LA vows to clamp down on protesters

Los Angeles police officers stand on Crenshaw Boulevard during a protest against the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin trial.

AFP/Los Angeles

Los Angeles’ police chief vowed yesterday to clamp down harder on protests over the Trayvon Martin trial, after 14 people were arrested on a second night of violence.

Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) chief Charlie Beck said his officers would not allow a repeat of Monday night, when protesters jumped on cars, damaged shops and attacked bystanders.

“We cannot allow a small group of individuals to not only damage ... and strike fear the community, but also to destroy the message of so many in the community,” he said.

Police gave “a lot of leeway” to demonstrators on Monday evening to allow them freedom of speech, he said. “Unfortunately we won’t be able to do that tonight because of the circumstances of last night.”

Of the 14 arrested, seven adults and six juveniles were suspected of failing to disperse and one was suspected of inciting a riot, said LAPD spokesman Gus Villanueva. Firefighters had to extinguish several small fires and responded to a couple of minor injuries, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman said.

On Sunday eight people were arrested, including at a protest outside the CNN building in Hollywood, over the acquittal at trial of volunteer neighbourhood watch guard George Zimmerman.

Then late Monday 14 people were arrested after businesses including a Wal-Mart store were damaged as some 150 people “sought to exploit” Zimmerman being cleared of murdering black teen Martin, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti said.

The protesters skirmished with police along several streets in the Crenshaw District in southwestern Los Angeles. The Wal-Mart store was damaged, and a restaurant window smashed, local media reported.

Los Angeles is ever mindful of the deadly April 1992 riots in the city, which erupted after the acquittal of four white police officers over the notorious 1991 beating of Rodney King.

The Martin case pitted people who thought Zimmerman, 29, - son of a white father and a Peruvian mother - killed Martin, 17, in self-defence last February, against others who considered it a racially-motivated killing.

Garcetti condemned the protesters at a press conference late Monday.

“The trial that we saw in Florida has ignited passions, but we have to make sure that it will not ignite this city and we see a small group that has taken this opportunity to exploit this situation,” he said.

“The Martin family was very clear that those who sympathise with their plight, the best way to honor their son and their loved one is in a nonviolent manner.”

Meanwhile, black preachers said yesterday they were planning peaceful protests in 100 cities across the US this weekend to press for federal charges in the shooting death of Martin.

Call for federal charges

Reuters/Orlando, Florida

The not guilty verdict in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin has reshaped a black civil rights convention in Orlando, Florida where delegates are calling for federal charges following a trial they say failed to serve justice.

The civil rights activists were gathering for the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) just 30 minutes drive from where the murder trial took place when the jury issued its decision on Saturday night.

The verdict by a nearly all-white jury of six women in the trial of former neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman reverberated around the country and rocked the convention of 3,000 national, state and local officers and members.

Speeches were hastily re-written, agendas altered and conversation in the halls re-focused.

More than 800,000 people have signed an online petition of the NAACP asking US Attorney General Eric Holder to file civil rights charges against Zimmerman, the association said on Monday.

“It was like an atomic bomb dropped,” said Michael Edwards, 55, a union official and NAACP member from St. Louis.

Yesterday the convention was to hear from Holder, who on Monday called the death of Martin, an unarmed black teenager, “unnecessary,” raising questions about whether he believed Zimmerman, acted in self-defence.

“The Justice Department shares your concern,” Holder said, triggering an enthusiastic response from some 14,000 black sorority members at a Washington convention center.

The Justice Department said it would reopen its investigation into the case to determine whether any civil rights laws had been violated by the state court handling it.