Police prepare to push back Dodger fans from Sunset Boulevard and Echo Park Avenue.
Photo by Jesus Sanchez
Echo Park—Windy O’Malley was walking home in butterfly wings and high heels when riot police allegedly gave her a concussion.
It was Nov. 2, and the 55-year-old Echo Park Neighborhood Council member was returning home from a Dia de los Muertos event at Olvera Street. It was also the night the Dodgers won the World Series for the second consecutive year. People were swarming the streets of Echo Park to celebrate, and the police were there in force.
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The Echo Park Neighborhood Council has now issued a letter of complaint about alleged police actions that night, including O’Malley’s injury, and asserting that officers launched tear gas into non-violent areas, pushed people with horses, and beat non-resistant people with sticks.
The letter states, “It was clear to anyone who interacted with officers even before the violence broke out that many of them were eager to do harm.”
AÂ report by the LAPD’s Northeast Division paints a different picture, saying police reacted after a crowd near Sunset Boulevard and Echo Park Avenue obstructed traffic, used commercial-grade fireworks and explosive devices, threw projectiles at officers, and failed to obey a dispersal order.
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A different police report said virtually identical things about celebrants Downtown near Olympic Boulevard and Grand Avenue, including the same crowd numbers.
O’Malley told The Eastsider that she was approached by one police officer on foot and another on horseback as she prepared to turn the corner at Mohawk Street toward her home. Being a former farm girl and a sympathetic supporter of the LAPD, she feared neither the horse nor the officers, she said.
“I kind of smiled at them,” O’Malley said. “I stepped back as far as I could from them to let them pass. That is not what they wanted. They wanted me to run the other way.”
She said the officer on foot pushed her toward the horse and threw her against the door of a corner storefront. She suffered cuts and bruises on her hand, knees, and head, and she said she was diagnosed with a concussion. A month later, she still had marks on her arm from where the officer grabbed her, she said.
While a bystander was helping her up, the officer allegedly yelled at her for not running away, O’Malley said. She did not get his badge number.
The LAPD has offered no further comment to The Eastsider. But Neighborhood Councilmember Emily Blake said police have told her an internal probe is underway.