Fistfight Erupts at Pierce College Peace Rally

A brief fistfight broke out Thursday between Pierce College students protesting American military action in the Persian Gulf and a small number of counterdemonstrating football players who called for support of U.S. troops.

“I haven’t seen anything like this for 20 years,” said Phil Stein, the school’s dean, referring to student demonstrations in the 1960s against the war in Vietnam.

Counterdemonstrator Joe Quintos, 21, said he opposed the peace rally because students should “back the government. The soldiers over there need our support, not people bad-mouthing them.”

Three students were arrested and campus police said an unidentified man was treated at a local hospital for minor injuries suffered during the scuffle.

Los Angeles police identified those arrested as Quintos of Northridge, Leon Glasgow, 18, of Van Nuys and Donovan Curtis, 20, of Granada Hills. The three, who were cited on battery charges and released, identified themselves as Pierce students, police said.

Among the peace demonstrators was Ron Kovic, a wheelchair-bound Vietnam veteran whose conversion from gung-ho Marine to peace activist was the subject of the film “Born on the Fourth of July.”

More than 300 students abandoned classes and began marching peacefully through the normally quiet Woodland Hills campus about noon, carrying signs and banners. Minutes later several students, who had earlier identified themselves as members of the Pierce football team, stood in the path of the marchers, carrying an American flag and chanting, “USA, USA.”

The fight broke out and participants on both sides were knocked down in the scuffle involving a small knot of demonstrators and counterdemonstrators at the head of each group. The fight lasted no more than a minute.

“Somebody decided to start punching people in the crowd and knocked a few people nearly unconscious,” said Campus Police Capt. James Griffin.

Chuck Nixon, a speaker representing Veterans for Peace, said he was beaten to the ground with fists when the two groups clashed.

“None of us came here to fight,” Nixon said. “We came here for peace.”

Campus police arrived several minutes later and the march continued without incident. Several Los Angeles police officers were called and watched the rally from a short distance.

Pierce student body Vice President Alex Haydon said the rally was intended to show “students are against what is going on in the Middle East. If we go to war, sure, the U.S. will win, but people will die.”

At a rally following the march, students cheered Kovic when he called for delays in a U.S. military assault on Iraqi armed forces now holding Kuwait. Kovic was not present when the fight broke out.

Kovic warned students that “we are being led down the path to a war that has no end.” He called for students to continue peaceful demonstrations until “hundreds of thousands are in the streets” protesting against war in the Middle East.

Other speakers called for the United States to allow additional time for economic sanctions against Iraq before fighting. Gregory Cook of the California League of Conservation Voters said a Persian Gulf war would not only cost untold thousands of lives but is also likely to create an environmental disaster, with the smoke from oil well fires burning millions of gallons a day for months.

Protest organizer Scott Linder, 20, called for fellow students to “wake up every other college” to the threat of war. A second rally is planned for today at Valley College in Van Nuys.

Pierce students and faculty said they were surprised by the number of students who participated in the rally.

“This is a very quiet, laid-back campus,” said Pierce College President Daniel Means, who watched the rally.

The “No Blood For Oil Peace March” was advertised on a campus marquee along with a folk dance exhibition and a music recital.

But students at the rally said the fear of war is quickly eroding increasing political activism in their generation.

“This is the first time I’ve seen anything like this,” said Michelle Rommler, 19, a philosophy major. “But people are worried. I don’t want my brothers and sisters to die for something we don’t believe in.”

Jody Weissler said he and several friends cut classes at El Camino Real High School to attend the rally.

“I’m 18 and I’m worried about getting drafted,” Weissler said. “It’s all we talk about in class.”