 "Photo: Courtesy of Savannah Wood")
A seven-house 30th Street block party turned into a mob scene Friday night when police tried to break up the party and more than 1,000 partygoers refused to leave, prompting at least 75 Los Angeles Police Department officers in riot gear to use clubs, smoke bombs, Tasers and pepper ball guns to control the crowd.
Nine were arrested after at least 100 students staged a "sit-in" in the street to prevent police from ending the party. Witnesses said students taunted the officers and threw beer bottles at them.
Officers responded by shooting students with pepper balls and striking them with nightsticks, according to students at the party.
Shortly after midnight, Department of Public Safety officers, who had learned about the party a week earlier, warned the party's organizer that the party had become overcrowded. The hosting houses turned off their music, but hundreds of people remained in the street.
DPS then called LAPD officers to break up the party.
Because of the crowd's size, LAPD declared a tactical alert, said police spokesman Mike Lopez.
The crowd turned hostile when two police squad cars arrived at the party.
"The kids were throwing beer bottles, not just at the cars but the officers, too, so they called us out," said an LAPD officer who responded to the alert. "Basically there were too many people in the street and they got LAPD out here to control the riot."
Between 75 and 100 LAPD officers arrived from several different divisions, some in riot gear, witnesses said.
The officers gathered in front of the crowd and warned students through a megaphone they had three minutes to disperse.
When students continued to sit in the street, a line of officers began to walk into the crowd to force them to leave.
Most students stood up and left the area, but some confronted the officers, according to witnesses and video footage of the incident. Multiple videos posted on YouTube captured much of the conflict.
"Two cop cars were in the middle of the street and people were dancing and singing around them," said Ray Morales, a senior majoring in psychology. "When the cops told us to leave, we staged a sit-in. They just sat on the street and refused to leave."
Students said they were angered by the conduct of LAPD officers during and after the confrontation. Many students said they were Tasered by officers or struck with nightsticks.
Daniel Bell, a junior majoring in communication, said he was recording LAPD officers struggling with students on his cell phone when one of the officers pointed at him.
"Three officers jumped me and threw me onto a car. I didn't struggle or anything. They made me put my head down and spread my legs."
When Bell realized he had lost his phone and asked for it back, "The officer picked it up, looked down at it, pressed the delete button, switched it off and put it in my pocket."
Some students also said LAPD shot them with rubber bullets.
One student also said that an officer covered up his badge when the student tried to read the number. Another student claimed an officer denied a mark on his ribs was caused by a Taser shock.
"When I was filling out my police report, I told one of the cops I got Tasered," said Dan, a USC student who asked that his last name not be used. "The cop looked at the big mark on my ribs and told me it wasn't a Taser mark."
Dan also said that while he filled out his police report, he attempted to read a police officer's badge number, but the officer covered his chest.
"I got a baton to the face and I tried to scuffle backward, but they came at me too fast," Dan said. "I got another baton to the knee, and the wall of police just continued to move at us."
Mario Imbert, a student at the Art Institute of California, said a police officer used a Taser to subdue him.
"Dan got hit, and I tried to help him up," Imbert said. "Then [police] tased me a couple times. It felt like my entire body was out of control. They Tasered me in my ribs, and I could feel it in my jaws and in my feet."
Not all students were frustrated by the LAPD response.
Schwartz said he thought LAPD's actions were necessary to settle a party dangerously close to being out of control.
"Every house was full and the street was full," Schwartz said. "It was way too out of hand. It wasn't a good feeling at all."
Schwartz said an LAPD officer fired a pepper ball at him, but that he thought it was necessary.
"People were yelling obscenities and egging them on," he said. "It was a good thing LAPD came. I don't think they were doing anything that was unjustified."
An LAPD officer on the scene, who declined to give his name, said nightsticks had been used but that no shots had been fired.
But Elizabeth Whitham, who lives on 30th Street and watched a large part of the disruption from her balcony, said she saw an officer fire pepper balls at her apartment complex's manager.
Other students also reported being shot by pepper balls.
Four students were arrested on suspicion of failing to disperse when police told them to leave the party. One student was arrested on suspicion of assaulting an officer, and four others on suspicion of trespassing.
Joel Avery, who organized the party, said he thought the party atmosphere cultivated partygoers' defiant attitudes.
"There was just this really awesome party and it was being taken away," he said. "There was too much energy for it to have ended at that point."
Dan said he and other students tried to ask police why the partying was being broken up. He said the officer responded, "You don't have any rights."
A member of the Daily Trojan's editorial board was one of the nine students arrested.
