Fight at Immigration Rallies Hurts 1, Closes Street

A skirmish between supporters and opponents of stiffer immigration policies Thursday sent one man to the hospital and forced police to close a two-block stretch of Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood and a San Diego Freeway offramp.

The fight started shortly before 10 a.m. as demonstrators assembled outside the Federal Building to rally for and against Proposition 187. Several small fights broke out on the sidewalk as members of the Progressive Labor Party, which police identified as being opposed to Proposition 187, and Voices of Citizens Together, which favors stiffer immigration policies, confronted one another. And at least one melee broke out in the middle of heavily traveled Wilshire Boulevard.

“There was a fight and bedlam in the street,” said Sgt. Glen Hees, who was among the first Los Angeles Police Department officers to arrive at the scene. “They were using sticks, placards.” Observers said they also saw soda cans being thrown.

Police quickly broke up the fight, and no arrests were made. One man was taken to UCLA Medical Center for treatment.

As 150 law enforcement officers from the LAPD, some in riot gear, the Sheriff’s Department, the California Highway Patrol and UCLA remained on the scene, the demonstrations continued without incident.

About 500 people on each side of the issue were confined to separate sides of Wilshire Boulevard, where they waved banners and placards and chanted slogans at one another until early afternoon.

Organizers of the largest group of people who remained to demonstrate against stiffer immigration policies said they were not part of the Progressive Labor Party, whose members were wearing red shirts, according to observers. “We’re teachers, health care workers, students, families,” said Steve Zimmer, adding that his group had not been involved in the confrontation.

“I saw violence on both sides,” said Roberto Lovato, executive director of the Central American Resource Center and one of the organizers of the anti-Proposition 187 contingent. “I saw men in red shirts throwing punches at an old man. I saw a man with an American flag beating up on a 15-year-old. It’s tragic. Violence deviates from our basic message.” Referring to proposed national legislation, he added, “We’re here to reject an immigration proposal that would take away basic rights from legal immigrants.”

But Martin Francis, 39, a supporter of Voices of Citizens Together, said, “I want illegal aliens, not legal aliens, deported. That’s all it is.”

Placards held aloft by his fellow demonstrators ranged from “Enforce 187” to “Mexico Brings Crime” and “Graffiti Is Not Art!”

As Francis held an American flag, his face was caked with what he said was blood from a gash in his forehead, the result of being hit with an object during the confrontation.

Glenn Spencer, head of Voices of Citizens Together, said he blames the other side for the violence. “We collected all the cans thrown. We’re going to try and trace them and get some prints.”

Except for the violence, the demonstration was something of an odd paean to Independence Day in both the assortment of views and ethnic backgrounds represented on either side of Wilshire Boulevard. On one corner, two protesters--one black, one Indian--carried on a prolonged and heated debate, nose to nose, each so insistent that he represented what America stood for that it was hard to tell who was on which side of the immigration issue.

Each side criticized the other for not showing the true American spirit.

“They’re showing disrespect,” said Carol Keeler, a member of Voices of Citizens Together, pointing to those on the other side of the issue. “They’re standing in front of a veterans cemetery with an upside-down American flag. They don’t even appreciate what they’ve got when they come here.”

But said Lovato of the Voices group: “They have a very simple view of what it means to be an American. It means no immigration.”

Usually, demonstrators in front of the Federal Building have a near-captive audience of Wilshire Boulevard motorists to flash with banners. Because police cordoned off parts of the street, only a few passersby even approached the Federal Building. One befuddled man looking for the nearby garlic festival said: “I thought who could be against garlic? Vampires?”