Death to the Lungs of Los Angeles

Protesters chained themselves to barrels of concrete and others, including actress Daryl Hannah, sat in a large walnut tree.

By JACOB ADELMAN, Associated Press Writer
Republished from Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES – Sheriff’s deputies began evicting people from an urban garden early Tuesday and arrested at least seven as protesters chained themselves to barrels of concrete and others, including actress Daryl Hannah, sat in a large walnut tree.

“I’m very confident this is the morally right thing to do, to take a principled stand in solidarity with the farmers,” Hannah said by cell phone. Asked if she willing to risk arrest, she said, “I’m planning on holding my position.”

About 350 people grow produce and flowers on the 14 acres of privately owned land, in a gritty, inner-city area surrounded by warehouses and train tracks. The garden has been there for decades but the landowner, Ralph Horowitz, now wants to replace it with a warehouse.

At daybreak Tuesday, 120 deputies, including riot forces, showed up to serve an eviction order that a judge signed last month.

Seven people were arrested for allegedly violating a court eviction order and obstructing sheriff’s deputies enforcing the order, said Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Kerri Webb.

As many as 20 demonstrators inside the garden chained themselves to each other, the tree or 55-gallon concrete-filled drums.

“It’s a massive show of force,” said environmental activist John Quigley, who was in the walnut tree. “Our goal is to hold as firm as we can, obviously in a nonviolent manner.”

He said perhaps 20 farmers and their supporters were in the urban garden.

Deputies used saws to cut down the chain-link fence around the site. Inside the compound, deputies sawed through chains linking garden supporters. Quigley said he could see sparks flying dangerously close to the people’s faces and complained that authorities had removed legal observers from the inside the farm.

“It’s really an unsafe situation,” Quigley said. “There’s no legal observers in here. ... Basically we need legal observers in here to guarantee people’s safety.”

Webb said the deputies were “taking our time so we make sure the protesters are safe.”

Several dozen protesters gathered outside the area, sporadically chanting, “We’re here and we’re not going to leave” in Spanish and blowing whistles. Some flooded onto a street and disrupted truck traffic in the area. About a half-dozen people wore green baseball hats with “National Lawyers Guild Legal Observer” on the front.

The effort to save the farm has attracted the support of celebrities, including “Splash” star Hannah, country singer Willie Nelson, actor Danny Glover, folk singer Joan Baez and tree sitter Julia “Butterfly” Hill.

Some supporters moved onto the property full-time in mid-May and occupied the walnut tree after the judge issued the eviction order.

The roots of the dispute go back to the 1980s, when the city forced Horowitz to sell the land to for $4.8 million for a trash-to-energy incinerator. The project fizzled and the city turned the land over to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, which allowed people to begin gardening there after in the early 1990s.

Horowitz sued to get the site back, and the city settled in 2003 by selling it to him for $5 million, slightly more than the $4.8 million he had been paid.

Garden supporters took legal action, but after a winning a temporary court order last year, an appellate court overturned that decision and the state Supreme Court last month decided against hearing the case.

In the meantime, Horowitz offered to sell the land for $16.3 million to a trust set up on behalf of the farmers. The group was $10 million short when the purchase option expired May 22, and Horowitz got the eviction order.