``LAPD's unconstitutional use of force targets everyone and anyone who dares to speak out about the injustices of our society,'' James Lafferty, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, said at a press conference outside police headquarters Thursday.

``Its target is the right to dissent. Its target is constitutional government as we know it.''

Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Sgt. John Pasquariello, who attended the press conference as an observer, told Reuters: ``We're against police brutality too.'' He refused to comment further.

The suit, filed in federal district court by the Lawyers Guild, the American Civil Liberties Union and two coalitions against police brutality, seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages as well as an end to alleged police tactics it claims violated protesters' rights under the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

Among its claims the suit details a variety of measures -- some of them violent -- that officers allegedly used to deliberately suppress free speech, and block protesters' rights to peacefully assemble and petition the government at the DNC last August and at a protest outside LAPD headquarters last October.

LAWYER SHOT BETWEEN EYES WITH BEAN BAG

``The central question that is raised by this lawsuit is really very simple and straightforward,'' Lafferty said. ``Can we as a people still peacefully, without fear of police violence, assemble in the streets of Los Angeles and freely criticize our government, or can't we?''

The suit states that people were prevented from freely entering and exiting organized protests and were unlawfully detained. Several were injured in a series of clubbings and shootings by police officers who fired beanbags and rubber bullets directly into nonviolent crowds.

One woman, an ACLU attorney who said she was peacefully observing the DNC protests from a sidewalk, was shot between the eyes with a beanbag by a police officer standing about 80 feet away.

``The only way I could have been shot between the eyes is if the officer aimed for my head,'' attorney Carol Sobel said. Officers are supposed to aim for the ground when employing ''nonlethal'' methods of crowd control, she added.

The suit alleges that such supposedly ``nonlethal'' tactics have ``a chilling effect'' on ``countless people who would otherwise exercise their constitutional right to free speech in public places within the city, were it not for fear of ... the LAPD.''

The suit seeks injunctions against four specific policies it claims the LAPD routinely practices to suppress lawful protest.

Those include ``improperly terminating'' legally permitted political demonstrations without good reason; using ``excessive force'' in a ``lethal manner'' against peaceful protesters; preventing people from entering and exiting permitted marches and rallies while they are in progress and detaining them after those events have concluded; and flying police helicopters so low to demonstrations that they drown out protesters' voices.

Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited

###