California Police Brutality Lawyer Blog

Approximately 1,400 police officers removed Occupy Los Angeles protesters from a park near City Hall early this morning. Almost 300 people were arrested for failing to disperse. After officers dismantled the protesters' camp, city employees installed concrete barriers and chain link fences to wall off the park.

Citing health and safety concerns, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced last week all Occupy Los Angeles protesters would be evicted from the park by 12:01 am Monday. The deadline was extended by 48 hours in the hope that protesters would disperse. Police, many dressed in riot gear or biohazard suits, surrounded the park in the early morning hours and began arresting protesters in teams after an unlawful assembly was declared.

Bean bags were fired from shotguns at three protesters who refused to leave a makeshift tree house and officers used a platform lift to remove several men from trees. Los Angeles police officers are accused of tackling and wrestling a man with a camera to the ground on the steps of City Hall and at least one Occupy protester has alleged police beat protesters as they ran away from the encampment.

The Los Angeles eviction was largely non-violent when compared with other Occupy evictions across the country. Earlier this month, police wearing riot gear and wielding batons removed protesters from Occupy Wall Street encampments in New York City. In Oakland, police purportedly beat protesters with batons and put two different Iraq war veterans in the hospital on two separate occasions. One veteran suffered a fractured skull and another was placed in intensive care due to injuries to his spleen. In Seattle, police are alleged to have used pepper spray on a crowd of largely peaceful protesters including a pregnant teenager, a priest, and an 84-year-old woman who was hit in the face.

University police forces are also accused of using violence against Occupy protesters. Video footage shows police at the University of California, Berkeley campus hitting student protesters with batons as they attempted to set up an Occupy encampment. At U.C. Davis, several videos show university police nonchalantly spraying seated protesters in the face with pepper spray. Two officers and the university police chief were placed on paid administrative leave following the U.C. Davis incident.

Police violence and crowd control tactics being used against Occupy protesters across the country are meant to deter protesters from engaging in their constitutional rights. By controlling crowds with violence, police are effectively telling protesters to stay away or you too could be hit with a baton, pepper sprayed in the face or worse. This is an excessive, chilling use of force and it has no place in a free society.