The state came close to meeting its first court-imposed benchmark for reducing the prison population last week. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, readying its January 10 report to the federal court in the Northern District of California, announced it’s currently operating at 169.2 percent of its designed capacity. That number nearly hits the 167-percent figure the court demanded California meet by December 27, 2011.
Ali Winston
Unidentified law enforcement officers at 13th and Broadway on the morning of November 14, 2011
Section 830.10 of the California penal code requires all uniformed law enforcement personnel in the state to display the officer’s name or identification number on their uniform. In spite of state law, several police officers deployed on mutual aid assistance to Oakland over the past week – and at least one Oakland Police officer – have covered identifying insignia up with tape or body armor.
During the eviction of Occupy Oakland’s Frank Ogawa encampment yesterday, at least four officers in a group of police from San Mateo law enforcement agencies had their shoulder patches, name tags and any other identifying markings covered with riot gear. The officers would not identify their home agency when asked by this reporter and people in the crowd.
Other officers with body armor over their agency insignia and name tags with no identifying markings on their helmet were observed on the night of November 2-3 as police attempted to disperse a crowd of people following Oakland’s General Strike. Photos after the jump.
Ali Winston
Police cordon off a portion of Frank Ogawa Plaza where a man was fatally shot on Nov. 10, 2011
An unidentified man was shot to death following an argument that devolved into a fistfight in Frank Ogawa Plaza this afternoon, on the one-month anniversary of the Occupy Oakland encampment. According to several witnesses, the victim was shot at least twice in the head in Frank Ogawa Plaza near the Sankofa Boutique and Western Federal Credit Union. The man collapsed several feet in front of an entrance to the 12th Street-City Center BART station, where he was first treated by Occupy Oakland medics and then emergency medical personnel.
The incident started when an altercation between two groups of young men broke out near the medic tent at Occupy Oakland. Emma, a camper who did not want her last name to be used, said she saw a large group of people clustered around two feuding groups, trying to defuse the situation. Shortly thereafter, a fight broke out and spilled over from the encampment to a sidewalk area in front of the Western Federal Credit Union. Al, a homeless veteran who has slept at Ogawa Plaza for the past month, said he saw a group of young men chasing another man run by him, then heard four to six shots.
According to Interim Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan, the shooting victim died from his wounds at Highland Hospital. No arrests have been made, and no weapons have been recovered, Jordan said. Several campers did not recognize the shooting victim. There are conflicting reports as to whether the dead man had ties to the camp. Continue reading
If you haven’t seen it already today, Downtown Oakland is a mess. The tail-end of yesterday’s General Strike degenerated into violence, vandalism and looting following a successful shutdown of the evening shift at the Port of Oakland by tens of thousands of marchers. Windows at City Hall were smashed, buildings were covered in graffiti, and trash burned at the intersection of 16th and Telegraph following an attempt to occupy the foreclosed building of the Traveler’s Aid Society, an organization that aided the homeless.
The Black Blocs that touched off the property destruction in the afternoon at the downtown banks and 27th Street Whole Foods and that fired M80 firecrackers at a line of riot police late that evening had strong contingents of out-of-town anarchists (a group of masked demonstrators were overheard speaking Greek amongst themselves). Eighty people were arrested by the Oakland Police Department, with the assistance of an undetermined number of Contra Costa and Alameda law enforcement agencies called in on mutual aid (again).
It remains to be seen how last night’s events will affect Occupy Oakland and the broader Occupy Wall Street movement. Yesterday’s violence and property destruction has been widely condemned by Occupy Oakland, and there is talk of the camp participating in the ongoing cleanup efforts. Tonight’s City Council meeting at 5:30 PM on Occupy Oakland will provide the best indication of how authorities will approach the encampment in the aftermath of the General Strike
Photos and videos after the jump Continue reading
During a 2 PM anti-capitalist march from Occupy Oakland’s main camp in Frank Ogawa Plaza up Broadway and along Grand and Lakeshore Avenues, a black bloc of several dozen smashed the windows of branches of Chase and Bank of America. The Lakeshore Avenue Whole Foods, which reportedly threatened to fire any employee who walked off the job during today’s General Strike, was also vandalized with paint.
Photos after the jump
Tear gas, concussion grenades and less-lethal munitions were fired on a march of at least 1,000 people in downtown Oakland last night who were in an uproar over the forcible eviction of the Occupy Oakland encampment early yesterday morning. As of late last night, Oakland Police say they arrested 102 people–97 at the encampment eviction and 5 later on in the day. Some of those arrested were released from the North County and Santa Rita jails last night while chaos erupted on the streets.
The crowd swelled to almost 2,000 at one point as it wound its way through downtown Oakland from police headquarters at 7th Street, where demonstrators clashed with police and five people were taken into custody. At several points in the evening, the crowd faced off against an array of officers from the Oakland Police Department, San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol and Palo Alto Police Department. Seventeen law enforcement agencies in total were called out for the mutual aid response yesterday. Oakland Police did not respond to queries about the cost of the mutual aid operation, but similar call-outs for Oscar Grant protests last fall cost around $500,000 in logistics and police overtime.
Several protesters are reportedly receiving medical attention at Highland Hospital in the wake of clashes with riot police. Among them is Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, was struck in the head with either a tear gas canister or a less-lethal round. Olsen served two tours in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines and is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace. He is reportedly in critical condition at Highland Hospital with a skull fracture and swelling of the brain
Occupy Oakland, the two-week-old tent city that sprawled across Frank Ogawa Plaza and Snow Park, was dismantled early this morning during a raid by hundreds of police from Oakland, with the help of other Bay Area law enforcement agencies brought in under mutual aid agreements from as far away as Vacaville. Police say at least 85 people were arrested at both encampments. City officials delivered an eviction notice to Occupy Oakland last week, listing a host of safety, sanitation, and public health concerns.
Sanitation workers and other city officials tipped off protesters to the imminent police raid, and around 2 AM a flurry of messages drew supporters and media alike to the camp. The occupiers used wooden pallets, bike racks, railing, dumpsters and string to build ad-hoc barricades around the 150 tents on the lawn in front of City Hall.
As promised, the hacktivist group Anonymous returned to Civic Center yesterday for a second rush-hour protest against officer-involved shootings by BART police and the transit agency’s decision to cut cellphone service in Downtown San Francisco stations on August 11th. Last Monday, approximately 200 demonstrators forced BART to close the Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell and Civic Center Stations for two hours, snarling the evening commute.
Though only Powell and Civic Center stations were shuttered during yesterday’s action, police took a distinctly sterner tone with the protests, arresting four people on the platform of the Civic Center station before declaring an unlawful assembly and forcing roughly 40 protesters and journalists up to the street. The San Francisco Bay Guardian posted video of BART police arresting a woman on the platform of the Civic Center Station. Three more people were arrested in the station for chanting slogans critical of BART and holding a banner.
BART Deputy Police Chief Dan Hartwig said the arrests were made over concerns for public safety and the ability of people to move freely through BART stations.
“That platform is not designed for anything besides waiting for public transportation,” Hartwig said.”We’ve gone out of our way to be accommodating, probably flexible to a fault. It’s our responsibility to maintain a safe environment within this system. We can’t afford to have this be a weekly occurrence.”
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