Although LAPD promised to arrest chalk vandals once again, a party atmosphere prevailed Thursday night at downtown Los Angeles' Art Walk.

Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Horace Frank, of the Central Division, said earlier in the day that his officers plan to enforce the law if they see it being broken.

"It's a violation of the law, it's vandalism, and we're going to make an arrest," he said, adding that he has received frequent emails from downtown property owners complaining about damage from chalk.

"My BlackBerry is burning up with pictures of businesses being vandalized," he said.

Odd that the LAPD hasn't shared any photographs of businesses that were vandalized with the water-soluable chalk.

Occupiers, of course, disagree that chalking is illegal and point out that other groups have gotten the city's permission to use chalk in the past. Not that the city's denial and threats could have done anything to stop their protest Thursday night. Supporters from the Bay Area, Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink were also on hand to lend their support.

At the July event, Occupy L.A. activists armed with chalk scrawled slogans and drawings on the sidewalks to to protest downtown gentrification, which has pushed out some of the area’s poorer residents. Hundreds of Los Angeles Police Department officers clashed with the protesters and fired "less-than-lethal" projectiles into the crowd. Four officers were hurt, and 15 people were arrested.

There were three members of Occupy Oakland detained, apparently because they drew the picture below with chalk:

Two of the Occupiers were released, and the other was held because of an outstanding warrant, according to Occupy sources on Twitter.

Other than that, it seems a good time was had by all, despite the heavy police presence in the area.

Former Arizona Gov. Raul Castro, who in the 1970s served as the state's first and only Hispanic governor, and U.S. ambassador to Argentina,was detained at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint for 30 minutes in the triple-digit desert heat just a day after he underwent heart treatment. Castro was removed from his car and taken to a sweltering tent for inspection after his pacemaker apparently set off a radiation sensor on the highway, about 24 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.* "I don’t condemn them for doing a job,” said Castro, “but once I was identified and I was 96 years of age and told them I had medical treatment the day before, I expected a little more."

He spoke further to Arizona's The Republic:

"The sun was blazing on me," he said. "Once I identified myself, who I was, and that I had been to the doctor, I was under medical care, I have a pacemaker on my heart, (I would have thought) that they would have been more considerate and said, 'Keep on going.' But that didn't happen."

Castro's wife said of the incident, "It's traumatic, to say the least, for an old man," and that the Border Patrol officials need to use "more common sense."

The checkpoint incident happened on June 12, as Castro was headed from his home in the border town of Nogales to a luncheon in Tucson to celebrate his 96th birthday. The car was driven by Anne Doan, daughter of former Nogales, Ariz., Mayor Arthur Doan and a family friend of the Castros.

Doan, who is also a professor at the University of Arizona, was a bit more critical in a column she wrote for Nogales International:

"I was embarrassed as I watched the governor being needlessly treated like a nuclear threat, especially because they knew he had just had a treatment at Tucson Heart Hospital the day before. I felt he was being disrespected as a senior citizen, much less the amazing statesman that he is."

Alessandra Soler, executive director of the American Civil Liberties of Arizona, said Castro's experience with agents was not unique.

"This happens all the time in terms of these types of indiscriminate stops of individuals not suspected of any wrongdoing," Soler said, "Agents should have used discretion instead of relying solely on technology," in deciding to detain the former Governor.

* The ACLU notes that the US Border Control does "not need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a 'routine search'" on areas within 100 miles of the "external boundary" of the US, an area which the ACLU estimates includes two thirds of the US population, or 197.4 million people.

UPDATE: Salon interviewed former AZ Gov. Castro, and apparently this was not his first run-in with the border patrol...or even the second! Full story here.

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! speaks with Occupy Wall Street activist Cecily McMillan, and Meghan Maurus, McMillan's attorney and mass defense coordinator at the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

McMillan suffered a seizure when New York City police officers pulled her from the crowd and arrested her as hundreds attempted to re-occupy Zuccotti Park on Saturday, to mark sixth months since the launch of the movement. In her first television interview since her arrest, McMillan says she has decided to speak out because of an outpouring of public support. "I have received so many emails, Twitter messages and phone calls. People are just horrified about what happened to me." McMillan has a black eye and her body is covered in bruises, at least one in the shape of a handprint. She says she was not allowed to contact an attorney while she was taken to the hospital and transferred to a jail cell along with some of the 72 other detained protesters. Facing charges of police assault and obstructing governmental administration, she was released Monday after a judge denied a request that her bail be set at $20,000. McMillan is northeast regional organizer for Young Democratic Socialists of America, and a graduate student at the New School for Social Research.

More video of McMillan's arrest and treatment while she was suffering a seizure during Saturday's police brutality:

Here at about 7:20 into the video, and remember these may not be suitable for work due to language and graphic nature.

Video Here.

Here.

Here.

Journalists covering the drive-by shooting of a 6-year-old girl who was being treated at Chicago's Mt. Sinai hospital were told by a police officer that “Your First Amendment rights can be terminated if you’re creating a scene,” although the video above doesn't show any "scene" going on.

Via:

Apparently at the request of Mt. Sinai hospital security guards, police arrived and told the media scrum to back up. The group had already moved from the sidewalk in front of the hospital to a median in the middle of Ogden avenue.

When police arrived, the group was ordered to move across the street from the hospital, they refused, which prompted the officer in charge to comment on termination of First Amendment rights, followed by place two reporters in cuffs and load them into a van. They were later released without charge.

Maybe someone can explain to me how the Phelps clan manages to have their First Amendment rights protected while protesting at funerals, but media personnel lose their rights for trying to do their job.