Charges Traded in Gay Protest at Mall : Demonstration: Blind activist, security guard accuse each other of assault. The incident led to disruption of business at the Beverly Center.

A clash between a blind gay activist and a Beverly Center security guard during a protest march at the trendy Westside shopping mall left both men accusing the other of assault with a deadly weapon, Los Angeles police said Monday.

After security officers detained protester Rodney Shaw, hundreds of demonstrators disrupted business inside the mall Sunday, then marched outside to formed a human blockade at entrances and exits to the shopping center’s massive parking garage.

The protest, which lasted more than 1 1/2 hours, was part of a series of demonstrations by gay activists to dramatize their anger over Gov. Pete Wilson’s Sept. 29 veto of AB 101, a bill that that would have outlawed job bias against homosexuals.

Shaw, a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), said the Beverly Center was targeted as a forum for gays to demonstrate their political and economic clout.

“We march in malls to say, hey, (gay rights legislation) is not bad for business and that we should have civil rights. We go in there trying to get a message across,” Shaw said. “A lot of people see it as a disruption and a bad thing. But our money’s just as good as anybody else’s money.”

Shaw, a 30-year-old Long Beach resident who says he has been legally blind since birth, said he was in the front ranks of marchers when a security officer who had been yelling for the marchers to halt “grabbed me and threw me into a wall . . . Then I struck out and hit the security guard with my cane as an act of self-defense.”

The security officer, Shaw said, struck him repeatedly on his left knee with his nightstick, then handcuffed him and dragged him to a different location where he “kept bending me over this railing.”

Steven Webb, a sergeant on the Beverly Center security force, told his supervisors he “took defensive action” after Shaw struck him with his cane three or four times when he attempted to stop and question him on a fifth-floor escalator landing, according to Larry Beermann, the mall’s general manager.

Webb has been taken off duty pending an internal investigation of Shaw’s charges, Beermann said.

Beermann said “anywhere from 200 to 500” protesters marched into the mall beginning about 4:45 p.m. Sunday, blowing whistles and stomping feet.

After marching through the mall’s three shopping levels, Beermann said, protesters then blocked the parking entrances--”in essence holding our customers hostage in the garage.”

The standoff lasted more than 30 minutes, ending after security officers placed Shaw in the custody of police, who released him.

Shaw said an examination at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center showed he suffered bruises and scrapes on a leg and his arms, but no broken bones. Webb was taken to Midway Hospital and released after an examination revealed bruises on his head, neck and shoulders, Beermann said.

In addition to allegations made by Shaw and Webb, police also received complaints from a motorist who said protesters struck him on the face, spit on him, and damaged the body of his Toyota pickup truck and smashed two of its windows.

Officer Sharyn Michelson said another protester told police he was struck intentionally by a car that sped off. He complained of pain in his legs and scrapes on his hands, the police spokeswoman said.

No arrests have been made.