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| Pro Arts Gallery party next to Frank Ogawa Plaza |
Inside Downtown Oakland's clubs, restaurants, and art galleries, January 28, 2012 was just another Saturday night in Oakland, California with live music, good eats, and warm atmosphere. But just a few blocks up the street, hundreds of police officers blocked off Broadway from 23rd to 25th Street. Nearly 300 of the 2,000 Occupy Oakland protesters were arrested in a day-long battle between protesters and police who used flash grenades, smoke grenades, and tear gas.
After
my unexpected encounter with tear gas earlier in the day, I
returned to Downtown Oakland after seeing a lot of Twitter activity
about
Occupy Oakland. I went to the protest as an observer, not as a participant. I arrived at Frank Ogawa Plaza around 7:45pm. Police officers in riot gear were guarding City Hall.
From 8-9pm, I went up to various protesters and onlookers in Downtown Oakland and asked them "What happened tonight?" The following is what I pieced together from their responses. Occupy Oakland's original plan for 'Move-In Day' was to take over the shuttered
Kaiser Convention Center. This venue was to serve as a refuge for those who've had their houses foreclosed from predatory loan practices. The convention center would be re-purposed as a community center where art, music, and theater could thrive. This march was thwarted by police shooting tear gas and arresting 19 people in the afternoon. The remaining protesters regrouped in Frank Ogawa Plaza.
In the evening, between 6:30-7pm, a large group of protesters marched from Frank Ogawa Plaza to occupy the
open lot at 19th and Telegraph, next to the Fox Theater. A couple people who were there told me that the police shot tear gas into the crowd without first giving them them orders to disperse. Another told me that maybe the police did give the orders, but he didn't hear them over the noise of the protest. People rushed out of the area, fleeing the tear gas and taking down additional sections of the fence.
The protesters then marched up Broadway, while some broke into City Hall. One group of police in riot gear came from 25th towards the protesters, while another group came
behind the protesters.
The police headed off the protesters between 23rd and 24th on Broadway and
started firing tear gas at them. People fleeing the gas had no place to run because the police were blocking both ends of the street. Protesters ran into the
Downtown Oakland YMCA for refuge. The police then closed in on the YMCA. They arrested people still on the street, and closed off the
YMCA.
When I arrived at 23rd and Broadway at 8pm, there was a line of police in riot gear blocking Broadway and letting no vehicle or person through.
Behind the officers was a large, black, tank-like vehicle with a water cannon on top. I did not see this used on protesters on Saturday.
In a phone interview with photographer
Joe Sciarrillo who was in Downtown Oakland from 8:30pm-10:30pm Saturday night taking the photos for this post, he said, "In addition to the protesters, it was an interesting scene because there were drunk people getting out of bars and clubs and joking with police in riot gear, saying 'Officer, just
let me stumble through. My car's there.'"
Sciarrillo, who also photographed the
Nov. 2nd General Strike, said that from what he saw in the evening hours, this protest wasn't as confrontational as the
other Occupy protests he's photographed. He saw police cars from all over Northern California, including the California Highway Patrol, Alameda County Sheriff, and Fremont and Pleasanton police departments. Protesters were escorted out of the YMCA and put on San Mateo County Sheriff buses to go to the Alameda County
Jail to be booked.
There were several smaller marches after 9pm with groups of about 50-100 people marching around Broadway to Jefferson and Webster. The police
followed them in close pursuit, and eventually cornered them and dispersed the crowd by taking over 14th and Broadway.
Sciarrillo said that despite the serious atmosphere of the protest and
violent police actions, the evening still had a playful mood. In between
the cordoned off blocks, nightlife was bustling. He saw couples
bar-hopping on Broadway. Between the bandana-covered faces, it was
common to see a man dressed like he was going to a Great Gatsby party,
with a woman in a cocktail dress in his arm.
Witnessing today's events, Oakland is a city with great problems. It's
also a city with great resiliency. Let's hope Oakland is headed toward a
brighter future.
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By Matt Werner. Matt is a writer from Oakland, California. His book Oakland in Popular Memory comes out on March 30, 2012. This post is cross-posted on Oakland Local.
Photographs by Joe Sciarrillo. Joe is a freelance photographer based in San Francisco's Mission District. He's co-founder of the African Advocacy Network.
