Labor: Defend Immigrant Rights Demonstrators!

Los Angeles

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

We print below a statement issued by the Partisan Defense Committee on May 3 protesting the bloody L.A. cop rampage against a mass May Day immigrant rights protest. Spearheaded by the elite Metro Division, which is trained for “potential counterinsurgency or terrorist situations,” the police by their own account fired 148 “less than lethal” rounds. Among those attacked by cops were a Telemundo news anchor, a FOX reporter and her camerawoman, who has sued the LAPD and the city for damages. Amid the uproar over the cop violence, the L.A. City Council issued a rebuke, the FBI announced it would conduct an inquiry, and the LAPD demoted two commanding officers and pulled 60 cops from street duty. Whatever damage control and spin the authorities put on the situation, the cop riot exemplifies the role of the police as brutal enforcers of capitalist rule over the working class, black people, immigrants and all the oppressed.

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The racist LAPD brutally attacked immigrant rights demonstrators who rallied in MacArthur Park near downtown Los Angeles on May Day. During a 30-minute cop riot, portions of which were broadcast repeatedly on local and national television, police attacked activists, bystanders and journalists with foam bullets, tear gas, batons and boots. Observers reported that the cop assault took place with little or no warning. Numerous demonstrators and reporters were hospitalized and there are reports of nine people arrested. Women, children, elderly people and entire families were violently pushed and beaten. The Partisan Defense Committee vehemently protests this racist cop attack. Drop all charges against those arrested!

This outrageous police assault was carried out by the same LAPD that is notorious worldwide for beating Rodney King and attacks on blacks and Latinos in the ghettoes and barrios. It comes in the context of a vicious nationwide government crackdown on immigrants, resulting last year in the deportation of some 190,000 people. L.A. and Southern California have seen increased I.C.E. raids. Democratic Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa conveniently left town for this year’s protest. Back at home, his cops delivered the city government’s message: don’t march in defense of immigrant workers on May Day.

Having unleashed the armed fist of the state to intimidate immigrant rights protesters, the mayor and police chief William Bratton now plan an “investigation.” Bratton said some of the police actions were “inappropriate,” while reiterating Villaraigosa’s statement that the police were supposedly provoked by “instigators.” The fact is that masses of cops in full riot gear provocatively surrounded MacArthur Park and brutally attacked peaceful demonstrators. The chorus of calls for an “independent investigation” of the police is intended to reinforce the illusion that the police can be reformed to be “just” and will only whitewash the cops’ actions.

It is urgent that the multiracial labor movement defend all those targeted by government repression including under the rubric of the “war on terror” which domestically is a war on immigrants, blacks, and labor. Defense of immigrants is crucial to defense of the working class as a whole. The situation demands a class-struggle fight to organize immigrant workers and bring them into unions with full union wages, rights and protections. An important first step would be for unions to protest this vicious cop assault. Labor must demand: Full citizenship rights for all immigrants!