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 News from Around the Americas | June 2006 
Farmers, Celebrities Evicted From Urban Plot
 Hector Becerra - LATimes
| | A women cries as police evict her and other farmers from the largest urban farm in the country, located in South Central Los Angeles. Forty-three activists were arrested for defending their right to the farm by chaining themselves to picnic tables and sitting in trees. After the 1992 riots, the city leased the land to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, which began the community garden. (Marcos/LA Indymedia) |
The 14-year effort to establish an urban farm in the heart of South Los Angeles came to an end today when sheriff's deputies moved in to evict the farmers, as well as some celebrities who were supporting them by keeping vigil on the land.
About 50 deputies used bolt cutters to remove locks on the farm about 5 a.m. before uprooting people from the land. Some protesters - including actress Daryl Hannah - remained in a tree and vowed to remain there as long as possible. Other activists chained themselves to trees.
As of 9 a.m., about 14 people remained inside the farm, some chained under trees and others locking hands around 55-gallon drums filled with concrete.
A television broadcast by Fox 11 News showed one man with his hands tied behind his back being placed on a yellow stretcher before being carried off the property by officials dressed in firefighting gear.
Hannah remained at the top of a tree, along with protest organizer John Quigley and two other people.
Hannah said she was sleeping in her tent when the Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies arrived. Quigley alerted her to the raid, and she raced up the tree in about a minute.
"I felt an extreme sense of urgency. Not only did I have to climb up the tree, I had to pull up the rope behind me so they could not follow me," Hannah said in a cellphone interview with The Times from atop the tree.
She vowed to stay up there until deputies forced her down.
Quigley criticized authorities for moving forward with the eviction without first telling the protesters. He said the protesters had a plan for how to peacefully resist an eviction when it came.
When the deputies arrived, Quigley said, some protesters walked out of the farm while others took their positions to block the eviction.
"It's unfortunate they had to come in such a heavy-handed manner," he said.
The farm, at 41st and Alameda streets, came to life after the 1992 riots, when the city leased the land to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.
Land owner Ralph Horowitz bought the land from the city in 2003 and, in recent months, has been trying to sell it off for development. A nonprofit group tried to buy the land and preserve the 14-acre farm. But it announced last month that their fundraising effort was $10 million short of Horowitz's $16.3-million asking price.
Some in the community support him, arguing that the area would benefit from the jobs that would come if the land were developed.
The site has a contentious history. The city acquired the land from Horowitz through eminent domain in the 1980s for a planned trash incinerator, but the project was stopped by neighborhood opposition.
After the 1992 riots, the city leased the land to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, which began the community garden. In 2003, the city sold the land back to Horowitz for about $5 million.
But the farmers did not leave. In the last three years, and particularly in recent weeks, the farmers have pleaded to stay.
In recent days, organizers said they were close to finding another nonprofit that would purchase the land, but those plans apparently fell through.
Editor's Note: As we go to press with this report, Los Angeles firefighters using a ladder truck have been unsuccessful in removing Daryl Hannah, John Quigley, and other protesters from an oak tree. There have been at least 39 arrests, as well as reports that several people other than those in the tree are still on the property and have chained themselves to picnic tables and other structures. Update: Daryl Hannah, John Quigley and two others have been removed from the oak tree and arrested. This brings the arrest total to at least 43. -smg/TO |
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