By
Brad Friedman on 11/10/2004, 1:16pm PT
I've lived in L.A. for nearly 10 years now. I've never seen armored tanks in the streets.
Last night, during an otherwise peaceful anti-war demonstration in front of the Federal Building in Westwood, two armored tanks were called out.
Here's the story, here's the QuickTime video. What the hell is this country coming to?
(Via Raw Story)
UPDATE: The links above are not broken as one reader reported, but traffic at both the page and the video is now very heavy, so keep trying. Here, in the meantime, is the text of the article:
LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM two armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood. The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered. Enraged, some of the people attempted to block the tanks, but police quickly cleared the street. The people continued to protest the presence of the tanks, but about ten minutes the tanks drove off. It is unclear as to why the tanks were deployed to this location.
UPDATE: AMERICAblog now has more details on this.