Business & Tech

SDPD Officer Pushed Through Glass Door, Janitors Union Protest Backs Up Traffic in UTC

SEIU United Service Workers West workers protested in the center of the intersection at La Jolla Village Drive and Towne Center Drive in UTC on Friday afternoon. The group was also involved in an incident that resulted in police officer being pushed throu

Local janitors of SEIU United Service Workers West in Southern California took to the streets on Friday afternoon. A group of more than 100 supporters from San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties closed down the intersection of La Jolla Village Drive and Towne Centre in the UTC neighborhood of San Diego on Friday afternoon for more than 10 minutes, according to a SEIU spokesman and San Diego Police. The incident at approximately 1:15 p.m. caused traffic to backup and police to step in to monitor the intersection.

The rally was preceded by a more heated situation at an office building nearby.

San Diego Police Lt. Duane Voss said crowds surged at an office building on the 4300 block of La Jolla Village Drive an hour earlier at 12:20 p.m.

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“The Janitors for Justice showed up in busloads and began marching and making noise, and pounding on drums, but they were a lot more aggressive today then they have been in the past,” said Voss.

“We don’t know whether it was on purpose or accidental, but the crowd surge and the three officers that were there were pushed into the glass (door) and the glass shattered,” he said.

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San Diego Police then called in backup to control the crowd. San Diego Police estimate the crowd was aroun 120, while the SEIU estimated more than 200.

According to police, no one was injured in the incident.

Martin Terrones, with SEIU, said the protest at the office building and the demonstration at the intersection were part of a weeklong campaign against the wage freeze and cuts to workers’ health benefits. He explained that in 2012, 30,000 of the USWW

In 2012, 30,000 of United Service Workers West’s 40,000 members’ contracts expire, including the 1,800 janitors from San Diego on May 30th.

“And this is not the last march we will have,” said Terrones by phone Friday afternoon. 

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