A generally peaceful demonstration against recently proposed revisions of federal regulation by the Department of Labor that would revoke the overtime pay of millions of American workers, including that of many police officers, turned violent when members of the LAPD fired tear gas into the crowd and began clubbing people.

The crowd of protestors, estimated to be 10,000 in number by organizers and 500 by police, began yesterday morning to march north on Westwood Boulevard towards the Federal Building in Westwood, chanting such phrases as "Fair pay for fair work" and waving signs promoting support for various labor organizations, including those of police advocacy groups. Shortly into the march, however, participants were diverted away from their planned route west onto Mississippi Avenue, a street truncated by road construction, by police officers in full riot gear. Once penned in, the police, under the pretense that members of the mob were demonstrating a threat to private property, gassed them and began to beat them savagely and without discrimination with their batons and the protestors own signs.

Sergeant Rudolph Schmidt commented officially on the turmoil, "The protestors were clearly in the wrong here. They started it. I’m not saying our boys are perfect or anything, but the protestors always start it."

When asked to explain why the police would be so quick to resort to violent means of contending with a crowd whose aim is to protect the overtime pay of, amongst others, the police themselves, Officer Michael Mooney commented, "Our job is to uphold the law, whatever that law is. Personal opinions or individual thought have no place in law enforcement. Besides, I don’t care. I’d crack skulls and stomp ass for free."

Another rather large officer whose name tag was conspicuously absent responded to the same question by squeezing his club and growling, "MEAAAT!"

In the aftermath of the riot, 37 protestors have been hospitalized and 3 remain in critical condition, two with fractured skulls and one with a "Back the Badge" sign lodged in his rectum.