LOS ANGELES, November 30 — Over 2,000 workers converged on LA’s City Hall on November 27, anticipating the police raid to remove the Occupy encampment. PLP mobilized a group of about 20 students and workers to show solidarity and help organize a defense of the camp. In the hours leading up to the midnight deadline, the PL group distributed 100 CHALLENGES and organized a picket line chanting, “The workers united will never be defeated” and “Whose streets? Our streets.”
As midnight neared, PL led the picket into the streets, defying the police who told the PL’er on the bullhorn leading the march to get back on the sidewalk. Eventually, what was a relatively small picket turned into several hundred protestors, taking over a street intersection next to the main Occupy encampment on the south lawn of City Hall.
Many expected a confrontation with the LAPD that night. However, it was not until the following night that the kkkops raided the camp, overwhelming the couple of hundred occupiers with a force of 1,400 cops. Under orders from the “progressive” LA Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, the cops utilized their best “community policing” techniques to avoid an all-out confrontation with the occupiers.
Part of the plan included pre-selecting which media outlets would be allowed to participate. This was important for the LAPD and the Mayor since they were keen on not letting the media cover the brutality of the police in their violent arrests of occupiers who refused to leave the encampment. The media also made no mention of the skirmishes between racist cops and protestors in the streets near City Hall when the occupiers were trying to disrupt the police operation.
The media did, however, glorify the LAPD’s military-style attack to clear the encampment. Besides mobilizing over 1,000 cops, the LAPD established a police command and processing center at Dodger Stadium for potential arrestees. They also turned dozens of MTA buses into police buses in which they transported close to 300 arrested occupiers. The following day Mayor Villaraigosa celebrated the efficiency of this fascist operation, lauding the “restrained” police behavior.
Despite the clearing of the Occupy encampment, PL’s participation in the nights of the police operation showed the potential leading role a disciplined organization can play in militant struggle. The next step is to transform this militancy into class struggle in our workplaces and campuses around our vision of revolutionary communism.