AUTHORITIES HIT SKID ROW AGAIN

Tis Time, Officers Fan Out In Early Evening. Advocate For Homeless Calls It
'Grandstanding.'

As darkness fell Thursday, authorities launched a second round of sweeps
through Los Angeles' skid row, a vast homeless encampment just east of
downtown where officials say they are determined to root out lawless elements.

Police said "Operation Enough" was intended to address a growing problem of
parole and probation violators who are avoiding prison by living in the
densely populated, litter-strewn area.

The operation was launched after business organizations decried the huge
homeless population in the area, but officials said that complaints had
nothing to do with the sweep, which has been planned for months partly in
response to double-digit increases in homeless assaulting or robbing each
other.

"What we are really trying to do is reduce aggravated assaults and
robberies in the skid row area," said Los Angeles Police Capt. Charlie
Beck. "Either you catch them in the act or you remove them another way."
Beck reiterated that police were going after those who pose a threat to the
community, not targeting the homeless.

Around 5 p.m. Thursday, hundreds of law enforcement officers from the Los
Angeles Police Department, the California Department of Corrections and the
California Youth Authority, as well as federal agents, began massing near
police headquarters at Parker Center. The Corrections Department was the
lead agency in the sweeps, and many parole officers came from around the
state to participate.

Following a briefing, authorities fanned through the neighborhood, some
carrying photographs of suspected parole and probation violators. They
swept into low-cost hotels, shined flashlights into tents and questioned
people on the street. The majority of people on the row, however, were left
alone.

But a homeless advocate Thursday blasted what she called indiscriminate
harassment of one of the city's most vulnerable populations.

"They went after everybody," said Alice Callaghan, an Episcopal priest and
former Catholic nun who runs Las Familias del Pueblo. Talking of
Wednesday's sweeps, she said, "They stood up whole lines of people against
the walls. This was not a carefully targeted assault against criminals....
And if they knew about all these criminals before, why did they wait for
one day to grandstand? What was the purpose?"

Officials said they did not have a figure on how many people were arrested
Thursday. Wednesday's sweep resulted in 108 arrests, 57 of them for parole
violations and two for violating probation.

Police refused repeated requests Thursday to identify those arrested. Beck,
commander of the LAPD's Central Division, said most arrests were for drug
offenses or those who were found in violation of parole for prior drug
offenses. But the group included people who had been in prison for assault,
burglary, robbery and drug dealing, he said. Police confiscated many
weapons, including knives.

In addition to the parole and probation arrests, 19 people were arrested
for felony violations, mostly drug possession. Eight were arrested on
misdemeanor violations, police said.

Another six arrests were for outstanding felony warrants and 14 for
outstanding misdemeanor warrants. Again, police refused to identify the
suspects or their alleged crimes. One juvenile was arrested on an
outstanding warrant.

Authorities on Wednesday also impounded six cars, made one arrest for drunk
driving and handed out 100 traffic citations, both for moving violations
and for jaywalking. Those cited were not taken into custody, police said.

Each of those accused of violating their parole was taken to the county
jail and will soon appear before a deputy court commissioner to determine
whether they will be returned to prison, said Jerome Marsh, administrator
of parole and community services for the Department of Corrections.

Callaghan, the homeless advocate, strongly criticized the operation.

"I think our new police chief wants everybody to know who's in town. And
while he hasn't been able to do anything about the gang killings in
South-Central, he can easily come down and assault the poorest and most
vulnerable in the community. I think that just shows that he's a coward."

Callaghan said she considered the first-night roundup of 108 people to be a
relatively paltry catch for the police. "The raid proves that most of the
homeless on skid row are not criminals. That's the only good news to come
out of yesterday," she said.

Bratton, discussing the raid on Wednesday, insisted that the police were
attacking criminal behavior, not homelessness.

"This isn't about kicking the homeless off the streets," he said. "I have
great compassion for the homeless. But many of these people arrested are
violent offenders who make skid row unsafe for people who truly have
nowhere else to go."

Jose Luis Hernandez, 74, who has lived at the King Edward Hotel on 5th
Street for the last five years, welcomed the sweeps.

"It's good to see the police,'' Hernandez said Thursday night. "Maybe other
people have problems with the police, but there are bad people out here."

Bratton said he had far fewer tools to deal with bad behavior on city
streets than he had as police commissioner in New York.

He cited California laws that prohibit arrests of people who urinate or
defecate in public if there are no public restrooms immediately available.

Times staff writers Megan Garvey, Mitchell Landsberg and Jessica Garrison
contributed to this report.