrested for interfering with an arrest, he said.

Union May File Complaint

Workers waiting to begin the plant’s 3:30 p.m. shift Friday alleged that officers had waded through the crowd, randomly shoving them and, in some cases, hitting them with billy clubs. Several workers said their union, United Auto Workers Local 695, which has its offices on the same block as the raid, is preparing to file a complaint with police. Union officials declined to comment.

“They didn’t arrest me, but they hit me with a night stick on my arm and threw me against a wall and told me to get out of here,” said John Corralezo, a sweeper in the plant.

“I think they really overdid it this time, going after people and hitting them,” another worker said as he stood near the corner drinking from an exposed beer bottle, which is one of the violations police said prompted the raid.

Brutality Alleged

Brazas said police used no unnecessary force. He said the department is investigating one complaint of police brutality filed by a female GM employee, who alleged that she was clubbed in the back.

Brazas said workers threw about 25 cans and bottles, some of them filled with beer, at police. Several hundred workers crowded outside the plant also chanted an obscenity at officers, he said. No officers were injured, he said.

Traffic on Van Nuys Boulevard was stopped in both directions in front of the plant during the incident, the sergeant said.

The raid was partly intended to control workers who regularly gather to drink on the street corner and harass pedestrians and drivers passing by, Brazas said.

He said plant officials did not help plan the raid and were not informed of it in advance, but that the police action stemmed partly from “information we received through GM” that some on-the-job injuries had occurred after the lunch break and that they involved excessive drinking.

One of the businesses at the corner where the raid was staged is a liquor store. Some workers said Friday that they buy beer there during their breaks, but they denied any rowdy behavior that might have justified the arrests. Police shut the store, Avila’s Liquors, for an hour during the raid.

Store Owner Baffled

Employees and managers of two stores and one restaurant at the corner said they were not aware of complaints about GM employees’ behavior during their breaks. They noted that there are no residences in the immediate area.

Mike and Judy Cong, who own Avila’s Liquors, said that, although they have told workers several times not to drink from uncovered containers, the workers generally are well-behaved. Mike Cong said he was baffled when a police officer told him Thursday about complaints.

“Every Thursday is payday and so the place was crowded with people cashing their checks,” Cong said. “A police sergeant came in here and said, ‘Somebody complained.’ I never heard of complaints. . . .

“The sergeant said, ‘We can’t handle these people.’ But we don’t have problems with them.”