Tag Archives: Occupy Oakland Snow Park

Occupy Oakland and Occupy Snow Park Update – The Day After the Razing

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11:20 – Updated Here’s a Huffington Post Blog Story about it, with a lot of other good articles underneath it.

 

8:54 AM: So the Oakland Police Department, and many other police departments, joined together to tear gas and rubber bullet (and don’t forget the Flash Concussion Grenades) the peaceful non-violent protesters into leaving. Then they kept it up all night. Turning the lights off before conducting the later attacks, so the news helicopters couldn’t see what was going on below.

I was not there. Frankly, I was afraid to be there, and with good reason, after hearing about what took place. Plus, arguably I’m more useful retweeting from my post – producing a stream of relevant tweets for those following along. Last night, they were following along in horror, and there were as many comments about how sad and horrible the current state of our country was for this to be taking place at all, as there were about the events themselves.

I have two first hand accounts from the Snow Park extension. I will keep them anonymous (heh! what a loaded word that has become :-], but they are probably available for comment if you are a member of the press and would like to talk to them.

Person 1: Young Male, Black – He was arrested in the Snow Park Camp at 6:10 am, when the cops rushed in. He was released this morning at 2am, and has been charged with “refusing to leave a park.”

Person 2: Young Male, White – Was not arrested (I know how it looks, but that’s not my point right now.) He went back to join the others at Occupy Oakland after the Snow Bank extension had been decimated. They tried to set up again yesterday, but were immediately Raided. He was downtown all of last night and said “cops have shooting us with bullets and tear gas pretty much all night and day.”

 

Oakland’s Snow Park and Main Occupy Oakland Camp’s Attacked By Police – Occupiers Re-Occupying Oakland

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Updated 7:31 pm

This is Snow Park right now:

Snow Park - Oakland, CA - October 25, 2011 - 7:30 pm - Photo by @jankyhellface

Updated 5:23 pm

(This is amazing front-line footage with the video guy calling out badge numbers from time to time.)

Here’s a video of the Razing of Occupy Oakland. I mean they leveled the place. Tore it to the GROUND – Crusades style!

Here’s a video of the Attack on Snow Park.

***

The Snow Park Occupy Oakland Extension called me this morning at 6am to let  me know they were being attacked. The next two hours were pretty horrible, as I watched first hand accounts of police brutality of ever flavor imaginable pouring over the feeds.

Tear Gas, Flash Grenades, Rubber Bullets, and LRAD sound cannons ALL USED EXCESSIVELY. (A lot to use to just round up people that are lying there in their sleeping bags – Arguably, by anyone’s standards.) They went out of their way to destroy whatever property they could with boxcutters and other tools. It was a real disgrace. It makes my stomach turn, and makes me not want to vote for Mayor Quan ever again, if she’s capable of pulling off something like this with a clear conscience.

There were cops from a number of different police forces. Here’s an SFGate article with details on that.

WE ARE GATHERING AT 14TH AND MADISON IN FRONT OF THE LIBRARY TODAY TO RESPOND TO THIS.

This just in from Anonymous:

Occupy Oakland – URGENT CALL FOR ASSISTANCE

 

Last night we faced an absolutely brutal assault by an army of the Oakland Police (with the help of cops from all over Northern California). Tear gas and flash bangs were fired into the camp where children were sleeping, people were beaten and shot with rubber bullets. The assault was also levied against our property in the camp, and the cops tried their best to completely destroy everything we had there. Almost every tent has been destroyed, many slashed with boxcutters, structures smashed, basically this was not an eviction, they came in to destroy everything we had. After they flattened our main camp, they also went to our small camp in Snow Park and repeated the process there.

Though we may be bloodied, we are even more determined to keep going. As we agreed upon in General Assembly, on the evening following any police assault on our camp, we will reconvening at the Oakland Public Library, on the steps. We will discuss our options and pick one, and then take action as a community to respond / rebuild our occupation. This is a big deal, we need everyone and their mother to come out, to help us reestablish and recommit to the occupation. They will not stop us. We will overcome this attack and emerge even stronger.

 

 

 

 

 

Occupy Oakland’s Snow Park Extension Makes It Through Its First Night

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Snow Park, 19th and Harrison, Oakland, California, October 19, 2011

Updated 10/22/11: Facebook page here – The camp is still alive and well. (Page includes video of conversation with the cops and other details about this camp.)

 

Oakland’s SNOW PARK occupation lives!

I work nearby in downtown Oakland, and heard that they had set up shop last night when a fellow worker warned me about extra cops she had seen in the vacinity.

Eager to find out what was going on, I walked over to the park and asked what the story was.

They informed me that a representative from Oakland’s City Government brought them a letter saying that, although the occupiers in front of Oakland City Hall were allowed to stay, due to historical precedence, the Snow-parkers would have to be out by 10pm for breaking the usual camping after 10pm laws.

“We’re making history now.” The supporter reasoned.  (I postulated if, in ten years, it would then be OK to camp out in the park, due to the previous generations historical precedence. ) But none of that mattered, the peaceful demonstrators were told in the letter from Oakland, and from several Police Officers who were sort of driving by and hanging around all day. (In a friendly way, I am told.)

So I tweeted about it and decided to show up myself at 10pm. To everyone’s surprise, nothing happened. No cops. No confrontation. There were at least five different news vans there, about 50 people that were not associated with the protest necessarily, watching. And a number of writers and reporters that had shown up on their own.

I finally left around 10:45, as I felt comfortable that we’d done all we could do to show support and solidarity with the protesters and also to show up with cameras to remind them the world is watching.

I was so pleased this morning to see the camp still standing.

So the struggle continues! But it kinda feels like we held our ground 🙂