Protest concert due tonight outside convention

Security tight in Los Angeles

From staff and wire reports

LOS ANGELES -- Political rap-rock band Rage Against The Machine plans a free, outdoor concert Monday night across the street from the Democratic National Convention site, forcing police to juggle safety, security and free speech concerns.

The raucous four-piece group, known for supporting numerous causes and whose latest album is called "Battle of Los Angeles," is set to play in a fenced-off protest zone outside the Staples Center.

The concert was scheduled to take place as President Clinton addressed the convention and after a march uniting dozens of protest groups on the theme "Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed."

But police are concerned that the free concert could draw a crowd that has no interest in political causes and may want to incite trouble during the convention, which begins Monday and ends Thursday.

"We're gravely concerned because of security reasons -- just the large number of individuals that this will bring out," said Los Angeles Police spokesman David Kalish.

The security precautions include a 12-foot-tall fence separating the official protest area from the convention hall.

Rage Against The Machine, whose latest album has sold 2 million copies, did not need a permit to perform in the area because a federal judge in July approved the protest zone as an open demonstration site.

Sunday demonstrations mostly peaceful

On the eve of the convention, several thousand protesters took their various causes to the streets under unusually tight security.

There were no major incidents in a city swarming with officers -- many in riot gear -- and patrolled by squad cars, motorcycles, horses and helicopters.

In Sunday's biggest protest, more than 3,500 noisy marchers demanding freedom for a death row inmate ended their demonstration outside the convention site by frolicking in a cooling shower of water, courtesy of the Fire Department.

The midday protest in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, on death row for killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981, began in Pershing Square and went 12 blocks through the city's jewelry district.

Shop owners rolled down metal shutters over their storefronts as the marchers, accompanied by a Latin band, passed through. Shoppers scampered from the sidewalks. Police in black riot helmets with face shields blocked off streets not on the authorized parade route.

"There are more police here than people," said civil rights activist Jesse Jackson. "They should go catch the criminals and set the people free."

Actor-activist Ed Asner said Abu-Jamal's case was "as important as any in the history of this country. "Until Mumia is granted a new trial, we will watch the Al Gores and George Bushes of the world as they march the retarded, the young and the innocent to their death," Asner told the rally.

The only arrest reported by midnight took place toward the end of the Mumia protest, unnoticed by many in the crowd.

Police said 10 to 15 people, most wearing black clothes with black bandannas over their faces, were spotted climbing on the chain link security fence. Officers arrested one of them, Daniel Katz Woutat, 18, of Long Beach, California, and booked him for felony vandalism for allegedly making holes in the fence.

Later, anti-abortion activists staged a 1.7-mile shouting match, replete with angry slogans and gruesome photos of fetuses.

About 40 Operation Rescue members staked out St. John's Episcopal Church, where an abortion rights march began, and verbally harassed the marchers all the way to the protest zone at Staples.

Elsewhere around the city, labor groups, environmentalists and others staged demonstrations in hopes of grabbing the attention of some of the thousands of journalists here for the convention.

Police spokesman John Pasquariello said Sunday had passed "exactly as we hope the rest of the week will remain."

Convention site a high security zone

Los Angeles Police, mindful of the 1992 riots that followed the acquittal of four white officers for beating black motorist Rodney King, and currently embroiled in a major police corruption scandal, are as anxious as the Democratic Party for the convention to go well.

Neither police nor protest organizers will say how many people are expected to descend on Los Angeles for a week of protests on a range of issues, from corporate globalization to immigration and women's rights.

Police say they believe the majority of protesters will be peaceful but say they will clamp down hard on troublemakers.

They have declined to rule out using tear gas or pepper spray, and activists Sunday held teach-ins at their headquarters on how to treat any chemical attacks and how to quickly find lawyers.

The immediate area around the Staples Center has been made a high-security zone. A perimeter of cement barriers and chain-link fencing stretches for eight blocks, and roads have been closed and traffic rerouted.

On any given day during the convention, 2,000 police officers will be on guard, with more personnel and equipment staged at half a dozen sites around the city.

But the responsibility of protecting the convention will not fall just to the police department. A mix of local, county, state and federal forces, including Secret Service agents, also will be employed.

"We are sure there'll be many, many more demonstrators here than (at the Republican National Convention) in Philadelphia and a lot of that has to do with geography," said Frank O'Donnell, of the Secret Service. "A lot of demonstrators live on the West Coast."

The Secret Service is in charge of security inside the convention center itself. A chief concern is the center's 187 doors. Remote sensors and 45 cameras monitor the labyrinth of hallways and approaches.

In the event of serious violence, agents are prepared to evacuate President Clinton.

As a last resort, the California National Guard can also be called up and in place in 24 hours.

Publicly, authorities say they are ready. Privately, they worry. As one police official said, with 80 delegate hotels, 300 delegate buses, a freeway system and convention center right downtown, Los Angeles is a target-rich environment.

CNN National Correspondent Martin Savidge, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.