LA police officers disciplined for rally violence

May 7, 2007, 16:07 GMT

Los Angeles - Los Angeles police chief William Bratton has ordered up to 60 officers off the streets for their role in using rubber bullets and batons to break up a mostly peaceful immigration rally last week, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

The officers served in the force's Metropolitan Division, which is the city's premier police squad with extensive training in crowd control tactics. Police and the FBI are investigating why the officers fired some 150 rubber bullets without making any arrests, and beat many onlookers, including some journalists, with batons.

Officers in the Metropolitan Division's B Platoon 'in all likelihood will not remain in that unit and some of them will not be returning to the Metropolitan function, as a result of some of our investigation into the actions of some of our officers,' Bratton said.

'This was not the idea that my least-trained, my least-experienced officers were the ones engaged in the activities,' Bratton said. 'This was my best, and that was what was extraordinarily disturbing about this.'

He said further disciplinary action will await the completion of an LAPD investigation to be presented to the City Council on May 30. But he also acknowledged the responsibility he and other senior officers bore for the scenes of police brutality that were broadcast around the world.

'One thing I know about them [police] is you have to control them, because they go out of control faster than any human being in the world' because of the traumatic circumstances of their work, he said.

The chief also said that the entire chain of responsibility within the police department will be examined for responsibility.

'I feel very comfortable apologizing in general, particularly to the press corps that were subject to what I believe were inappropriate actions on the part of some members of that unit,' Bratton said. 'Corruption, brutality, inappropriate behaviour, I'm not going to defend. I'm not going make a fool of myself. A lot of what happened on that field that day is indefensible.'