PAIN’T JOB A police officer paused after being hit in the face with paint as officers advanced on Occupy protesters blocking an intersection during a May Day rally in Oakland, Calif., Tuesday. (Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images via The Wall Street Journal)
Not sure if paintballing cops will get the point across.
May Day Occupy Oakland protesters lay a line of flowers in front of police.
(Image: Occupy Wall Street)
“Alas, poor vending machine. I knew it well.”Mayor Jean Quan surveying Occupy Oakland damage in City Hall.
A march to take over a vacant building by members of the Occupy movement in Oakland, Calif., turned into a violent confrontation with the police on Saturday, leaving three officers injured and about 200 people arrested.
The clashes began just before 3 p.m. when protesters marched toward the vacant Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, the police said, and began to tear down construction barricades. Officers ordered the crowd to disperse when protesters “began destroying construction equipment and fencing,” the Oakland police said in a press release.
“Officers were pelted with bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices and burning flares, the police said.” Officers responded with smoke, tear gas and beanbag projectiles. Twenty people were arrested.
Most of the arrests occurred in the evening, when large groups of people were corralled in front of the Downtown Oakland Y.M.C.A. on Broadway. At one point, one group of protesters broke into the City Hall building.
On a livestream broadcast on the Web site oakfosho.com, dozens of protesters could be seen sitting cross-legged in darkness on the street in front of the Y.M.C.A. Their hands appeared to be bound behind them, while police officers stood watch. Occasionally the protesters sang or cheered.
The events were part of a demonstration dubbed “Move-in Day,” a plan by protesters to move into the vacant convention center and use it as a commune-like command center, according to the Web site occupyoaklandmoveinday.org.
“We were going to set up a community center,” said Benjamin Phillips, 32, a member of the Occupy Oakland media team. “It would be a place where we could house people, feed people, do all the things that we have been doing.”
In an open letter to Mayor Jean Quan on the Move-in Day site, the group threatened actions like “blockading the airport indefinitely, occupying City Hall indefinitely” and “shutting down the Oakland ports.” Occupy protesters did briefly shut down the city’s busy port in November.
Oakland protests on January 28, 2012
(Source: shortformblog)
After the October 25th raid on Frank Ogawa Plaza / Oscar Grant Park, and before the November 2nd General Strike, a campaign by all the powers that be in Oakland had started to discredit anyone and anything associated with Occupy Oakland. And so, to no one’s particular surprise, in the emails poured over by KTVU reporters was found a note that might as well have caused the spontaneous combustion of the chief’s pants
When Jordan received an update that crime was actually down 19 percent in the last week of October, he wrote an email to one of Mayor Jean Quan’s advisers. “Not sure how you want to share this good news,” he wrote. “It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland.”
Emphasis mine.
This is why I never take any public statement from any police force at face value. I want to believe public officials, but there’s just too much consistent evidence that they lie about everything.
Police cleared the Occupy Oakland encampment early Monday morning in what has so far been a peaceful raid.
Hundreds of protesters gathered at the intersection of Broadway and 14th Street overnight in anticipation of the eviction, and of many tents remained in the camp when lines of police in riot gear began moving in.
However, dozens of occupiers had moved their tents out of the plaza as the city issued repeated eviction notices over the weekend, and rumors of an early morning raid intensified.
“It feels pretty sad because we built a community here, and now they can just come and destroy it,” said Lara Bitar, 28, who helped collapse three of the camp’s four tents early Monday morning. “At the same time, this movement is about more than just the space here.”
The Oakland Tribune, “Police Clear Occupy Oakland Tent City.”
The movement is about more than just the space here.
4:45 a.m. Police closing in
Police in riot gear are very close to the encampment, next to the Rotunda building. The line of police are about 50 feet from the camp.
Most of the occupiers have left the encampment and moved to 14th street and Broadway.
There are about 50 or 75 people still in camp, but the majority are now waiting in the intersection.
The 12th Street BART station is closed, according to a BART advisory.
4:30 a.m. Police assembling downtown
There’s a large contingent of Fremont police officers at 14th and Franklin streets. Broadway is being blocked off in both directions, keeping traffic away. Several Fremont police officers in riot gear are standing next to a Fremont PD SUV, and Hayward police also have a van here.
Protesters have announced several times through mic checks that these forces are moving on the camp, only to correct themselves a few moments later.
Outrage erupted among a group of veterans at the Occupy Wall Street protest last week after Iraq War veteran Kayvan Sabeghi said police clubbed him during a Nov. 3 standoff between officers and supporters of Occupy Oakland.
On Friday, fellow former service members plan to march in Oakland to denounce police brutality that they say was the cause of Sabeghi’s ruptured spleen and the injury suffered by another Iraq War veteran and Occupy Oakland protester, Scott Olsen, who witnesseses said was hit by a police projectile on Oct. 25.
“No one should be treated like that whether they’re a veteran or not,” said Michael Thurman, who helped spearhead Friday’s march, which leaves from Frank Ogawa Plaza at 4 p.m.
The veterans’ injuries and their engagement with the Occupy movement have an infamous precedent that resonates with events continuing to unfold in the center of downtown Oakland.
In May 1932, about 15,000 veterans, many unemployed and destitute, descended on Washington, D.C. They demanded immediate payment of future bonuses promised them by the government. Many of the men, as well as their wives and children, set up camps around the Capitol when President Herbert Hoover refused their demands. The occupation ended in bloodshed after police descended on the Bonus Army, as they came to be called. Cavalry and tanks sent in to rout the camp were followed by soldiers with bayonets who hurled tear gas at the men and their families.
The camp was left in flames, and thousands were wounded.
The Bonus Army’s treatment hasn’t been lost on the veterans who plan to march Friday.
Oh my God.
From the Oakland Tribune’s reports via Twitter, the shooting happened on the periphery of the Occupy Oakland encampment: those with the protesters say it has nothing to do with them. Some Occupiers are reported to be decamping; a cameraman was also attacked after the shooting, and has suffered a concussion; it’s unclear if this was related.
That’s right… a second veteran has been injured, pretty severely at Occupy Oakland. Kayvan Sabehgi, who has served with the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, was apparently beaten by three or four policemen after being told to move (and having nowhere to move to). He was arrested and jailed, despite being in poor medical condition and a considerable amount of pain. He is currently in intensive care with a lacerated spleen, let out on bail 18 hours after his arrest.
Read the story at the Guardian.
(Above photo of police forming a line at Occupy Oakland. Credit: Kimihiro Hoshino/AP)
The Violence at Occupy Oakland on October 25
In this video, filmmaker Raleigh Latham works to reconstruct the timeline of October 25 in Oakland, which began when police dismantled the Occupy movement’s tent community in the early morning. The conflict culminated in the use of tear gas and rubber bullets to break up the protest in the evening, when Iraq veteran Scott Olsen was injured by a police projectile. The Oakland general strike of November 2 was in part a response to these events.
DISTRACTED DRIVING Truck driver Singh Mann videotaped Occupy Oakland protesters blocking traffic from entering the Port of Oakland in California Wednesday. Thousands of demonstrators temporarily shut down one of the nation’s busiest shipping ports, which reopened Thursday. (Photo: Kent Porter / Santa Rosa Press Democrat via the AP / Wall Street Journal)
