Last December in Seattle, television viewers were introduced to a new breed of protestors. At least 50,000 demonstrators filled the streets of Seattle in a protest intended to disrupt a World Trade Organization meeting. The purpose of the demonstrations was to shed light on the injustices of an international economic system increasingly dominated by global corporations. What most television viewers will likely remember, however, is the demonstrators being pelted with rubber bullets, tear gas, and pepper spray by the police after a couple of dozen demonstrators began breaking windows and turning over dumpsters. The police and mayor were sharply criticized for being unprepared to deal with the looters among the crowd of peaceful, non-violent protestors.

As the movement against corporate globalization continued to grow and more protests were scheduled in Washington D.C. for the annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund - mayors and their police forces were determined to take whatever steps necessary to discourage future violence.

Since then, the police have been cracking down with unusual force at these widely attended protests. In Washington D.C., approximately 1,200 demonstrators were arrested during a week-long series of protests. At the Republican Convention in Philadelphia last July, 391 demonstrators were arrested throughout a week that was marred by confrontations between demonstrators and police.

As August's Democratic Convention approached, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) went the extra mile to ensure that demonstrators at the convention would remain peaceful. The LAPD has always had a reputation for being tough on crooks, but it has also been accused of being slow to intervene in riots that devastated the city in 1965 and 1992. Now things have changed. Not only would the police force crack down on illegal demonstrations; they would use a massive display of force to discourage any serious disruptions of the Convention.

Several alternative strategies have been used to confront this new, diffuse breed of demonstrators against "systemic" injustice. In the District of Columbia, preemptive arrests were used to crack down on organizers of the demonstration. Police spent the nights before the demonstrations searching houses and gatherings for organizers of the anti-IMF rallies. The organizing center of the demonstration was shut down and many of the protestors inside were arrested for alleged fire violations. They also made mass arrests: in one instance, a block was cordoned off and about 600 people were arrested for marching without a permit. The tactic worked: by the end of the week, the movement was in disarray.

In LA, the police used somewhat different tactics. In early August, the ACLU successfully registered a complaint against the LAPD, which accused officers of illegally harassing protest organizers and spying on their headquarters. The State Supreme Court issued a writ preventing the LAPD from using preemptive arrests.

Total arrests of demonstrators by the LAPD during the convention numbered slightly less than 200 - much less than in Philadelphia or Washington. The largest group arrested - about 70 - included a group of bicyclists who had been riding their bikes the wrong way down a one-way street to protest the systemic injustice of car culture.

Instead of concentrating on arrests, the LAPD was able to use its resources to intimidate disruptors with a massive display of riot police, complete with teargas, helicopters, and "infiltrators". The LAPD was given the opportunity to make their case on the first day of the Convention, at a free concert given by the band Rage Against the Machine outside the convention hall. Demonstrators were herded into a designated "protest area" for the concert, surrounded by a large chain-link fence and concrete barricades. The barricades were surrounded by hundreds of riot police with teargas grenades and rubber bullets. As the concert progressed, a few of the rowdier demonstrators began to taunt the police and throw glass bottles over the fence. The police responded by shutting down the entire concert and giving the 10,000 protestors jammed inside the fenced area 15 minutes to leave. After 15 minutes, a line of policemen on horses charged the crowd, eventually forcing thousands of activists down the streets with rubber bullets and horses. According to organizers, about 150 demonstrators were injured.

Many in Los Angeles felt the LAPD had done their job admirably. Relatively few demonstrators were arrested, and serious confrontations were headed off. In the combustible racial and ethnic atmosphere of Los Angeles, the occasional displays of anarchy didn't spread into the convention hall or out into the streets. For others, though, these reactions to demonstrations were setting a dangerous precedent. Was this show of force necessary? Or was it an attempt to intimidate people who, according to the Bill of Rights, are entitled to speak out and demonstrate peacefully?

On One Hand...

The right to peaceful assembly is a constitutional right, and the police in LA and other cities have been violating it. Their massive overreactions to these organized rallies have turned small parades into confrontations between police and protestors. Not since the debacle of Chicago have we seen such an oversized display of force by mayors who feel that potential for disturbance is cause for arrest.

The media has been reacting to these violations of the First and Fourth Amendments with alarming indifference. Police have been randomly arresting and harassing organizers of legal demonstrations, infiltrating groups of marchers, and photographing participants as if they were guilty by association. They have taken bystanders to jail for being in "the wrong place at the wrong time". They have surrounded orderly demonstrators with police in riot gear and tear-gas grenades, helicopters, and wailing sirens.

This absurd display of force is clearly not intended to protect the demonstrators' right to assemble. It's intended to weaken and divide the demonstrators, to make each protest an exhausting legal ordeal. In many cases, it makes the message much more difficult to communicate. The right to public assembly remains the most powerful tool in our democracy. The police are making that difficult by preemptively responding to political protests with oppressive tactics.

On the Other Hand...

LA has experienced two of the most violent and costly urban riots of the 20th century — in 1965 and after the Rodney King beating in 1992. It's clear what the consequences are when vague discontent sparks uncontrolled violence.

Are the LAPD and the Philadelphia police actually violating the rights of these protestors? In Seattle and Washington, some protestors were simply trying to break the law and prevent others exercising their right to assemble. In Philadelphia and Los Angeles, they were trying to gain entry into conventions for parties that they had refused to join. Blocking intersections and preventing meetings from taking place have no productive place in society.

Expression of opinions is a cornerstone of democracy. Breaking laws, by definition, is not a civil right and shouldn't be treated as such. The police should use every means in their power to discourage it. And if those kids in black want to play tough, they've met their match. These protestors may actually be in the vanguard of a world revolution, but the LAPD isn't paid to make it easy for them.

• In the Los Angeles riots of 1992, provoked by the Rodney King beating, 38 were killed, 1,250 were injured, over 3,600 structural fires were started, and over 3,000 arrests were made.

• Many protestors in Philadelphia and Los Angeles complained that the news media had focused on the "efficacy" of the Philadelphia police or the LAPD in quelling disorders through use of pepper spray or teargas. "But we hear nothing of the protestors' demands," they said. "Just when this conspicuous silence begins to reek of censorship, a "liberal" commentator claims to sympathize with America's long traditions of peaceful demonstration and protest offers a patronizing editorial condemning the demonstrators' lack of focus. But the protests in Philadelphia and Los Angeles have articulated a broader analysis of systemic violence and exploitation that attends a society structured around the lust for individual gain."

• In 1996, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the Chicago Housing Authority imposed a 10 p.m. curfew on residents at the Henry Horner Homes, a housing project across from the Democratic Convention.

• "What had been expected to be an earnest effort to disrupt the WTO meeting had taken on an undertone of violence because of what appeared to be the agendas of a few. By nightfall, roving protesters had smashed the windows of downtown shops, painted anti-WTO slogans on walls and battered unoccupied police cares. There were also reports of looting. For most of the day, police response was muted. But as the violence escalated, so did the police reaction, in the form of tear gas and arrests." — Radio Free Europe, December, 1999.

• This June, after the L.A. Lakers' NBA Championship victory, the LAPD was criticized for remaining on the sidelines during the spree of violence that accompanied the victory celebrations.

New York Times; Los Angeles Independent Media Center; Eyes on the World; Radio Free Europe; MSNBC