Things have gone south in Oakland
On Saturday, Occupy Oakland re-entered the national spotlight during a day-long effort to take over an empty building and transform it into a social center. Oakland police thwarted the efforts, arresting more than 400 people in the process, primarily during a mass nighttime arrest outside a downtown YMCA. That number included at least six journalists, myself included, in direct violation of OPD media relations policy that states “media shall never be targeted for dispersal or enforcement action because of their status.”
After an unsuccessful afternoon effort to occupy a former convention center, the more than 1,000 protesters elected to return to the site of their former encampment outside City Hall. On the way, they clashed with officers, advancing down a street with makeshift shields of corrugated metal and throwing objects at a police line. Officers responded with smoke grenades, tear gas, and bean bag projectiles. After protesters regrouped, they marched through downtown as police pursued and eventually contained a few hundred of them in an enclosed space outside a YMCA. Some entered the gym and were arrested inside.
As soon as it became clear that I would be kettled with the protesters.
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What’s missing from that report is the fact that the protesters were throwing bottles, rocks and lit flares at the police. The occupy groups have shown a total lack of civility in their protests.
John, not sure what occupy groups you have been paying attention to; on the contrary, occupy protests have overwhelmingly shown civility especially in the face of outlandish barbarism inflicted on them from a militarized police force.
If you completely ignore the second sentence of the second paragraph of the excerpt posted on this page.
Yeah. Every single individual. Meanwhile, the police have been completely professional the entire time. Especially Oakland, which has a long-time sterling track record.
Cops lie.
Further text completely not addressing Mr. Derail’s concerns:
http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/153954/why_%23ows_needs_to_denounce_violent_tactics_on_display_at_occupy_oakland
The only thing I can say to that is that I hope they hit what (not who) they were aiming for.