Hundreds Clash with Police Following ‘Rage’ Concert

L O S   A N G E L E S, Aug. 14 -- Hundreds of protesters dressed in black and wearing handkerchiefs over their mouths, clashed with police tonight after a concert by rock band Rage Against theMachine outside the Democratic convention.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets, then charged on horseback to disperse the crowd. At least four people were reported injured in the melee and police made at least two arrests.

As the crowd started to leave after the concert, people in theprotest area picked up chunks of dirt and threw them over a fenceat police. Some protesters outside the Staples Center started small fires and fueled them with their protest signs and banners. Some demonstrators danced around the flames.

Officers responded by firing pepper spray frompaintball guns to force the crowd away from the convention center.

“They’re shooting at us!” yelled one of the protesters in a crowd of people frantically moving about.

‘Something Had to be Done’

The chaos began after the concert-going crowd grew unruly, throwing bottles, scaling fences outside the convention and taunting officers trying to maintain calm. In the middle of the rock concert, police turned off the electricity to the stage and ordered concertgoers to leave.

“There started to be glass bottles that were broken,” said LAPD Capt. Stuart Maislin. “At that point, something had to be done to disperse that crowd.”

The scene was in stark contrast to what was happening almost simultaneously inside the Staples Center, as President Clinton took a long walk to the main podium to deliver his prime-time speech. As police ordered the crowd to disperse, hundreds outside the center frantically searched for a way out of the crowd.

At least one person was struck by rubber bullets fired by police and collapsed. “They started shooting rubber bullets at people,” said Brian Marsh, 29, one of the concertgoers. A couple of broken bottles is not worth the lives of the thousands of kids who were there.”