5 Arrested After Flags Are Burned : Protest: Members of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade also scuffle with bystanders who try to intervene at MacArthur Park.

Five members of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade were arrested Sunday after they burned American flags in MacArthur Park and scuffled with veterans, one of whom tried to rescue a flag by yanking it out from under a demonstrator’s feet, police said.

“I got three purple hearts for protecting that flag in Vietnam, and I’m not going to stand by and let them burn it,” explained the veteran, Jimmie McAllister, 54, of Compton, a retired Navy captain.

Undaunted, other protesters produced a bloody head from a butchered pig, plopped it on the sidewalk where the flag had been, stuck a tiny flag between the nostrils, and set it afire.

The tussle with McAllister and other members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars was a new twist on what has become a Sunday routine in the park neighborhood west of downtown.

Usually, about a dozen members of the brigade and an affiliate, La Resistencia, go to the park at 7th and Alvarado streets in the early afternoon to protest police barricades against crime in the area and a nearby Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center, which they call a “concentration camp.” They preach old-time Marxist-Leninism, wave red flags, burn the Stars and Stripes, and bait police.

The gatherings have also been punctuated at times by fistfights, bottle-throwing and arrests. Demonstrators often allege police brutality, while police say one officer was injured by a thrown bottle two weeks ago.

Brigade organizers delayed the start of Sunday’s protest until 2:30 p.m., fearing that park frequenters, many of them immigrants from Central America, would be watching the World Cup soccer championship match.

McAllister and his friends waited for more than an hour. Also standing by were four Los Angeles Police Department black-and whites, two unmarked patrol cars, a large police bus, several officers in riot helmets and four officers on horseback.

At last, four young women wearing brigade T-shirts and carrying banners marched up to the park entrance and handed bystanders tiny flag-burning kits, consisting of a tiny paper flag taped to a book of matches.

Chanting “Viva La Revolution!” one of the women whipped out a large American flag, spread it on the sidewalk, stepped on it, and prepared to set it ablaze.

At that point, McAllister pounced and, with a sideways swoop of his hand, snatched the flag out from under her feet, toppling her to the ground.

The veteran and two friends in VFW hats then began to scuffle with the protesters, succeeding in taking away several other American flags.

Within seconds, police moved in and arrested four protesters for investigation of arson-related offenses. Their infuriated supporters demanded that the VFW members also be arrested. But they were not.

Police said municipal codes forbid burning anything in the park and, pointing to dry palm fronds about 25 or 30 feet above the protesters’ heads, said they would arrest anybody who started a fire, whatever the material.

“The Police Department isn’t going to look at the issue of flag burning,” said Police Sgt. Owen Mcomber. “Our only concern is that there isn’t any fires started in the park, or any acts of violence.”

Last month Congress failed to muster the two-thirds majority vote required to approve a constitutional amendment against desecrating the flag.

A fifth person who had burned a flag under a palm tree before the main demonstration began was also arrested for investigation of arson, Police Lt. Dan Koenig said.

Police could not provide the names of those arrested Sunday, saying the protesters usually refuse to identify themselves.