Around midnight on Wednesday, confrontation flared between Occupy Oakland protesters and police officers near Telegraph, Broadway and 17th streets. A generally peaceful day of protests in which as many as 10,000 participated in what organizers called a “general strike” ended with clouds of tear gas, burning barricades and loud banging sounds.
In front of downtown Oakland banks, some protesters staged peaceful and even comic demonstrations, while others smashed windows, blocked access to ATMs, and spray-painted graffitti.
Live hip-hop music, anti-Wall Street chants and hundreds of Occupy Oakland protesters camped out steps away at Frank Ogawa Plaza had little effect on Tuesday’s Oakland City Council meeting. The Occupy Oakland movement was not discussed, and councilmembers postponed making a final decision about contractual restrictions at the Oakland Army Base, and the appointment of port commissioner.
On Thursday evening, hundreds of Occupy Oakland supporters gathered in the amphitheater at Frank Ogawa Plaza to discuss details of a general citywide strike planned for November 2, and to support war veteran Scott Olsen, who was injured during the confrontation between police and protesters earlier this week.
Their tent encampment still intact despite a city eviction order, hundreds from the Occupy Oakland protest marched through Oakland on Saturday afternoon, stopping traffic as they waved flags, danced and chanted. The march began at Frank Ogawa Plaza, where protesters have been camping since October 11 to protest economic inequality.
From a distance, standing on the windy ridge in Las Trampas Regional Park, the space-age contraption surrounded by a chain link fence looks out of place in the middle of swaying grass and a herd of grazing cows. But this array of sensors is playing an integral role in protecting this landscape. Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS) represent one of the biggest advancements in fire preparedness since the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire.
The Oakland Police Department has a new chief—at least for the next several months. Howard Jordan, formerly the department’s assistant chief, was sworn in as interim police chief at City Hall on Thursday afternoon. Jordan wore a dark gray suit and stood with his right hand raised as Mayor Jean Quan swore him in in front of an audience of about twenty officers. The ceremony ended with loud applause from the officers and a hug from Quan.
A coalition of Oakland residents is pushing for an initiative that would impose term limits on the city council. Under the proposal, councilmembers could serve up to three four-year terms and then would be forced to step down, which proponents say would help add new voices to the city council and thus improve policy making on crime, budget deficit and other pressing issues in the city.
Mayor Jean Quan and Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts joined forces Thursday to respond publicly to a federal judge’s warnings about possible unjustified use of force of Oakland police officers.
About 600 people marched from Allen Temple Baptist Church in East Oakland to City Hall to protest crime and violence in Oakland on Saturday. Soldiers Against Violence Everywhere, a community and church coalition, organized the march and rally as a response to the 75 homicides reported in the city from January to August, 2011.
About 200 people celebrated Mexico’s Independence Day at Oakland City Hall on Thursday, as Mexican and Latino residents from all over the city recreated the night of September 15, 1810, when Miguel Hidalgo, a priest from the town of Dolores, called his congregation to join him in a revolt against the Spanish colonial government.
During a tense city council committee meeting on Tuesday, the deputy director of Oakland’s Community and Economic Development Agency (CEDA) presented the agency’s response to a grand jury report on building inspection malpractice.
We asked six Oakland residents to remember the events September 11, and reflect on how it’s changed their lives in the decade since. For some the impact was immediate and life-altering. Others experienced the drama from a distance. None of them will ever forget it.
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