Santa Ana : Anti-Abortion Group Sues L.A. Mayor, Police

Officials with the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue sued Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and others Friday, alleging police used excessive force in arresting hundreds of anti-abortion protesters last month.

The federal civil rights complaint, filed late Friday afternoon at the Santa Ana branch office of the U.S. District Court, seeks unspecified damages, an injunction against future police brutality and a court declaration that “preborn humans are individuals.”

In addition to Bradley and Gates, the suit named Deputy Chief Robert Vernon and an unspecified number of unnamed police officers as defendants.

More than 700 protesters were arrested during a massive sit-in demonstration and counter-demonstration by pro-abortion forces outside a Wilshire-area women’s clinic on March 25. The anti-abortionists were arrested when they refused to disperse from the entrance to the clinic.

The protest was by far the largest in both numbers participating and numbers arrested in 3 days of Operation Rescue demonstrations in Southern California.

Robert Sassone, an attorney for Operation Rescue who filed the suit, threatened legal action earlier in the week unless Bradley responded to the group’s allegations of police misconduct.

Bradley could not be reached for comment Friday. His spokesman, Fred MacFarlane, said in response to the earlier threat of a lawsuit: “Let them file (suit); we’ll talk to them in court.”

Los Angeles Police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth responded to the lawsuit, saying, “Absolutely no excessive force was used.”