By Scott Wilson and April Witt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday , April 24, 2000 ; A16

MIAMI, April 23 –– A night of small fires and vandalism gave way to a relatively quiet Easter on the streets of Little Havana
today as an angry Cuban American community regrouped for a work stoppage Tuesday and more demonstrations to protest
the seizure of Elian Gonzalez.

A day after federal agents spirited the 6-year-old boy to a reunion with his father at Andrews Air Force Base, the armed raid
was condemned on Spanish-language radio broadcasts and in small, vocal demonstrations as a human rights violation worthy of
Cuba's Fidel Castro.

As Saturday's anger settled into sadness, about 30 community groups have asked Cuban Americans not to go to work or open
businesses Tuesday and to again take to the streets to protest the raid and demand that Elian not be taken to Cuba before an
appeals court in Atlanta rules on his political asylum petition.

"We're going to paralyze the city--the airports, the streets, everything," said Enrique Rubio, a retired engineer who arrived from
Cuba 40 years ago.

"We will continue to facilitate peaceful demonstrations," Police Chief William O'Brien said in an interview today. "But that does
not include tolerating destruction of property or any effort with the stated intention to bring Miami to its knees."

O'Brien said Saturday's demonstrations, in which 303 people were arrested on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to
attempted murder of a police officer, were worse than he had expected.

Many demonstrators accused police of using excessive force to break up the demonstrations, but O'Brien defended his
department's tactics as aggressive but appropriate given the fury of the protesters and the potential for escalation.

"When you have this kind of situation, you have to immediately assume control," O'Brien said. "When people start fires in the
street and throw rocks and bottles at police, if there is a perception police cannot stop it, that escalates to looting and structure
fires. Then it can take a few days for people to burn themselves out, to exhaust themselves."

O'Brien estimated that no more than 1,000 people were involved in demonstrations that became excessively unruly. But he
said, "Unfortunately, those 1,000 people produced a vision of burning tires and rock-throwing that significantly damaged the
image of the exile community in South Florida."

Miami Mayor Joe Carollo continued to denounce the raid on national television today and criticized O'Brien for failing to notify
him in advance that it was about to occur. But O'Brien said he did not even notify other law enforcement agencies in the region
until after the raid was over, adding, "I'm very confident in my decision and would do it again 1,000 times over."

If confirmation of the raid had leaked in advance to the family or exile community, more demonstrators might have surged to
Elian's great-uncle's house in an effort to defend it, and some could have come armed. "When people have a chance to harden
a site, it's an invitation to disaster," O'Brien said. "People could have died."

O'Brien said he was informed by the U.S. Attorney's Office and federal law enforcement officials on Friday afternoon that the
raid would begin at 4 a.m. Saturday if negotiations failed to resolve the custody impasse between Elian's relatives and his father.
At 3:15 a.m. Saturday, O'Brien was told the mission was off because negotiations were continuing. Nearly an hour later, he
received a second call saying federal agents would raid the house at 5:15 a.m.

O'Brien had assigned Assistant Chief John Brooks, his liaison to federal law enforcement, to accompany officers from the
Immigration and Naturalization Service's Border Patrol and the U.S. Marshals Service to the house so local police guarding it
would not try to stop them. "My main concern was that there not be a physical confrontation between our officers and federal
officers resulting in an exchange of gunfire," he said.

By midday, chanting crowds gathered outside Lazaro Gonzalez's modest house, now part shrine, part tourist attraction.

The chain-link fence, torn down in places, is festooned with religious icons, slogans of support for Elian and warnings to the
Clinton administration. "Clinton & Reno We Hold You Responsible As of 5:15 a.m. Today," read one cardboard sign.

An enlarged copy of the photograph of an armed Border Patrol agent reaching for Elian covers the front door. Another version
of the picture in circulation replaces the agent's face with that of Attorney General Janet Reno, a Nazi helmet perched on her
head.

On this silent morning, next-door neighbor Antonio Torres raked up the plastic bottles and fast-food debris dropped by the
crowds in front of his house during the nearly constant Elian vigil in recent weeks. His 3-year-old son, Antonio, played with a
blue plastic car nearby.

"More than anything, I am sad about the way they took him at gunpoint," said Torres, who arrived from Cuba 11 months ago
by raft with his wife, 10-year-old daughter and son. "Elian should stay. I would tell his father to be safe and keep his son here."

                                 © 2000 The Washington Post Company