OS ANGELES - Post-Philadelphia, pre-Los Angeles, the paranoia is already apparent.
One protest organizer refuses to disclose his Los Angeles location over the telephone, fearful that the call is being monitored. A local police official declines to discuss specific security arrangements, unwilling to tip his department's hand. Protest leaders contend that undercover officers have infiltrated the building that houses their headquarters. Police in riot gear turn out on Thursday to quell a loud but otherwise peaceful union march.
Each side calls the other capable of lies, deception, and dirty tricks.
''We've had this incredible amount of surveillance and harassment,'' said Lisa Fithian, an organizer of the coming demonstrations, which she stressed are intended to be nonviolent. ''They've videotaped our building, the fire inspector showed up suddenly, there are cop cars parked outside. It's outrageous.''
Countered Lieutenant Horace Frank, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department: ''We're not doing any surveillance. Our job is to be aware of what's going on in the community. But that's the kind of rhetoric they're stirring up in the hope we will not do police work.''
With the Democratic National Convention less than a week away, both protesters and police are, as the saying goes, hoping for the best while preparing for the worst. They are also looking to Philadelphia's experience for hints of what could happen here. But the lessons being learned are mixed.
For their part, Los Angeles police generally applaud the restraint showed by their East Coast counterparts: no tear gas, pepper spray, or rubber bullets fired into the crowds, even when a few of the mostly peaceful protests turned violent. Police Commander Mark Leap promised a similar response in Los Angeles, insisting that force would be used only as a last resort.
Demonstrators, however, say they came away from the Republican National Convention more worried than ever that their First Amendment rights to gather in public are at risk. In Philadephia, they charge, police carried out a preemptive operation to collar demonstration leaders, with bail for one set at $1 million although he was charged only with misdemeanors. In another instance, police with a now-sealed search warrant raided a puppet-making factory, saying they would find evidence of plans to disrupt the city and arresting about 70 people.
''There is more than one way to prevent people from exercising their First Amendment rights, and it doesn't always come at the end of a baton,'' said James Lafferty, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which will have some 200 legal observers on the street and will represent arrested demonstrators free of charge. ''People are chilled. My god, even puppets are not safe. It's very alarming.''
The LAPD, like other police departments nationwide, does have an arsenal of weapons to stop any outbreak of violence during the daily demonstrations, including a recently demonstrated chemical that causes a person to smell so awful that others cannot come near. But with its already besmirched reputation on the line after the Rodney King beating, the 1991 riots, and an ongoing corruption scandal that is the widest in memory, police officials understand that their performance will be scrutinized closely.
In the wake of the scandal, in which officers in the Rampart district are accused of beating suspects, planting evidence, and lying in court to win convictions of gang members, the federal government is in talks with the city over how to improve the tracking of problem officers. So far, one police officer from the district has been fired as a result of the scandal, with other dismissals expected. Some 70 officers are under investigation, and there are indications that the corruption spread into other districts.
''I'm not going to play dumb; there have been incidents that tarnished our image,'' Frank said. ''We have to live through it and go beyond it. ... In all honesty, this convention is very important for us. It's a chance to showcase the city of Los Angeles and for the LAPD to shine. We're going to do that.''
The circumstances confronting both police and protesters in Los Angeles, however, are far different from those faced in Philadelphia, although police there were also under pressure to keep their weapons holstered following last month's televised beating of a car chase suspect.
For starters, the Republican convention was held in a sports arena on the outskirts of the city, and protesters gathered there in large numbers just once. In Los Angeles, delegates will convene downtown, creating the possiblity of intentional traffic tie-ups and shutdowns. Philadelphia also attracted no more than an estimated 4,000 demonstrators. Tens of thousands are expected in Los Angeles, with some estimates going as high as 50,000. The same week, the homeless and other groups are to meet in Los Angeles, including the North American Anarchist Conference.
''We're certainly not more relaxed after Philadelphia,'' said Leap, the police commander. ''I can tell you that the planning and the training we did before we went to Philadelphia [to observe] was validated by what we saw in Philadelphia.''
The outcome - mostly peaceful protests, a few confrontations resulting in injuries to police as well as protesters - has also calmed convention officials even as they erect wire fences around the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. As many as four parades are planned each day.
''It's definitely not our place to comment on specific tactics, but I can say that there were real predictions of doom in Philadelphia and things went relatively smoothly,'' said Benjamin Austin, a spokesman for the LA Convention 2000 host committee. ''We applaud the city and also think it bodes well for us. They did a good job of balancing the First Amendment right of protesters and the needs of residents.''
But protesters who plan to start arriving in Los Angeles later this week, and the organizers now in place, say the city has already tagged them as the enemy. Again and again, they stress that they are adamant about holding peaceful protests and that they themselves will do nothing to turn the massive demonstrations ugly. Still, they will not be cowed into silence.
''We're very nervous about what Philadelphia bodes for LA,'' said Han Shan, a spokesman for the Berkeley-based Ruckus Society, a sort of graduate program for nonviolent liberal protesters whose executive director is being held on $1 million bond. ''We're very, very concerned. But one thing I'm gratified by is that they don't get it. They think they can pick off one or 10 or 50 people and end a movement that's calling for democracy, environmental protection, basic human rights. Well, we're still coming to LA.''
