Police

This video was shot by John Osborn of Mission Local during the initial part of the police raid on the Occupy Oakland campsite in downtown Oakland, from around 4:30 am to 6:30 am Tuesday morning.

At around 5:30 Tuesday morning, Oakland police raided two Occupy Oakland encampments, the main one at Frank Ogawa Plaza that had grown to house more than 100 protestors, and a smaller site at Snow Park near Lake Merritt.

At 7:30 Tuesday morning, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s office issued a statement regarding the police raid on the two downtown Occupy Oakland camp sites.

In the pre-dawn hours on Tuesday, Oakland police conducted raids on two encampments created by the Occupy Oakland protesters, the main one at Frank Ogawa Plaza and a smaller one at Snow Park near Lake Merritt.

After police served Occupy Oakland campers an eviction notice last night, demonstrators took to the streets, marching in a circuit around Lake Merritt this morning, October 22. The march lasted about three hours and remained peaceful. It appeared to span a wide range of age, race, religious and political differences. When asked about the possibility of eviction, one man, who only gave his first name Ethan, said, “I’m not going to fight them, but I’m definitely not going to leave.”

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.

Occupy Oakland protesters received their second wave of eviction notices from the City Administrator’s Office on Friday night. Despite the threat that police could force them to leave at any time, protesters continued their daily routines, which included a night of revelry at the amphitheater outside of City Hall.

It’s been 11 days since Occupy Oakland took over Oakland’s Frank Ogawa Plaza, and now the tent city is bigger than ever and facing eviction. Over 550 people occupy Oakland’s plaza, even after they received an evacuation notice from the City Administrator’s Office on Thursday evening. Among the concerns listed on the notice are graffiti, vandalism to plaza infrastructure and “the historic tree,” and the disruption of the plaza for public use by groups who had to relocate events which had previously been scheduled at the plaza.

Amidst accusations of electioneering, the Oakland City Council approved legislation that would determine how funds from a proposed $80 parcel tax would be spent if Measure I passes next month. The legislation, authored by Councilmember At-Large Rebecca Kaplan, Councilmember Pat Kernighan (District 2) and Council President Larry Reid (District 7), determines how the $60 million collected from the tax under Measure I would be spent over the next five years, and allocates a majority of the funds toward public safety items.