Nov 28, 2008  |  By: REBECCA ARMENDARIZ  | COMMENTS     

The YouTube video was an instant hit in the gay blogosphere.

Three Los Angeles police officers were shown on live television approaching a Proposition 8 protester who had broken through a police line. Officers then took the man down, hitting him with batons before arresting him.

The man was Kevin Miniter, 25, a gay activist. And in his first interview about the Nov. 5 incident, which was captured on video by a local TV news helicopter crew, Miniter told the Blade that events culminating in his arrest began earlier that day.

A former D.C. resident who recently moved to Los Angeles, Miniter said he learned at work that people were plan ning to rally against the measure that bars same-sex couples from marrying. That evening, he headed to the rally’s starting point in West Hollywood.

Miniter said the rally quickly turned into an expansive protest that looped throughout West Hollywood and into Hollywood, spanning an estimated 2.5 miles.

The crowd was so large, Miniter said, that several Los Angeles police officers were ushering marchers along their route.

“There were definitely some [officers] who were helpful and continue to be very helpful,” he said.

But at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, a police barricade and line of officers were waiting. Miniter said some protesters began to push through the barrier so they could continue marching.

A handful of protesters broke through the line, which is visible in news video of the protest.
“We did the whole, ‘OK, let’s go! One, two, three,’” Miniter said.

Although one protester was able to make it as far as a nearby squad car — climbing atop and cheering on it — Miniter said three Los Angeles police officers quickly grabbed him as he broke through the line.

Miniter said he didn’t resist when the officers grabbed him, but two nonetheless struck him with batons.

“I completely acquiesced, I didn’t fight back, I didn’t do anything,” he said. “My first instinct was to put my hands over my head and try to crouch down while all of this was happening.”

Miniter was pulled to the ground and hit a few more times before he was handcuffed and put into a patrol car with three other people. It was then, he said, that he was first able to assess the damage.
Miniter said a deep cut on his leg was bleeding, and there were bruises on his legs and back.

“The bruises on my back are pretty significant because they signify that I was definitely being hit on my back while I was trying to protect myself,” he said.

‘A very, very bizarre system’

Miniter said he was taken to the Hollywood Community Police Station and handcuffed to a police bench for four hours while his leg continued to bleed.

Officers then separated the four people that were arrested, Miniter said, and took him to the Los Angeles County Jail. He noted that he saw a doctor around 3 a.m.

Miniter said an officer eventually told him that he was being charged with a felony — resisting arrest — and being held pending $25,000 bail.

He said he was in his jail cell throughout the day Nov. 6. The next morning, he was told that he would have a court date and officers moved him to the court building, where he was put into a cell with about 15 other inmates who were waiting to appear before a judge.

Two of the other protesters were placed in the cell with him and told him they were being held pending $50,000 bail for lynching and attempted lynching.

Miniter said he was kept in the holding cell until 6 p.m., when he and the two other protesters with him were brought into another room and told that they were being released.

“I was never seen in the court, I never got to see a court-appointed public defender, I was never arraigned for any of these charges that they threw at us,” he said. “They charged us, held us, and then after a few days, released us. And they had separated all of us so we wouldn’t have contact. It was a very, very bizarre system.”

The Los Angeles Police Department declined to comment on Miniter’s case.

‘It was wrong’

Since he was released Nov. 7, Miniter claims he’s had trouble sleeping.

“I would have these sort of weird fits of staring off into the distance not knowing what was right or real anymore,” he said.

Even after being released from jail, Miniter said he wasn’t sure if the charges had been fully dropped; police released him without clarifying the status of his case. ...