LOS ANGELES: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Monday ``bad tactics'' led to a violent confrontation at an immigration rally last week, when police swarmed into a park and fired rubber bullets into a crowd of demonstrators.
``There was clearly a breakdown in the command structure here,'' Villaraigosa said in an interview on CNN Monday. ``There was without question bad tactics.'' Villaraigosa expressed confidence in police Chief William Bratton and the ongoing investigation into the incident that came at the end of last Tuesday's rally in MacArthur Park.
``We will do everything in our power together to get to the bottom of this,'' Villaraigosa said. On Sunday, Bratton said that up to 60 members of an elite squad involved in the incident were no longer on the street. Bratton said he spent the weekend viewing video of the incident and said LAPD failures were widespread with officers from the top on down culpable.
``I'm not going to defend the indefensible,'' Bratton told journalists groups during a meeting at a television studio in Hollywood. ``Things were done that shouldn't have been done.'' Journalists were among those roughed up as Metropolitan Division's B Platoon moved through MacArthur and fired 148 rubber bullets to break up what had been a peaceful and lawful immigration rally.
Police said they moved in after rocks and bottles were thrown at them by 30 to 40 agitators, he said. The Metropolitan Division is the city's premier police squad, made up of experienced officers who have extensive training in crowd control.
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