Police, Protesters Clash at INS Detention Center

Police and demonstrators clashed Sunday at a protest outside an Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center in Los Angeles, resulting in 16 arrests and charges from each side that it had been assaulted.

Three protesters were taken to hospitals for treatment of injuries, and at least two officers were bruised on the arm after they were struck by demonstrators wielding sticks, police said.

“The demonstration was totally peaceful,” said Dick Laird, a spokesman for La Resistencia, a national immigrants’ rights group. “The police waited until the press left, and then they started beating people with their nightsticks.”

Police said several demonstrators were under court orders to remain 100 yards away from the center at 1115 S. Alvarado St. as a result of having been arrested there during earlier protests. Other demonstrators were using bullhorns, a violation of a local ordinance prohibiting the use of amplified sound at a demonstration, officers said.

“Our intent was only to arrest those (demonstrators) for bullhorn violations and for violating the court order,” Lt. John Desmond said.

As officers began making arrests, Desmond said, other demonstrators “began throwing rocks and bottles and assaulting officers with sticks. Those people, themselves, were then arrested.”

Several demonstrators, however, said police waded into the group, indiscriminately beating protesters with their batons.

Laird said Sunday’s protest began at 2 p.m. with an hour-long rally at MacArthur Park. The demonstrators--he said 100; police estimated 50--then marched to the nearby INS center where they protested for another hour.

The protest was part of a National Day of Action aimed at “shutting down INS concentration camps in the United States,” Laird said.