Other members of the media who were injured included four employees of KVEA-TV Channel 52, a KTTV-TV Channel 11 news reporter who suffered a minor shoulder injury, a camerawoman who has a broken wrist and a reporter for KPCC-FM (89.3) who was bruised by a police baton.

"I was dumbfounded," said the KPCC reporter, Patricia Nazario. "I've covered riots. I've covered chaos. I was never hit or struck or humiliated the way the LAPD violated me yesterday."

Nazario said she was walking away from riot police when she was hit in the back.

Wearing a press pass and holding a microphone, she turned around and told the officer, "Why did you hit me? I'm moving. I'm a reporter," Nazario recalled.

Then the officer hit her on the left leg, she said, knocking her to the ground and sending her cellphone flying.
[...]
Pedro Sevcec was anchoring the evening news for Telemundo when he saw the riot police moving slowly toward the news crews.
[...]
Police knocked over monitors and lights and hit reporters and camera operators with batons, he said.

Sevcec said police hit him three times and pointed a riot gun at his face before pushing him out of the park.
[...]
Telemundo reporter Carlos Botifoll said he was hit by a baton as he was waiting to go live on the broadcast.

He was carrying a microphone and standing in front of a camera.

"We were obviously reporters," he said. "There could not have been any doubt whatsoever."

The use of force on news crews came despite a legal settlement signed in 2002 calling for the Los Angeles police and city officials to recognize journalists' right to cover public protests even if there is a declaration of unlawful assembly and an order to disperse.

In many european countries the police will tolerated projectiles because they are so heavily protected, and are not as easily provoked. I don't recal hearing much about the killing and maiming of riot police in europe.

Legal observers, volunteers sent by the Lawyers Guild, insisted that no order to disperse was given before the police began their assault. Only after the shooting began did a police helicopter give an order to disperse, an order that few people actually heard.

That, added to the video evidence, indicates that that the police provocation and the LAPD disciplined sweep that followed was intended to create a pretext to intimidate immigrants and workers peacefully assembling to demand their rights.

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Here's a tip, don't knock over a cop's Harley, because that will surely get you an ass-woopin in any of the municipalities I've known, simple as that, it was on with the cops at that point.  Basic primate territoriality is what were talking about here, that is what riot squads do best after all.

If you're stupid enough to stand in front of men with armor, weapons and shields, and think you're going to be able to reason with them, you'd better think again.  The reporter in that LA Times story was pretty naïve, that kind of thing can get you killed, by "accident".

The only defense against a group of brutes in gladiatorial garb is effective armor piercing weapon, that's how you escalate that situation.  
Next time maybe an angry immigrant just back from Iraq will bring his AR-15 carbine under his coat, and when the cops confront him they'll get a different answer.  

And what will happen then, who will benefit from an escalation of this kind of violence?

I know who.

I'm getting visions of Israel when I watch this, Palestinians on the West Bank getting beaned with rubber bullets, is that what America is coming to with immigration under the Bush administration? Building walls along borders and attempting to marginalize people, it never works in the end, so why are we doing it? Latinos will very soon be a majority in the United States, white folks better start being nice, get on their good side now because pretty soon they'll be running the country, at least if it's still a democracy, which I will admit seems to be more and more up in the air these days.

 I wonder about LA cops who had this duty, and could see kids, little kids running, and think it's acceptable to fire their weapon in that situation, I wonder what's in the back of their mind, perhaps that these are illegal immigrants and therefore not legitimate human beings so I don't have the same responsibility for their lives as I do the lives of US citizens?  I've got a problem with that, and the officer who ordered this action.

The next time I assert my right to bear arms, by defending the sales of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, I'll cite just such a situation as my reason for caring a fully loaded assault rifle with me at all times.  Your Honor, you never know when you'll be attacked by a mob of police, I just want to be able to defend myself.