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Here are some reports I gathered by observing news reports and activist LiveStreams last night and this morning: The overall Occupy Oakland General Strike was peaceful. During the afternoon and early hours, there were some reports of people ahead of the march doing graffiti, etc. But, it seems that peacekeepers from the march actually stopped that from happening. The port was shut down. Overall, probably 7,000 to 10,0o0 people participated. *Near the port area, a man driving a silver Mercedes became frustrated, and in his road rage injured two demonstrators. The police spoke to him, but let him leave the scene, which appears to be an injustice. A very cool event was that some protesters tried to take and occupy a building that used to be a homeless shelter which is not vacant. I think they only held it temporarily. In the very late hours, some protesters started a fire in a street. The police intervened and there was tear gas and arrests.
Link to the Occupy Oakland website: here.
Some of the above happenings are reported in a story at Business Insider, with excerpts below:
This Is What The Hell Happened Last Night In Oakland
by Robert Johnson / Nov. 3, 2011, 8:49 AM
Oakland officials estimate about 5,000 people took to the streets of the city yesterday in a general strike meant to spur sister rallies in New York, Los Angeles, and across the country. [I heard one report of 10,000 people. – KW]*
By all reports the majority of the day went peacefully…
The nation’s fifth largest deepwater port was effectively ground to a halt…
As protests ground on into the night and early morning, many protesters retired to their tents and went to sleep. Others did not and police ended up arresting up to 65 people for unlawful assembly and other offenses.
The LA Times reports that at one point Occupy members attempted to take a building that formerly housed a homeless outreach center. The Traveler’s Aid Society had lost its funding and the building sits vacant, protesters seized the structure for “reuse” and labeled it a new “community center.”
Once inside they strung up banners reading “Occupy Everything” and set up barricades to keep out police…
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It is odd that the Business Insider says that Oakland officials estimate “5,000” people, because a CBS report says, “Organizers in Oakland had viewed the day as a significant victory. Police said that about 7,000 people participated in demonstrations throughout the day that were peaceful except for a few incidents of vandalism.”
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