This report also appears on Kevin Army's
Open Salon blog. See something important happening at your local Occupy protest? Blog about it on
Open Salon -- and we might cross-post your report on Salon
On Saturday, Occupy Oakland held their largest action since the Port Shutdown in December. It was “Move In Day,” and the goal was to Occupy a vacant building. I wasn’t really sure how I felt about this action, in part because the Occupiers had to keep the identity of the building secret. I wasn’t necessarily against, but let’s just say I was undecided.
When I’d first started visiting the camp back in October, I hadn’t been sure about it either, but after I’d been there several times, I saw something beautiful grow that I’d never expected. So, I’ve learned to give Occupy Oakland the benefit of the doubt.
The day began with a rally at noon at Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza. I asked many people if they were planning to enter the building. Almost everyone said they were uncertain, they would wait and see how things were going. There were about 500 people gathered.
The march to the building left at 1 PM. Right away a man tried to drive his car through the march. He got mad, the protesters got mad and it did not look good. Some people stepped in, cleared the way, and after a while he drove off. The tension of that moment carried through most of the day and into the night, though there were moments of relief too.
After a few blocks, we came across police blocking off certain streets, herding the protesters through Laney College. By this time there were over 1,000 protesters. It was becoming clear that the police knew where the protesters were going; the secrecy was in vain. I ended up walking around and taking a different route, as I had promised myself I wouldn’t get arrested or hurt. I learned the targeted building was the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, and I proceeded there with caution. The Kaiser Center is vacant and is not currently in use.
As I watched the larger group moving toward the building, it looked like a trap. Very soon after the protesters arrived at the Kaiser Center, the police fired tear gas into the crowd. Those of us standing two blocks away could taste it. Later, when I spoke to people who had been at the front, everyone said they Occupiers had done nothing to provoke the tear gas other than arriving at the building.
The police had effectively made it impossible for the Occupiers to carry out their plan, so the protesters moved on. A few blocks away a standoff occurred. The police fired many things into the crowd; some thought it was tear gas, some thought it was pepper spray bombs. Also, I believe this was when they fired some bean bag shots at the crowd, later I met one man who had been hit.
Eventually people went back to the plaza. It was announced that we would take a break and then attempt to try to Occupy a different building.
One of the remarkable things about Occupy is how kind people are to each other. As I have at other protests here, I met many good and decent people with whom I had great conversations. Most of these people really care about the state of our world, and have embraced this movement with gratitude for having a place where they can figure out ways to take that caring and turn it into tangible action.
I point this out because no matter what the mainstream media says about Saturday’s action, there’s a big piece of the story that can only be absorbed by walking with these people and getting to know them. The heart of Occupy Oakland is so good. It’s been a bit broken by all the repressive police actions, ranging from waging war on the Occupiers the day of the first raid, to arresting people for things as petty as taking a blanket out of a garbage can. In spite of all the attempts to break the the movement’s heart and destroy it, it continues on, beating strongly and moving forward.
When it was time to begin the second march, the crowd was probably back down to about 700. The group remained remarkably upbeat and determined. We arrived at the “alternate” building, and got herded away by the police. So people marched around, continually getting corralled and surrounded. I stayed behind, and the friend I was walking with noticed police coming at us from both directions. We decided to get out as it looked like a bad place to be. Our only exit was toward the police. On our way, an officer told us to turn around. I held out my homemade press pass and said we just wanted to leave. He told us we couldn’t and said, “You choose to be here.” He sounded pretty angry, and we were getting worried. We turned around, which basically meant we were heading right into the adjacent street where everyone was being corralled. But, the police veered towards that crowd, leaving enough of a gap for us to move past them and get out.
There was a wire fence on one side of the Occupiers, and some of them pushed it down and everyone escaped across a vacant lot. They ended up in front of the YMCA on Broadway. I heard reports that some protesters entered the building and ran out the back. A large group in front of the Y got surrounded by police. Many were arrested.
It was later reported that some people had broken into City Hall. I went down there and they had come out of the building and police were blocking it off. Someone burned an American flag, which I’m sure will be the most written about moment of the day.
I saw ambulances coming down the street. I saw a very young woman on the ground. She had been beaten earlier, and she had to go to the hospital. She was screaming in pain as they carried her on a stretcher to the ambulance. Apparently her only crime had been being present at the protest when she was beaten by the police.
I heard similar stories of the police randomly beating people or arresting them throughout the day, often just going for whomever was closest. The radio (KCBS) said over 300 people were arrested, which explains why by 11 PM there were so few people around.
The Oakland Police were recently court ordered to report their actions to a federally approved overseer. If the cops don’t keep their violence in check, the judge will put the department under federal administration. I couldn’t help but wonder if the department just decided to give a big screw you to the judge and take their brutality to the next level.
Whether the action of Occupy Oakland was right or wrong, the tactics and actions of the OPD I witnessed and heard of were pretty extreme, and they behaved irresponsibly toward the citizens who weren’t involved in any of this. While walking along Lake Merritt to the Henry Kaiser Center, I saw two mothers pushing strollers with young children. They didn’t look like Occupiers, so I stopped them and warned them there was tear gas ahead. They gave me an unbelieving look, and then glanced around, and realized I was right. They turned around, fairly disturbed. There should have been officers on the periphery to warn people what was going on.
Later in the night I saw some graffiti, a few things like newspaper racks thrown into the street. As always, these actions were the work of a small group. The vast majority of people I talked to throughout the day were committed to non-violence and to not vandalizing property. The radio reported three police were injured. They weren’t specific about the level of injury.
There were some bright moments too: Marching to happy dance music at dusk, just before the police corralled everyone. A group that broke into a nice version of the Star Spangled Banner at the Y in front of the police. A man I didn’t know who smiled and waved at me, just being friendly. All the kind people I met, and all the people I’ve met before who came up and said hi. The good people I walked with throughout the day.
Right or wrong, I knew I was marching with people who care, who care enough to risk being assaulted by the police, to risk arrest and injury. Some might look at that and think it’s insane. I think insanity is looking at how things are these days and doing nothing. I’m open to other ideas. But for now, Occupy is the best idea around. Even when it’s a mess, and things don’t go right, and I’m not sure what I think, it’s a great, inspiring idea.
This piece originally appeared on Kevin Army's
Open Salon blog. See something important happening at your local Occupy protest? Blog about it on
Open Salon -- and we might cross-post your report on Salon.
Have you ever spent time waiting for someone close to you to die? Then you know the feeling of being mired in an unknown void, where one doesn’t know if it will be that weekend, that afternoon, that hour. That sickened feeling in your gut, the premonition that something very bad will happen, an imminent threat staring you in the face, mixing up all your thoughts and emotions, holding you hostage, stealing the hours spent waiting and waiting.
I think the Oakland Police department and city officials understand those feelings well, and spent this holiday weekend exploiting them fairly effectively. At least on me. A feeling of dread crept in as I read the items that were leaked out, like the following email that was circulated on Sunday:
A highly coordinated law enforcement raid to clear out OO is planned to take place Monday morning early. Significant public safety mutual aid is being called in from neighboring jurisdictions. The goal is to permanently clear out the OO encampment of illegal activities. Expect to see overwhelming use of force by police directed to occupiers who refuse to comply.
Peaceful protesters are advised by police to stand down until the situation stabilizes. The general public is advised to stay away from the area during the action to avoid potential personal injury from incidental contact with conflicts.
No one has been able to verify the exact origins of the email, but all weekend I saw similar intimations of actions like on Twitter feeds, Facebook pages and the news. Each day of the holiday weekend eviction notices were handed out to the residents of the encampment. It felt like a war of fear, an attempt to break the protesters before any raid could happen.
The weekend started with a fatal shooting near the encampment on Thursday evening. Reports of whether and how this was related to Occupy Oakland are still a bit conflicted, so I’ll keep out of that. The shooting shined an unfortunate light on one of Oakland’s largest problems, the murder rate; there have been 91 killings so far this year. Rather than focusing on this, city leaders seized on the fatal shooting as an opportunity to justify evicting the camp, blaming Oakland’s endemic issues on the protesters.
At a press event on Friday, Mayor Jean Quan made a sad attempt to pacify all sides by releasing a dove at a church where she had attended an interfaith Thanksgiving prayer breakfast. She said, “We need to peacefully close the encampment at City Hall and we’re asking people to leave.”
Has anyone called to close down neighborhoods in Oakland where the other 90 murders happened? Of course not. People recognize that a small element makes life difficult for the vast majority of good residents in the neighborhoods where these murders typically occur.
At around 4:30 a.m., a few cops showed up. It was pretty close to 5 a.m. when the riot police arrived. Not in the huge numbers I expected, but enough. I’m entirely not sure since we couldn’t get close to most of them, but I could see around three or four hundred. There may have been more standing by where I couldn’t see them.
They blocked off the encampment and Broadway below 14th. By 6 a.m. they had arrested the people in the camp, and had begun tearing down the tents. By 7 a.m., the crowd had dwindled to maybe 100 people.
This all happened peacefully, at least as far as any of us could see. Once things were winding down, I tried to get into the camp to take pictures but was barred from entering, even with my mock press pass. At one point a handful of more “official” press was briefly permitted in. I spoke with a cameraman for the local ABC affiliate KGO, and he told me he was allowed in for two minutes and then had to leave.
There was no tear gas, no shooting of anything, no throwing of things. Though I’m saddened by the actions taken by the city and the police coalition, I’m grateful that both sides maintained a peaceful composure throughout.
Many people are mystified by why the continued occupation of public space is so important to this movement. I’m sure there are many answers. For me, by sharing space with the homeless, the movement begins to break down the barriers society has erected between different economic classes; it starts to bring about a new sort of equality.
By feeding the homeless, the camps illustrate the type of wealth redistribution OWS preaches: that those who have enough are willing to donate goods and time to help those that have nothing. I spoke with an Occupier named Toby, and he told me the Occupy Oakland Kitchen had been serving somewhere between 750 and 1,000 meals a day. On my list of good things to do, feeding the hungry is right up there at the top, whether it’s through churches, or the Occupy movement.
The Occupiers plan to reconvene at the nearby Oakland Public Library at 4 p.m. today. Snow Park, the smaller and auxiliary camp, was allowed to stand. I drove by and saw about 20 tents there.
This morning I watched the camp end for the second time. I’m not going to declare it dead, not at all. They are a force unlike anything I have ever experienced. I’m sure the Occupiers will find the strength and means to resurrect themselves again. Very soon. Whether it’s in Frank Ogawa Plaza or somewhere else, or in some other form that has yet to be seen, I’m sure somehow, someway, they will continue. As this will across the country, around the world.
Tuesday night the wind was whipping around Oakland in an ominous way. Doors kept banging around in my apartment, and I fell asleep hoping nature wasn’t setting things up for another difficult day. I woke Wednesday morning ready to go to the Occupy Oakland General Strike, and the weather had calmed down, it had become one of those remarkable warm fall days we sometimes get here.
And it was Wednesday’s weather that set the stage for my experience of the day, a beautiful day that Oakland and I needed so much after last week’s troubled times.
Later that night, I saw on the news a few regrettable incidents of windows being broken, which made me sad. Not so much because of the windows, even though that’s not a good thing, but because now that the world was watching us, this would be the first thing many would see and take note of. I saw film of the vandals at Whole Foods. It looked like a small contingent of anarchists, and there was also footage of protestors trying to stop them.
The reporter on our local Channel 2 said that 99 percent of the people he saw were mellow, and called the troublemaker anarchists a small element. Mayor Jean Quan said this was a good day for the protestors.
My experience of the day was one of peace, of determined protest, and of many people who conducted themselves with integrity and honor. I don’t know if I’ve ever been in a friendlier crowd, this was Oakland at its most Oakland-like self.
There was hardly any police presence when I was there (I was home by 9 pm that night). I saw a couple of handfuls of motorcycle cops, one possible police helicopter. I would guess there were a lot more somewhere, but I did not see them. No riot police.
I think the crowd estimates I’ve seen of 4,500 people are low. My guesses are usually lower than the news estimates, but I’m thinking closer to 10,000. Possibly more when you add up all the day’s activities. But I’m not a crowd-counting expert.
Closing a Bank
I arrived downtown around 10 AM on Wednesday. I followed a march that wandered for a while before coming to several banks. Those banks locked the doors and closed up. I met a man who was sitting in front of the ATMs at CitiBank named Eric. I interviewed him briefly, and then he asked if I wanted to go shut down the Bank Of America farther away near Lake Merritt. For some reason I just said yes, and followed him. Eric told a young woman Cathy about the plan, and she joined in, and got it to be announced where announcements were being made over a megaphone.
Unfortunately not many people were coming over, but Eric marched on a bit anyway. Cathy and I convinced him to wait and let us go find some more people to join in. It took some work, but eventually we gathered about 20 people. So on we marched, probably about eight blocks. We walked up to the bank, the bank locked its doors, and really, it shut itself down. There were a few customers inside and they got escorted out a back door.
We stayed about 45 minutes, maybe an hour. Then we felt it was time to move on; the statement had been made. I made fast friends with Eric and Cathy; I think all three of us had a great, memorable time. We walked back, hung out for awhile. Then I needed to go home for a break. Cathy needed to go pick her kids up from school. Eric went to close down more banks.
The March on the Port of Oakland
I went back at 4:30 to join the march to the docks at the Port of Oakland. Our port is one of the five busiest in the country, so this was a big deal. Though the local unions didn’t call a strike, they offered their support and blessings to this action.
Along the way I met an awesome woman named Leigh, a member of the Electricians Union. Once again I was given the gift of a quick and nice friendship, and we marched the two miles together and then back to the West Oakland Bart station.
At one point we sat down on an overpass and watched an endless line of Occupiers walk by. Every single person I saw was well behaved and good-natured. When we got to the docks, there was a party atmosphere. A band was playing with amps powered by people on Exercycles. I turned and said hi to a young woman next to me, and we had a nice talk about what a great day it had been.
After what happened to me the week before, I needed the peaceful experience I had on Wednesday. I’d ended up sinking this past weekend into a rarely seen victim mode, blaming myself for being assaulted and teargassed, feeling ashamed for getting attention for that. It felt good and healing to come out of hiding, and to see the kindness this world can be capable of.
When I left, Oakland was still mostly in a state of peace, although I’d seen rumors on Twitter of police gathering. I knew the strike and protests were supposed to continue for a while, possibly reconvening at the docks at 3 AM. But my day of striking was over. I needed to lay down and get a lot of rest.
I prayed I wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of a text message alerting me of another police action. I prayed there would be no more vandalism; I prayed that the peaceful spirit I saw all day would prevail throughout the night. And that it would prevail for the duration of this protest, this Occupation in my hometown that I love so much, this Occupation that I hope endures and steers us onto the road of change we’ve been afraid to travel for far too long.
At 2 AM Thursday morning, the things I feared happened. I woke to a text message alert that police were moving in. There was tear gas, rubber bullets, around 100 arrested. I watched a live feed briefly; I could not stand to watch any longer.
Once again, it was a large coalition of various police forces. According to reports on local news stations the problems were caused by a splinter group, the police acknowledge it was a minority of Occupy Oakland. The first incident I’ve heard of was a group taking over an abandoned building.
Sometime after that, a splinter group turned violent, throwing things, breaking windows and spraying graffiti all over downtown. The pictures on the TV of the graffiti are extensive. What happened is being called a riot. I’m saddened that this was what the world saw on Thursday.
None of this will change the goodness of all the Cathys, Erics and Leighs I’ve met, the feeling of walking with many thousand of them, the goodness inside most people that I hope can endure these acts of harm, wherever they come from.
I later went to survey the damage, and to see what was being done. City workers, business owners and Occupiers had been working through the morning to restore things. A lot of progress had been made. The picture below is of two of the Occupiers getting ready to start painting over graffiti. I heard that the Occupiers are talking about how to deal with this sort of thing in the future, and what can be done to deal with what happened Wednesday night.
Today is a sad day in the city I love, Oakland. This morning at 2:45 I received a text message that a raid was imminent at the Occupy Oakland camp at Frank Ogawa Plaza. I had promised myself I would go any hour of the day. I believe in the importance of this story, I believe in the value of the independent press to document what goes on
For a long time, it seemed like nothing was going to happen. Apparently 10 to 20 police cars had driven by at one point. Various reports had them parked in various locations. None of us reporter people could find them, and neither could the Occupiers.
Just when I was going to go home, there were reports of a large gathering of police on the other end of Oakland, and that they would arrive soon. So sometime after 4 a.m., they did. And did. I was dumbfounded by the large number of police that arrived. I wanted to cry at the sight of it. This simply did not warrant the numbers I saw.
As I looked at the lineup, I saw anger and force in the faces of the officers. Earlier I’d spoken to another independent media guy, and he told me of getting close to the officers in San Francisco and filming their helmet numbers. I couldn’t help myself, I wanted to capture that terrible look I saw.
About three-quarters of the way down officer No. 570, who is pictured in the top picture, the big tall one, started yelling at me to stand back. I paused for a bit, I wanted to see who he was. Next thing I knew, he rammed into me, pushing me on the ground. Watching my video, which doesn’t capture the scope of the situation, or the amount of police, and it doesn’t capture the anger, the meanness in this man’s face.
Not wanting to be assaulted any more, I retreated. I found a commanding officer and told him what had happened. He went to get an officer to help me file a complaint. As I stood there, I noticed all the mainstream media trucks packing it in. I asked another officer if it was OK if I was there. She showed me where media was allowed to stand, so I joined a small group of independent media like myself.
Next thing I knew, we were tear-gassed. That explains why the TV trucks left, and explains why they grouped us together.
Guess what, folks? Tear gas fucking sucks. It hurts, it stings, it is nothing you want to experience. Of course, this made all of us alternative press folks run away from the tear gas. After that, the police refused to let any of us go back into the camp. Maybe if you had a press badge, but we know what happened to most of those people.
So very early this morning, the citizens’ right to peacefully assemble was halted. The media was tear-gassed, and then not allowed to cover the story.
Eventually, the remaining Occupiers assembled a few blocks away. I learned that about 50 to 60 Occupiers had been arrested. All reports say that they were peaceful. In fact, I’m about the only person I can verify being assaulted.
This was apparently more than just Oakland, it was a unit composed of several cities. I only noticed an officer from Fremont. Some think this implies the order came from farther up then Oakland. I left while things were still going on. Apparently the police had ripped all the tents up and thrown them into the street at one point. I wish I could tell you more.
I wish I could have taken more pictures, but when I fell, my camera broke. As I write this, I’m shaking, and a bit sick to my stomach. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten so close to the officers. But shouldn’t the police be erring on the side of caution, rather than being revved up and ready for trouble?
I’ve spoken to many of the Occupy community, in Oakland as well as SF and Walnut Creek. An overwhelming amount of them are fine, well-spoken citizens, concerned that this country, this world is sharply headed in a very wrong direction. Sadly, tonight proved their point.
As I finish this, there are tears in my eyes, a scar on my heart and my soul. The hope I still have is the Occupiers I’ve met along the way. Yes, as I was leaving, there were a few of them throwing trash cans around. I think by that point, they had a right to be mad. I know I am, and I was just there as alternative press, trying to stay objective, even though the movement has been steadily winning me over. As I walked away and got into my car, I left as a full fledged Occupier.
A young Occupy Oakland protester is arrested on Saturday, January 28th, 2011 (Credit: Kevin Army) 
(Credit: Kevin Army) 
(Credit: Kevin Army) 
Riot police at Occupy Oakland on October 25, 2011(Credit: Kevin Army) 