Protesters Accuse Police of Brutality in Clash at INS Detention Facility

Leaders of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade and other members of a radical pro-immigrant coalition involved in a series of recent confrontations with Los Angeles police accused the department Monday of “unbelievable brutality” in its handling of a weekend protest and said they plan to seek legal action.

More than 50 demonstrators clashed with police outside an Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center Sunday in the Pico-Union district, which protesters have likened to a “concentration camp.” Both sides accused the other of initiating the violence, which resulted in injuries to three protesters and one police officer. Sixteen people were arrested, but three of them were later released.

About 65 demonstrators have been arrested at the site since May 1, according to coalition leaders. Police said the number is significantly lower, perhaps about half.

“The Los Angeles Police Department, in cooperation with INS, wants to determine what people can and cannot protest against,” said Dick Laird, a spokesman for La Resistencia, the national network of pro-immigrant groups that has staged similar demonstrations against the detention of illegal immigrants and refugees at INS centers in other cities across the country.

“The message is clear,” Laird said. “Anybody protesting this concentration camp will get their heads bashed in.”

Capt. James McMurray, commanding patrol officer at the Police Department’s Rampart Division, countered in a telephone interview that police “showed great restraint letting them exercise their right to free speech.” He said officers moved in to make arrests only after protesters violated the law.

McMurray said several demonstrators had violated a court order to stay away from the detention center. That order was issued after arrests during earlier protests. Others violated a local ordinance by using a bullhorn, he said. Several were arrested and charged with assault on officers for allegedly using flagpoles and rocks as weapons, he said.

Several witnesses said police on Sunday deployed scores of officers, including undercover officers and uniformed officers on horseback. McMurray refused to divulge the number of officers deployed but said that “we’ve learned the hard way that when the RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party) is to be arrested, they resist. The only way to deal with that is to have a sufficient number of officers to react appropriately.”

McMurray said police have found that RCP members typically arm themselves with rocks, nails and razor blades. “We’re not talking about Republicans and Democrats here,” he said. “No other group uses cayenne pepper and marbles against our horses.”

La Resistencia, affiliated with the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, is a relatively small group that has failed to gain support among larger, mainstream immigrant rights groups, which tend to favor less confrontational tactics. Some mainstream groups also question the coalition’s motivation, given its politics.

Still, most mainstream groups agree that conditions at INS detention facilities are an issue of serious concern and some are grateful for the attention that La Resistencia has focused on the problem.

Peter Schey, director of the National Center for Immigrants’ Rights Inc., said that immigrants and refugees accused of entering the country illegally are housed at INS detention centers under conditions far below even the worst federal standards for the detention of hardened criminals.

The “tragedy,” Schey said, is that these immigrants are often detained months--even years--for no other reason than their inability to come up with bail, which averages between $1,500 and $2,500. But, he added, for economically strapped immigrants, the bail “might as well be $5 million.”