October 22nd is a nationwide day of protest to stop “police brutality, repression and the criminalization of a generation.”
In LA, the permited march begins at 2:00 PM at Olympic and Broadway and manifests up Broadway to a rally at Parker Center at Los Angeles Street near Temple Street.
The rally then crescendos with a permitted stroll around Parker Center; though not permitted to pass on the street directly behind Parker Center, the coalition will be permitted to pass via the 2nd street beyond the center.
Ironically, though permitted last year, this final part of the march sparked a police riot which reportedly began over LAPD's questions of permits for marchers to circumnavigate the building. One result of last years fray was a lawsuit against the LAPD addressing their behavior during manifestations; the October 22nd Coalition joined this lawsuit bringing litigation about both October 22nd and D2K to the courts.
In Los Angeles, police misconduct makes headlines again and again. Recently the issue has appeared under the guise of the Ramparts scandal. With the institution of the Consent Decree, some say that scrutiny of the LAPD has prematurely slackened to hide the ongoing institutional problems of the department . Also of note in the Southland is the alarmingly high number of shootings by the Oxnard Police Department.
Activists say that the October 22nd event comes at a time of intense state pressure against free speech, what with the civil liberties repressions instituted after the S11 deaths. O22 organizers also note the resulting expansion of racial profiling tactics to those who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent. Many link the repression of the globalization movement (one example of this climate) with the continued air of police repression.
Many critics of the policing strategies link these problem with the corporatization of public institutions and sumarize the issues under the term- "the prison industrial complex." Recently in Philadelphia, a globalization-styled protest was held at a prison industries tradeshow.
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