Agreement to Train Police Resolves Suits

Under an agreement between the city of Los Angeles and the American Civil Liberties Union, Police Department training for crowd control will include instruction on the need to protect the constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly, officials said Thursday.

The agreement, signed last month by the city attorney’s office, acting Police Chief Ronald Banks and ACLU attorney Carol Sobel, resolves lawsuits filed by 74 demonstrators arrested during two protest marches at the Civic Center several days after the Los Angeles riots in 1992.

In addition to promising special police training on 1st Amendment guarantees, the city has agreed to pay the plaintiffs $200,000, said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the local ACLU. Of that total, she said, $54,000 will cover the ACLU’s legal expenses.

According to attorneys, the first demonstration, at the Civic Center on May 2, 1992, was staged to protest the not guilty verdicts for four police officers charged with beating Rodney G. King--verdicts that sparked the rioting on April 29 and April 30. Sixty-four of the demonstrators were arrested on a variety of charges, lawyer Robin Toma said.

The second demonstration, on May 9, had been planned long before the riots to protest Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed welfare budget cuts. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who attended the gathering, said a permit had been granted and the mayor’s office had given its permission for the rally.

But police--under criticism for failing to act swiftly to curb the riots 10 days earlier--declared the May 9 assembly unlawful and arrested the 10 participants on suspicion of refusing an order to disperse.

Police Sgt. Daniel Witman said at the time that the demonstrators were ordered to disperse after officers learned that several groups with “violent backgrounds” had joined the marchers. However, none of the 74 arrested in the two demonstrations were prosecuted, the attorneys said.

In signing the agreement, the city and the LAPD denied the plaintiffs’ allegations that their arrests were illegal. It specifies that Los Angeles police officers be taught to recognize their responsibility to “ensure the protection” of the rights of free speech and assembly, as guaranteed in the federal and state constitutions.

“In determining whether the speech activity is lawful, police officers may not base their decisions on their subjective, personal views” the agreement says.

The agreement cautions that to declare an assembly unlawful, officers must have evidence of conduct that “poses a clear and present danger of imminent violence.”