May 2, 2012
The Los Angeles Times
Letters to the Editor
RE: "May Day rallies test LAPD," May 1, 2012
Dear Editor:
Sadly, with yesterday's report on the May Day protests in L.A. ("May
Day rallies test LAPD; Occupy activists square off with officers
downtown…"), the Times fell to a new low in its history of traditionally
poor coverage of political protests. The Lawyers Guild had at least 60 legal observers stationed amongst the
numerous May Day protests. Three (3) arrests in the day-long schedule of
protests hardly qualifies as a "test" for the LAPD, whose top officers
repeatedly told me during the day that the day was "99% peaceful and
orderly" on the part of the protesters. (We are, however, still
investigating several legal observer reports of brutal behavior by some
members of the LAPD. A matter your reporters failed to cover.) The other
eight (8) arrests reported by the Times were, in fact, members of a union
protesting their employers at LAX, and those civil disobedience arrests were
planned well-in advance between the union and the LAPD and really had
nothing to do with the other May Day protests. As to the article's report on the numbers and size of the protests, I
am left wondering if the article's reporters were even actually in Los
Angeles yesterday. I was present throughout the largest of the two principal
immigrant rights marches and rallies, and at the first, and biggest, other
reporters on the scene estimated the crowd as, "about 10,000," not "only
several hundred" as the Times reported. In sum, your article, with its front page picture of a protester being
confronted by an angry cop, could only leave the reader with the clear
impression that a hand-full of trouble-makers came out yesterday to do
nothing more than "test" the LAPD and run wild in the streets, when the
truth is that thousands came out and peacefully protested economic injustice
towards immigrants, and all other workers in this nation. Sincerely, Jim Lafferty Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles
Day rallies test LAPD; Occupy activists square off with officers
downtown…"), the Times fell to a new low in its history of traditionally
poor coverage of political protests. The Lawyers Guild had at least 60 legal observers stationed amongst the
numerous May Day protests. Three (3) arrests in the day-long schedule of
protests hardly qualifies as a "test" for the LAPD, whose top officers
repeatedly told me during the day that the day was "99% peaceful and
orderly" on the part of the protesters. (We are, however, still
investigating several legal observer reports of brutal behavior by some
members of the LAPD. A matter your reporters failed to cover.) The other
eight (8) arrests reported by the Times were, in fact, members of a union
protesting their employers at LAX, and those civil disobedience arrests were
planned well-in advance between the union and the LAPD and really had
nothing to do with the other May Day protests. As to the article's report on the numbers and size of the protests, I
am left wondering if the article's reporters were even actually in Los
Angeles yesterday. I was present throughout the largest of the two principal
immigrant rights marches and rallies, and at the first, and biggest, other
reporters on the scene estimated the crowd as, "about 10,000," not "only
several hundred" as the Times reported. In sum, your article, with its front page picture of a protester being
confronted by an angry cop, could only leave the reader with the clear
impression that a hand-full of trouble-makers came out yesterday to do
nothing more than "test" the LAPD and run wild in the streets, when the
truth is that thousands came out and peacefully protested economic injustice
towards immigrants, and all other workers in this nation. Sincerely, Jim Lafferty Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles
