Melees Bring Early Closure of Fiesta Broadway

Rock and bottle-throwing melees that erupted Sunday shut down L.A. Fiesta Broadway, the nation’s largest Cinco de Mayo celebration, prompting police to fire rubber bullets into knots of troublemakers, then sweep along Downtown streets to clear the crowds of hundreds of thousands.

Eighteen people were injured, none apparently critically, and the daylong festival was ended almost three hours early.

Six Los Angeles police officers were among the injured, said Cmdr. David Gascon at a Sunday night news conference. He could not detail the officers’ injuries. One officer was hit in the shoulder by a large bottle apparently filled with urine, he said.

Police blamed gang members for starting the violence.

The Los Angeles Fire Department said a dozen people were taken by ambulance to area hospitals, 11 of them with minor injuries.

A 27-year-old Baldwin Park man and his two daughters, ages 4 and 7, were taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center and were in fair condition, suffering bruises from being trampled by the crowd, said hospital spokeswoman Adelaida De La Cerda.

Gascon said there was an unconfirmed report of looting.

Ten arrests were made but police did not specify the charges.

“Too many people, not enough space, and a large number of gang members at 4th and Spring,” is how Officer Rigo Romero, LAPD spokesman, summed up the incident that sparked the trouble.

Thousands of families came to the fifth annual event, but “a tremendous number of gang members showed up to the event this year” as well, said Gascon, who estimated the turnout at between 200,000 and 500,000.

Officers began moving the crowd out of the 36-block festival area about 4 p.m., after reports that shots had been fired.

One witness said he was at 5th and Broadway when he heard a fusillade of shots in two volleys and, like hundreds of others, dived for cover.

As the event broke up, families could be seen running along sidewalks and in streets that had been closed for the festival, hustling their children out of harm’s way.

“I think it’s awful,” said a young Latina leaving the scene. “All the Mexicans get together for one day, and we can’t live in harmony.”

At what Gascon described as “several problem locations” where the gang members defied officers by throwing rocks and bottles, police fired two types of rubber projectiles, as well as beanbag projectiles. “Unfortunately we had to employ some of the tactics we trained over after the riots two years ago,” Gascon said.

“I don’t think that’s right,” shouted a woman about the rubber bullets as she left the event. “Some of these little babies could have been hurt.”

Firing rubber bullets, Gascon told reporters, is preferable to the use of batons because the projectiles cause fewer injuries.

“This was a festive event, and many people attending it had a good time,” said Gascon. “But obviously we had problems. There were significant problems. None of us want to have such things occur.”

A police spokesman said the crowd turned ugly when radio station KPWR-FM (Power 106) closed its stage at Spring and 4th streets. The station, along with police and organizers, decided not to continue the show because the crowd around the stage had grown too large to control and had begun to press against the platform, police said.

The decision angered some in the crowd, who began throwing rocks and bottles as the crew dismantled the stage.

“They were throwing rocks and bottles at the (stagehands) and then at each other and then at us,” the police spokesman said.

Witnesses who did not want to be identified said equipment was set up in such a way that the crowd was packed in and there was no room to get through.

As police began to move in to break up rowdiness, a small group, wearing what witnesses described as gang colors, began throwing a few rocks and bottles and engaging in sporadic fistfights that quickly spread up and down Broadway.

A food vendor on Broadway, between 4th and 5th streets, said someone threw a cherry bomb, and she heard a shot fired.

“I got real scared, and so did everyone around me,” she said. And, she complained, it took quite a while for police to put enough officers on Broadway to control the fights that were breaking out.

Several vendors expressed disappointment at the turn of events, saying the violence cost them money. But none criticized the police decision to shut down the festival early.

Even an hour after the disturbances, music was still heard at the south end of the festival, blocks from the origin of the trouble.

The sponsors of the fiesta, All Access Entertainment, decried the disturbance but said that most party-goers were well behaved.

“We believe that these actions did not reflect the attitude of the vast majority of persons attending the event,” said Larry Gonzalez, president of All Access. “We regret that they marred what was otherwise a successful program.”

As in the past, plans called for every festival-goer to be searched for weapons, but as early as 11:30 a.m. at one spot, “a large crowd pushed by security guards at 5th and Spring,” Gascon said.

Other large crowds were reported near other entertainment sites and near vendors.

For the next three hours, sporadic reports of rock and bottle throwing and even shots drew police and paramedics to various spots in the 36-block area until, at 3:55 p.m., Gascon said, some 1,000 gang members were reported at 1st and Alameda.

Ultimately, about 600 Los Angeles police officers and about 800 private security personnel hired by the festival began to disperse the crowd, he said.

Gonzalez said his group would meet with Los Angeles police and fire officials to determine what set off the melees. All Access has no plans at present to cancel next year’s Cinco de Mayo fiesta.

“You can bet we’ll be in there next year with our suggestions,” Gascon said. “We will evaluate what happened.”

Earlier, Broadway and nearby streets had been converted into a combination circus midway, outdoor barbecue and open-air concert. Streets normally clogged with cars and smoke-belching buses were instead packed with pedestrians out to sample the food, the games and the gifts.

The crowds, though, were clearly larger than some areas could accommodate. Long before disturbances erupted, women carrying infants were caught in a crowd jammed around a mid-block stage on Broadway.

But the atmosphere was cooperative and friendly, and the word on the street was gratis as long lines formed at dozens of booths where companies were giving away samples of everything from laundry detergent to free telephone calls to Mexico.

“It’s Dial, man. It’s Dial,” Clifford McGregor whispered, explaining his willingness to stand in a line nearly 100 yards long on Broadway to get to a booth giving away bath soap.

Even people who had spent many minutes standing in lines began to crane their necks and point as a familiar figure made his way through the crowd.

“It’s the cardinal,” one woman said to a friend, pointing out the red zucchetto bobbing above the throng.

Most passersby simply stood in awe, smiling as Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, accompanied by only a single aide, made his way down Broadway. One man finally mustered the courage to ask Mahony to pose for a photo with his wife. When the cardinal agreed, the rush from more families seeking photo souvenirs was on.

“This is a great fiesta and great weather,” Mahony said.

For all the crowds drawn to the cardinal and the powerful lure of free goodies, Cynthia Reyes, her two sisters and three friends said they had even stronger reasons to be there.

“The men--that’s what we like most about the festival,” said Reyes, 25, of Covina. “The men and the music, that’s what it’s about.”

This year’s celebration just happened to fall on May 1--the traditional May Day for paying homage to the working classes in the dwindling number of communist countries.

It was a day for Ray Schorer, who was on Spring Street handing out copies of the People’s Daily World, to be direct.

“Sure, it’s the Communist Party,” he said of himself and his publication. “Take one. It won’t kill you.”

Times staff writers Laura Galloway, J. Michael Kennedy and Lisa Richardson contributed to this story.