Police Brutality During Occupation Protest in Sproul Today

Regardless of how you feel about the Occupation, this behavior by police against unarmed, non-violent protestors is not only illegal, but is shameful.

This is how police treat students on the UC campus. Watch the video and see for yourself that the protestors were standing, with their hands raised and not advancing on the police. Observe the police strike students multiple times with their batons despite no resistance being offered.

This Is Why You Should Go See The Protests for Yourself Instead of Listening to an Armchair Conservative

Occupy Wall Street is a response to the fact 1% of this country control a huge amount of its wealth and the political process. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either ignorant or would rather try to discredit the movement by focusing on the actions of a mentally ill man in the OWS-Oakland camp this week.

Today, 3,000 people marched through the streets of Oakland. The protest is peaceful. It is on public property and is action that should be protected by the First Amendment. If the Oakland city government wanted to act in support of this non-violent action to push for true financial and government reform, it would not have sent in over 500 riot police armed with shotguns, truncheons, riot shields and tear gas. They would not have deployed APCs and used military grade sonic weapons on protestors. Anyone who thinks the Oakland police or government has acted in support of OWS or has acted reasonably needs to spend some time at the protest.

Over 100 people were arrested today. A peaceful march resulted in a violent reaction from the Oakland Police Department. Things began early this morning when police officers invaded the OWS camp, tore up tents, used flash grenades and tear gas and physically removed protestors from the plaza.

Later this evening, after the march where more individuals were arrested while protesting non-violently; police fired multiple salvos of tear gas and flash grenades at peacefully assembled protestors. The local news estimated that 500 riot police were on hand to deal with a protest that was lawful and non-violent. Individuals were shot with tear gas canisters, bean bags and rubber bullets. The police did this multiple times and without substantial provocation. The Oakland government spent thousands of dollars on helicopters and overtime in order to try and stop people from speaking out against the systemic economic inequality in this country.

I'm proud to see other Boalt students out there, both doing Legal Observer work and simply adding their voices and presence to the OWS movement. I would encourage everyone to come see for themselves what is happening in downtown Oakland instead of relying on the accounts of individuals who aren't actively going to OWS and aren't sympathetic to the 99%.

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Based on what I see on Facebook, lots of Boalties think the City of Oakland has acted terribly in evicting the Occupy Oakland protesters. But I'm at a loss to see how the City could have treated the protesters much better.

Here's my initial question: how many reports of sexual assault, violence, and fire should the City have received before it finally stepped in? Here's another: what should the City have done when protesters prevented EMTs from treating the victims, the police from investigating the crimes, or fire officials from preventing the risk of a deadly fire?

Some may argue that Oakland's show of force was unnecessary. But the facts proved otherwise. On Friday, the Mayor asked the protesters to leave, citing public health and safety concerns. The request was ignored. Meanwhile, the camp was reportedly growing more dangerous, and more militant, every day. In the end, the city was able to evict the protesters quickly and without anyone getting hurt. What else could the city really have done?

What's remarkable to me is the extent to which Oakland supported the protesters to begin with--and how little it mattered in the end. Oakland's mayor, Jean Quan, provide tons of support to both the protest and its complaints. Local politicians participated have marched and camped out on the square. But this wasn't enough By refusing the work with the City, the protesters forced the City to take action. Now that it did so, some are trying to escalate the conflict (and violence) and portray the City as a thug-booted police state. Don't be fooled.