Occupy Oakland
Early Tuesday morning, the Oakland Police Officer’s Association released the following “Open letter to the citizens of Oakland,” reprinted here in its entirety:
Heated confrontations between Oakland police and over 500 Occupy Oakland demonstrators during a march against police brutality on Saturday night threatened to turn into a repeat of Tuesday night’s violence, but the tension dissipated as the march moved away from OPD headquarters and into West Oakland. The night ended peacefully and without arrests.
Members of the Occupy Oakland general assembly discussed more details of the proposed general strike in the early evening Friday, agreeing after much fanfare to march on the Port of Oakland on Wednesday, November 2— the day of the proposed general strike— at 5 p.m.
As Mayor Jean Quan fielded reporters’ questions on Friday about the clash between police and protesters earlier this week, she was suddenly drowned out by cheers coming from outside as documentarian and activist Michael Moore arrived to speak to a gathering crowd of hundreds on the steps of City Hall.
The ACLU and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) jointly sent a public records request to the Oakland Police Department this week, asking for detailed information about the arrests and use of force in response to the Occupy Oakland confrontations.
On Friday, Oakland Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan issued a message to the community, which was sent to news publications, regarding police officers’ use of force during the Tuesday night clash between Occupy Oakland protesters and law enforcement, and the department’s position on the ongoing downtown demonstrations.
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.
More than a dozen people waited in a fourth-floor hallway of Oakland’s Wiley W. Manuel courthouse on Thursday afternoon, waiting for the arraignment of the nine protesters still being held after Tuesday’s eviction of the Occupy Oakland camp and subsequent clashes between police officers and protesters.
A jubilant crowd of Occupy Oakland supporters poured into the city’s downtown streets late last night, after their “general assembly” approved supporting a citywide strike Nov. 2. But the crowd’s efforts to cross the bay to join the Occupy S.F. group were thwarted by BART officers, who shut down the 12th Street BART entrance amid cries of “Police brutality!” and “This is what democracy looks like!”