By AMANDA RIDDLE
About 1,000 anti-war protesters demonstrated outside the West Los Angeles Federal Building on Thursday, briefly clashing with police, burning an American flag and forcing the closure of one of the city’s busiest intersections at rush hour. At least 14 were arrested.
One adult and three juveniles who refused police orders to disperse were arrested, as were two juveniles who violated a county ordinance by carrying slingshots, said Deputy Faye Bugarin, a Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman. Officer Don Cox, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman, said his agency took eight people into custody.
Police used their plastic shields to force several dozen protesters back onto a sidewalk at one point after they refused to move off Wilshire Boulevard. Many of the protesters were lying down in the middle of the busy thoroughfare in a so-called “die-in” that organizers said was meant to demonstrate “what dead people look like.”
Protesters shouted “No Blood for Oil,” No More War” and “Our Streets” as they took over the busy intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Veteran Avenue. They waved placards proclaiming “George Bush is Out of Control,” “George Bush: Stupidity Plus Power Equals Disaster” and “War is Terrorism.”
One group burned an American flag as others played drums and chanted, “What do we want? Peace! When do we want it? Now” Still others sold T-shirts with peace signs.
“We want the money, the billions of dollars that they are already spending on the war to be spent on clinics, schools and books, creating real jobs,” said protest organizer Paul Ahuja.
William Paige, a 42-year-old Army veteran who works as a clerk at the nearby Veteran’s Hospital, said he came to the demonstration to watch the protesters get arrested.
“If you were protesting against the government in Iraq, you’d all be dead. If you look at the polls, so many people support the war,” he said.
Others speaking out in favor of the war included about 300 people who gathered at a high school in suburban Newhall to show their support for U.S. troops.
Police closed Wilshire Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare that runs from downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean, and diverted traffic for about a mile in each direction after the protesters refused to get out of the roadway.
Earlier, police had diverted traffic in both directions on Veteran Avenue, which crosses Wilshire at the site of the Federal Building. The Wilshire Boulevard on- and off-ramps to the 405 Freeway were also shut down, snarling afternoon rush-hour traffic.
About 15 miles east, at the birthplace of Los Angeles, downtown’s Olvera Street, about 100 protesters called on the Bush administration to spend money on schools, not war.
Meanwhile, in Los Feliz, an area of stately old hillside homes near Griffith Park, Hollywood celebrities including actress Drew Barrymore, actor Beau Bridges and director Pedro Almodovar gathered at the home of architect Xorin Balbes, a co-founder of Global Vision for Peace, to protest the war.
“Violence leads to more violence. It’s not the solution,” Barrymore said, reading a statement from the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and past winner of the Nobel Prize for peace.
