Convention Incident Still Rankles Amid Praise for Police

Protesters rejoiced Tuesday, as did Los Angeles police commissioners.

But not so the LAPD brass.

They were caught in an escalating political contretemps with Philadelphia officials over whether that city’s mayoral entourage was treated shabbily by beat cops during its visit to the Democratic National Convention last week.

Late in the afternoon, as the LAPD and Philadelphia officials exchanged charges and countercharges, the Sheriff’s Department studiously processed the walking papers for about 40 protesters arrested during demonstrations last week. (Ten others had been released over the prior 24 hours.)

The female protesters were released at 8 p.m. and the men about an hour later, almost two days after an unusual series of jailhouse negotiations with a city prosecutor resulted in the downgrading of their charges from misdemeanors to infractions.

Fellow protesters welcomed them as they emerged from the Men’s Central Jail and the Twin Towers correctional facility, offering hugs, cheers and, most important, food and drink. Almost all of them had been on a hunger strike since their arrests.

Loren Finkelstein, 25, a community organizer from Los Angeles, described the week of protests and incarceration as “absolutely incredible.”

“We wanted to challenge the Democratic Party for not answering to our voices,” she said upon her release. “We did that, with 10,000 people in the streets.”

After lawyers entered no contest pleas for them in Superior Court on Tuesday, the protesters were fined, and the fines were waived in lieu of the several days in jail each had served. Then the mass of paperwork went to the Sheriff’s Department, which runs the jails.

Earlier in the day, there were cheers of a more restrained nature, as four of the five Los Angeles police commissioners officially pronounced the Democratic convention--and the LAPD’s policing of it--a huge and unqualified success.

As LAPD Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and a dozen top aides sat before them, beaming, the commissioners ticked off what they considered one impressive accomplishment after another related to the convention.

The commissioners heaped praise upon Parks and his department for, among other things, withstanding hordes of protesters and for suffering through 12-hour shifts, sweltering in the hot sun dressed in midnight blue wool uniforms.

Not a word was mentioned about allegations of police brutality against protesters, including a lawsuit filed Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of journalists who contend they were unfairly clubbed and shot with rubber bullets.

“Ultimately, the final responsibility and credit goes to Chief Parks,” gushed Raquelle de la Rocha, acting Police Commission president.

“We commend the department,” de la Rocha added, “all the way from the rank and file to the chief for how they implemented this very important task. . . . And they did it while smiling.”

Parks wasn’t smiling minutes later when reporters asked him to respond to the continuing barrage of comments by the mayor of Philadelphia, John Street, about his eventful visit to Los Angeles for the convention.

Street has complained--loudly and publicly--that a few white police officers unfairly stopped and hassled one of his aides, who is black, last Friday evening.

At the time, Street, his wife and the aide, special assistant Shawn Fordham, were shopping at various spots along the garment district downtown.

What is clear is that the officers wanted to give Fordham a ticket for jaywalking, or illegally crossing the street, and that they detained him at least momentarily after Fordham said he had left his identification in his car.

Street then came upon the scene, and says police refused to let Fordham go, with or without a ticket.

At a news conference Monday, essentially to criticize the LAPD, Street said he and Fordham had been treated rudely and unfairly by officers who kept them standing in the hot afternoon sun for no apparent reason.

Even a captain sent to the scene at Street’s request “did nothing to clarify or resolve the situation,” Street said, calling the officers’ actions “completely irrational and perplexing . . . illegal” and bordering on racism.

On Tuesday, a visibly irritated Parks and other police officials finally responded.

Parks told reporters that he spoke personally with Street several days ago, and made it clear to him that his officers had only been trying to do their jobs.

Parks noted that Street wasn’t there to witness whether Fordham actually was jaywalking, which he was, according to several LAPD officials.

Nevertheless, the mayor “immediately . . . made it into a driving-while-black issue, when it was not,” Parks said.

“He certainly was irate,” Parks said of the mayor. “He wanted to relate to the circumstances [of] how this would be handled in Philadelphia. We advised him this was not Philadelphia. There are rules that we follow, and our officers were doing an enforcement activity which we support.”

The LAPD’s chief spokesman, Cmdr. David Kalish, added that Street exacerbated the situation by telling Fordham “not to sign the citation,” resulting in a standoff, and police’s eventually backing off from giving a legitimate ticket.

“The officers were simply doing their job and the mayor became irate and immediately made racial inferences,” Kalish said. “It’s disappointing that a prominent elected official would act in such an inappropriate and imperious manner.”

Street’s spokeswoman, Barbara Grant, responded that “it is absolutely untrue” that the mayor was trying to throw his weight around.

“The mayor was trying to get some rational explanation for some irrational behavior on the street,” Grant said.