7 Injured in Police-Muslim Street Brawl

A brawl involving 24 police officers and 13 members of the Nation of Islam broke out early Wednesday in Southwest Los Angeles, causing injuries on both sides and prompting an angry reaction from Los Angeles’ black Islamic community.

Police say the fighting erupted at 5 a.m. in a convenience store parking lot on Crenshaw Boulevard at Vernon Avenue after officers pulled over a car for a routine traffic stop. Police Lt. Rich Molony said one of the Muslims interfered with officers who were trying to talk to the driver of the car and then attacked officers who were trying to arrest him. His companions, eight of whom had gotten out of two nearby cars, joined in the attack, Molony said.

All 13 of the Muslims, including two minors, eventually were subdued by officers using an electronic stun gun and were arrested, Molony said. One was charged with assault on a police officer, the rest with trying to take a prisoner from an officer.

Three of the Muslims were taken to the jail ward at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. The hospital would not disclose their conditions. Four officers were treated for injuries ranging from a broken arm to a cut lip.

Members of the Nation of Islam and more orthodox Sunni Muslims who attended a meeting later in the morning to discuss the incident, accused police of being the aggressors. They contended that one of the suspects was forced to defend himself after an officer, unprovoked, tried to place a chokehold on him from behind.

Dr. Khallid Muhammad, a special assistant to Louis Farrakhan, sometimes controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, and other top officials of the group, later met privately with Deputy Police Chief William Rathburn, head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau, and other officers.

Police Cmdr. Ernest Curtsinger, a Rathburn aide, said later that the meeting “was long overdue” because of several recent incidents involving Muslims and police officers. One, he said, also occurred on Crenshaw and resulted in a fight between a traffic officer and a Muslim who had been selling pies.

Muhammad said his feelings about the altercation Wednesday had not been changed by the meeting. Passers-by who saw the incident, he said, told him that the 11 men and two boys were savagely beaten by officers while they lay handcuffed on the ground.

“There seems to be a certain anger and resentment when they see black men who aren’t Stepin-Fetchit, head-scratching (Uncle) Toms,” Muhammad said, referring to police. “No matter what happened, nothing justified, nothing warranted such a beastly, devilish attack.”

Muslims are trained to be respectful to police and are prohibited from carrying “so much as a penknife,” Muhammad maintained. But he added that they are also trained to fight back, to the death if necessary, if attacked.

Chilton Alphonse, an anti-gang activist who attended both meetings Wednesday and who acted as go-between for the Nation of Islam and the police, said the group is taking the incident “very seriously” and had alerted members as far away as New York.

Alphonse, who operates a school, a live-in youth program and a sports gym a mile from the site of the brawl, said the Muslims in the three cars were on their way to his gym. Muhammad said the group was one of several “God Squads” the Nation of Islam has fielded in Los Angeles to win gang members over to Islam.

Members of the Nation of Islam are known for their strict dietary codes and attention to physical fitness. Many of the men are members of the group’s Fruit of Islam, an elite security force trained in the martial arts that is highly respected in the black community.