Los Angeles Police Fire Rubber Bullets Without Provocation at Peaceful Crowd

Officers of the Los Angeles Police Department attacked a peaceful immigration rights rally in MacArthur Park in downtown Los Angeles yesterday. Without any apparent provocation, a bullhorn on a police heliciopter ordered the demonstrators to leave the park. Immediately thereafter, police in riot gear fired rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowd, and then swept the park and surrounding streets clear of demonstrators, continuing to fire upon the crowd.

ThinkProgress has the video of CNN coverage of the police attack.

Brad Friedman at Brad Blog found this dramatic video, ten minutes long, taken by citizen journalist Jonathan Mann, who was taping the rally before the police moved in, and kept the tape rolling during the melee:

Update: The Peter Pregnaman of the Associated Press reports on the police attack:

Many caught in the melee were journalists.

KTTV reporter Christina Gonzales suffered a separated shoulder, while camerawoman Patti Ballaz had a broken wrist and possibly a broken hand, said Fox Television Stations spokeswoman Erica Keane.

KPCC radio reporter Patricia Nazario said she was hit in the back and ribs with a baton, then hit her head and twisted her ankle while falling from a blow. She described an interaction with an officer who was hitting her.

KCAL-TV cameraman Carl Stein said that his camera was tossed and that he was thrown to the ground.

"I'm sore, and I'm sore about what happened," Stein told viewers. "It was like open season — take a whack, have at it."

(hat tips to Digby and Gramina)