LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California intends to file suit�_ in federal court today against the Los Angeles Police Department for its attacks Monday night on members of the media. After shutting down the concert in the protest zone across from the Staples Center, police attacked the frightened crowd with batons, pepper spray, and nonlethal bullets. Members of the media reported that police officers singled them out for attack.

"This was a critical test to see whether a discredited police department could discharge its duties without violating individuals' civil rights," said Michael Small, Chief Counsel for the ACLU of Southern California. "The department failed in that charge, and then turned on those who were documenting that failure. They pulled the plug on the rally . then tried to turn the lights out on the cameras that were recording their actions."

"Instead of arresting the law-breaking few," said Small, "the LAPD wielded its batons and turned its guns on the peaceful many."

"A free press guards against tyranny and abuse of power," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California, "and those who abuse power inevitably seek to control the images we see and the stories we hear. The LAPD on Monday evening illustrated these axioms starkly by targeting members of the press as they were covering the LAPD's massive, sweeping violations of individuals' civil liberties."

"We ordinarily receive calls after protests," said Ripston, "but never in my memory have we received so many calls from members of the media who were attacked."

In the last 24 hours, the ACLU has received numerous calls from members of the media describing police attacks on journalists.

Al Crespo, a freelance photojournalist, was standing on the corner of Olympic and Figueroa, one block from the demonstration area near the Staples Center. As part of a project documenting political protests, Crespo took several photographs of the LAPD firing on protesters. There was nobody between the officer and Crespo. The nearest protestors were at least twenty feet away from Crespo, heading away from him on Figueroa. Crespo had two 35 mm cameras, one draped around his neck, the other around his shoulder. He was wearing a white t-shirt and several bright, laminated media passes.

Crespo was then shot three times with rubber bullets. He believes that the shots came from the gun of the officer that was pointed at him. One of the bullets hit him in his left temple, near his ear. Another bullet him in the right shoulder. The third bullet hit him in the right ankle. Crespo immediately felt pain from his wounds. He walked towards the Figueroa Hotel.�_ A bystander told him that he was bleeding from his head. Crespo was taken by ambulance to a local hospital where he received treatment for his wounds.

"Al Crespo was targeted because the recording eye of his camera threatened to capture the LAPD's violent and lawless behavior," said Ripston. "The bullets that struck him were not simply aimed at him. Their ultimate aim was to dislodge the eyes and ears of the public, to control our understanding of the events that unfolded Monday night, and to shut down the truth-telling role that media, at their best, can play."

"The dangers here, both physical and Constitutional, are grave," said Ripston. "They demand of us a vigilant and swift response. We cannot allow the Los Angeles Police Department to operate free of the constraints of public scrutiny. We know too well what happens when they do."

On Monday night, the LAPD displayed incredibly poor judgment in their response to the illegal behavior of a handful of attendees at the concert in the protest zone. When a few people began throwing debris over the fence and two individuals climbed the fence, protest leaders acted swiftly to try stop that illegal behavior. When it continued, they voluntarily decided to close the event and ask people to go home. But before they could do so, the police intervened with a heavy hand, shutting off the event's power and entering the protest zone on horses and in riot gear to disperse the crowd using batons and shooting rubber bullets and pepper spray.

Had the police cooperated with the rally organizers, the night could have ended calmly and smoothly. Instead, the police response on Monday created huge risks: when people see batons swinging, riot gear, and mounted police clearing an area, a tense situation becomes a volatile one.

Reports are streaming in to our offices detailing gross violations of individuals' civil rights.

We already know that numerous individuals were hurt in last night's actions by the police. We believe that Los Angeles is extremely fortunate in escaping the grave danger its police department created through its extreme use of force and its undifferentiated attacks on a crowd of people, most of whom were trying to leave the scene.

Our first priority now is to make sure that the protests this week proceed peaceably, and that the LAPD does not inflict any more injuries upon demonstrators, observers, or the media. What happened last night was nothing less than an orchestrated police riot. The ACLU has already obtained two court orders against the LAPD for violating free speech around the DNC. This is the LAPD's third strike.

LOS ANGELES Today civil rights groups filed in the Superior Court of the State of California to expand Williams v. State of California, the landmark education lawsuit to ensure that all public education students in the state be provided with the bare minimum tools necessary for educational success. Since the lawsuit was filed in May, on the 46th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education , the ACLU has fielded hundreds of calls from parents, teachers, and students interested in getting involved in the case. Plaintiffs representing 28 new schools spanning the state from Watsonville to Long Beach have joined the case, bringing the total number of schools represented by named plaintiffs to 46.

"This case has become the centerpiece in a movement committed to realizing the promise of public education for all," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. "The students, teachers, and parents who have participated in advancing this case are committed to making public education work in every community, for every child. Creating a truly equitable and sound public education system is one of the fundamental civil rights challenges we face today."

Students, parents, and teachers from the newly added schools, almost all of which serve communities of color, economically struggling communities, or immigrant communities, reported a long list of substandard conditions at their schools, including a lack of textbooks and basic instructional materials in core courses; shortages of trained, permanently assigned teachers; overcrowding and shortages of classroom spaces; unsafe and unsanitary school conditions; buildings in poor repair, and a host of other conditions that impede learning.

"For the children attending the nearly 150 schools named in the lawsuit," said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, "the three R's of education are too often rats, rot, and remiss."

"On the day the Democratic National Convention takes up the issue of education," said Rosenbaum, "the only response to the fierce realities disclosed in our suit from the California leaders who are charged with assuring that all children receive the bare essentials necessary to secure equal educational opportunity has been to dodge responsibility."

The suit is brought by the ACLU affiliates of California, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Public Advocates, Inc., Center for Law in the Public Interest, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, Morrison & Foerster LLP, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Professors Karl Manheim and Alan Ides, Peter Edelman of the Georgetown University Law Center, and Robert Myers of Newman. Aronson. Vanaman.