(MintPress) — About 18,000 digital signatures were collected on a petition demanding that California Attorney General Kamala Harris investigate the violence Anaheim police have used against protesters demonstrating their disapproval over the recent fatal officer-involved shootings. The petition asks Harris to investigate the protest that occurred on Sunday, July 22, in which officers shot bean-bag rounds and pepper spray into a crowd with women and children, and a police dog got loose and bit several demonstrators.

Representatives from Presente.org, a Berkeley-based online activist organization that focuses on Latino issues, along with about 50 supporters, including those protesters who were bitten by the police dog, delivered the petition Monday afternoon to Harris’ office in downtown Los Angeles.

Ana Perez of Presente.org says the organization started the petition to demand Harris investigate the police brutality in Anaheim after seeing video footage of officers “attacking citizens of Anaheim.”

MintPress obtained a copy of the petition from Presente.org’s website. It reads:

To Attorney General Kamala Harris: We are shocked and disturbed by the images of police violence emerging from Anaheim. When is it acceptable to fire rubber bullets and unleash a dog on a crowd that includes children? This comes as we’re seeing an alarming increase in the use of excessive deadly force by the Anaheim Police against Latinos and others. In the last year there have been eight officer-involved shootings in Anaheim. This is out of control. Attorney General Harris, we demand that you immediately launch an investigation into the incident in the video and the recent escalation of officer-involved shootings.

A spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office said Harris will wait until Orange County prosecutors conclude their investigation before deciding whether or not an additional review of the case is warranted. “There is no question that a timely and thorough investigation into the incidents in Anaheim is needed,” said Shum Preston of Harris’ office.

Anaheim residents and activists have vocalized their discontent recently regarding the two fatal officer-involved shootings that occurred in Anaheim a little over a week ago. On July 21, police say a known gang member, 25-year-old Manuel Diaz, was unarmed when an officer shot and killed him.

Diaz ran away from the officer after the officer approached a car he was in with two other people. Joel Acevedo, 21, a suspected gang member, was killed July 22 after allegedly firing a handgun at police at the end of a stolen-car pursuit.

The two officers involved have since been placed on paid leave. Per Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait’s request, both the FBI and Department of Justice are both conducting independent reviews of the two officer-involved shootings. So far this year there have been eight officer-involved shootings in Anaheim, five of which have been fatal. This compares to just four officer-involved shootings in Anaheim in all of 2011. City officials have also called for the Office of Independent Review in Los Angeles County to evaluate city policies regarding the police officers use of force.

Arturo Carmona, executive director of Presente.org, said, “The level of crimes, the level of abuse, calls for a multi-agency engagement to look into this systemic abuse that’s been happening. We’re seeing an agency that is trying to intimidate the community. We’re seeing a police agency that’s rogue and broke, and needs to be reformed. That’s the most frustrating piece — that these guys don’t get it.”

Ron Gochez, a community organizer, told Russia Today he believes the “town’s security apparatus is rotten to the core.” Of the officer-involved shootings that have occurred this year, Gochez said most of the citizens were unarmed. He says the protests are occurring because residents are tired and fed up with police brutality.

“It’s not just one case,” he says. “This has been happening for generations in Anaheim.” Gochez continued to say that despite Anaheim being a dominantly Latino community, Latino’s are not politically represented and police in the area use racial profiling. “Police sick dogs on people, women and children,” he says, “ not activists or anarchists.”