So close, yet so far.

Update: From the start, Civic Park has been more of an expensive tourist draw (and cement carpet) than a people's hangout. See LA Weekly print stories "Funny Math on Downtown L.A. Civic Park" and "Los Angeles Civic Park's Stillbirth."

Update: It appears there's some confusion over whether the park belongs to the city or the county. Details at the bottom.

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rhino neal

Updated at the bottom: LAPD Chief Charlie Beck wants to find this guy. Plus, see video of another cop getting bonked on the head. And, check out our May Day protest coverage, with photos. First posted at 6:08 a.m.

One skateboarder is accused of occupying a officer's riot helmet with his board during yesterday's May Day worker demonstrations downtown.

The female cop got hit so hard that it cracked her helmet and she was put in a hospital, LAPD Officer Karen Rayner told the Weekly.

All turned out okay, however:

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Who loves Occupy? White people love Occupy!

The classic conservative sneer about Occupy Wall Street (and its L.A. faction) is that the protester base is primarily white hipsters/hippies too lazy to get a job.

And a new survey out of Loyola Marymount University doesn't exactly contradict the stereotype. Based on input from 1,605 Los Angeles residents, the survey finds that liberal, highly educated white males are most likely to ...

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Tessa Stuart

Sixth Street from MacArthur Square to Pershing Sqaure

Things did not go well yesterday in Seattle, San Francisco or Oakland, where May Day protests were marred by violence, vandalism, and the use of tear gas.

Here in LA, the much-anticipated actions, in the works since January, had the air of...

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With their powers combined, "cars and bikes, occupiers and unions, community orgs and organic communities" will be descending upon the downtown L.A. financial district from all sides this May Day.

May 1 is a traditional day of action for labor unions, so Occupy Los Angeles (and their fellow bankster-haters around the country) will apparently be using the date as a spring resurgence...

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exiledonline.com

"Out of jail, thinking that the worst was behind me..."

Well, this is awkward.

The same citizen journalist who started a firestorm against the LAPD last winter (for allegedly using brutality against Occupy L.A. protesters while forcing them out of their City Hall encampment) now claims he contracted more than bruises from the encounter.

Levine was arrested in the wee hours of November 30, 2011...

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~db~ via Flickr

We'll see about that.

We've all seen the Occupy Wall Street signs: America for sale! End corporate personhood! Get the money out of politics!

But what if a corporation actually became a politician?

Farmscape LLC, which describes itself as "the largest urban farming venture in Los Angeles," is launching a full-fledged mayoral campaign...

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~db~ via Flickr

Quit your yammerin'.

Smack dab in the middle of an election season, the L.A. City Ethics Commission decided yesterday afternoon to raise the cap on campaign contributions that municipal candidates can collect from their sponsors.

In other words: L.A.'s election system just got a little less Democratic, a lot more bought-and-sold.

The controversial item (especially controversial in the aftermath of Occupy Wall Street, with 1-percenter suspicions lingering on the air) drew a large, angry crowd...

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InsightOut News

Occupy la Casa Cardenas.

Things got pretty rowdy at the foreclosed North Hollywood home of undocumented immigrant Blanca Cardenas (and her U.S. citizen family, including two small children) on Monday night.

Occupy L.A. protesters, who have been rallying against both the Bank of America foreclosure and Cardenas' resulting deportation, can be seen in a video of the on-site demonstration running through doors, picketing on the front porch and refusing to leave the premises. This, despite about 20 LAPD cops in riot gear waiting to pounce...

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Alexander Weinschenker via Facebook

Though Occupy L.A. has always been firm about its status as a collective, not a group of individuals, some protesters have inevitably achieved more celebrity than the rest.

The first and foremost being Sarah Mason, whose portrait at a Bank of America occupation ended up on the cover of TIME's "Protester of the Year" issue. (Albeit heavily manipulated by controversial street artist/graphic designer Shepard Fairey.)

Another local celebrity of sorts was 22-year-old Alex Weinschenker...

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Laurie Levenson

​Law professor Laurie Levenson will give an hourlong lecture next week to about 30 arrestees from Occupy L.A., as part of their diversion program.

The class is the result of a compromise worked out between the office of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and the National Lawyers Guild, which has been representing Occupy defendants in court. Levenson's lecture will cover the First Amendment.

Trutanich originally wanted to charge $375 for the class, which would have been administered by American Justice Associates. But Occupiers objected to being forced to pay money to a private company to avoid criminal charges.
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Ustream

Down and out in Beverly Hills.

The Occupy 90210 protest last night, to call out President Obama for accepting big campaign cash from Hollywood donors, got a little chaotic when a protester was thrown from his bicycle by a Smart Car flying by. (Scroll down for dramatic video of the downed cyclist, sprawled in pain on Sunset Boulevard.)

Though the protest was scheduled for Will Rogers Memorial Park, it looks like occupiers moved onto the sidewalk once the sun went down...

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Shepard Fairey

Guess this settles the "hope you're on our side" thing.

Unlike the people's beloved First Lady -- who stops by Inglewood groceries when she's in town; so humble! -- President Obama is notorious for never letting his limo stray beyond L.A.'s lavish Westside.

Especially now that election season is drawing near, and so many deep Hollywood pockets have yet to be tapped for campaign donations.

Hence the president's $38,500-per-plate campaign fundraiser in the Holmby Hills this evening...

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REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/Pool

Occupiers lock arms at City Hall on Nov. 30

​The case against Steve Leaderman should have been easy to prove. Leaderman, 38, was one of the Occupy L.A. protesters who refused to leave City Hall Plaza after the LAPD ordered everyone to disperse on Nov. 30.

Leaderman, a veteran of political demonstrations, locked arms in a circle of protesters. He was ultimately carried out by police and charged with failure to disperse, a misdemeanor.

But after a three-day trial last week, a jury of his peers found him not guilty.

How did that happen?
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SEIU

Occupying a downtown B of A.

And you thought the occupation of Los Angeles was over with the raid on Occupy L.A.'s City Hall lawn encampment at the end of November.

Oh no.

The occupy nation is getting ready to confront a series of banks today regarding their take-our-bailout-money-and-our-houses tendencies:

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Updated at the bottom: The city is going with a Cadillac plan. First posted at 8:05 a.m.

If you were part of the occupation of the L.A. City Hall lawn late last year, prepare to be very mad.

Remember when the mayor sent 1,400 officers to clear Occupy protesters from their City Hall encampment right after Thanksgiving weekend? The rationale was that, while Antonio Villaraigosa and much of the City Council professed to be down with the 99 percent, they couldn't stand by as the protesters destroyed city property and incurred millions of dollars in costs to taxpayers.

The destruction of the City Hall lawn, a huge issue at the time, turned out, in fact, to be peanuts:

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The Occupy octopus.

Occupy L.A. wants its murals back.

Local leaders of the 99 percenter movement sent a letter to the city Department of Cultural Affairs asking for it to return the artwork, including a 24-by-16 piece depicting a federal reserve bank as an evil octopus, which was painted during the two-month occupation of the City Hall lawn.

So far, it appears, the city ain't budging:

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Henry David Thoreau: The original Occupier

​Gotta hand it to Judge William Sterling. This guy gets it.

This morning, Sterling sentenced Cajid Heartfield for violating probation by failing to disperse from the Occupy L.A. protest. Heartfield was sleeping in a tent when the LAPD raided the encampment.

Instead of the typical 20 days of Caltrans duty, Sterling came up with a more creative sentence. He ordered Heartfield, 43, to write a 300-word essay on Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience."

Heartfield readily agreed, according to Leone Hankey, who has been observing cases for Occupy L.A. Case closed.
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The ouster of Occupy L.A. left City Hall Park with dirt where once there was turf. And when ideas started coming in about what should be done to restore the landscape that adorns the symbolic center of the city, the range of opinions was something akin to those within Occupy L.A.: widely varied, with a generally progressive bent.

In gardening terms, "progressive" means less grass and more drought-tolerant and native plants. The fear, however, was that the city, bureaucratic and broke, would blow the opportunity to reboot the garden and just go with the least expensive and most traditional option: planting another flat, green sprawl. After all, grass is the cheapest to install and the easiest to maintain.

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Good Jobs LA

Conspiracies!

On this suspiciously nice-weathered morning in Los Angeles, a freak accident between a Fed-Ex truck and a Metro bus has blocked Van Nuys Boulevard in Panorama City.

The crash occurred mere hours before a big union- and Occupy L.A.-vetted protest of Fed-Ex (and other "corporate tax dodgers") was set to stage at the intersection of Sunset and Vine...

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