Occupy Oakland Evicted: Cops fire Rubber Bullets, Flash Grenades,Tear Gas, Many Injured and Arrested

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“Around 2am word spread that riot police were massing in around the area where Occupy Oakland has been for more than two weeks. Hundreds of people gathered and began to make non-violent barricades at all the entrances to the plaza.

At about 4:30am, riot police appeared on all corners of the encampment. There were roughly 500 to 700 riot police in total.

The entire plaza was completely barricaded on all sides, with palates, trash cans, chairs, a gigantic christmas wreath, police barricades from a neighboring street.

Occupiers began chanting ‘go home’ as they always do when police show up at Occupy Oakland, but it quickly became clear that there was an overwhelming number of police from at least four different jurisdictions.

As people continued to chant and fell back within the barricade, off of the street, the police announced that we would be arrested within the encampment. They said [they’d use force to disperse demonstrators within] five minutes, and within a minute they fired the first rounds of flash-bang grenades and rubber bullets, and then tear gas into the camp, hitting and injuring multiple people.

At this point much of the crowd began to flee through an area the police had opened up to flush the crowd out. All those who remained were arrested.

We know of roughly 70 arrests and multiple injuries, none of them extremely serious, but many for sure.

At this time people are still standing up to the police line. The camp looks like a tornado went through it. Everything is destroyed, and it is currently occupied by hundreds of police.

We’re asking for public condemnations of police repression of the occupy movement in Oakland and we’re also saying that people should reconverge at 14th and Madison at the public library for an emergency demonstration at 4pm today (Tuesday).” Tim, an organizer with Occupy Oakland.

Over 100 occupiers were arrested as of 10:03am this morning the National Lawyers guild told us this morning. The city of Oakland has told it’s employees not to come to work today in anticipation of response to the violent eviction of the largest encampment of people living in an #occupy space. This morning’s raid widely believed to be the most violent so far, yet NBC is reporting a “smooth” and “peaceful” eviction by OPD. The use of tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades, a sound cannon, the LRAD, and batons is peaceful and smooth according to the C.O.N. media.

At the celebration of the two week birthday of Occupy Oakland about two thousand people circulated through the occupation. On Monday, October 25 the city of Oakland gave the occupation the final warning of eviction. During the General Assembly on Monday evening the GA came to a consensus that occupiers would stay to defend the camp. The occupiers then built barricades and discussed various tactical plans about how to defend to the camp.

The security of the camp was on high alert, and at 3:15am occupiers say riot cops staging and preparing. The camp then woke up and began to barricade walls made out of everything from couches to metal barricades and wooden pallets. This was many unemployed people, many homeless people who camp in the camp, rank and file union members, students, the entire camp joined to barricade to defend the camp. Carlifornia highway patrol, Riot police, and police from four counties, a chopper, stages a very large scale operation with at least 700 police show up against at least 200 campers and about 100 more non-camping supporters and media observers.

The riot police immediately teargased the front entrance of the camp where everyone was behind the barricades.  When they teargased the front of the camp the media who had been parked by the entrance has to move their vans as they had also gotten teargased. The media and outside supporters left because of the teargas. Then the police moved in to push apart the barricades and shoot into the camp with rubber bullets. The went through the camp and shooting people with rubber bullets causing what protesters described as a “chaotic warzone-like situation”. They beat several unconscious in the process of arresting them. Throughout the next half hour they closed all the streets within a three block radius around the plaza so no one could see what was happening in the plaza. The police trampled and destroyed the entire encampment.  About 70 were arrested and many were injured.

At 8am a large group of people got through when the streets opened up and attempted to re-occupy Snow Park.

The Okaland Tribune reported that police successfully demolished the camp and cleaned out all their tents, a medical desk, a makeshift kitchen and more, after having declared the whole site a “crime scene,” even though no other crime than an “unlawful assembly” had occurred.

Aggregated Media (a lot of Gross Mis-reporting in favor of the Police Department):

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/10/25/dozens_arrested_at_occupy_oakland_as

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/25/watch-live-occupy-oakland-attacked-by-police/

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2011%2F10%2F25%2FBAUB1LLTC9.DTL

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news%2Flocal%2Feast_bay&id=8404801

Oakland Tribune: Early morning police raid ousts Occupy Oakland

Oakland Tribune: Live Blog: Police arrest protesters, tear down Occupy Oakland tent city

Think Progress: Occupy Oakland Evicted: Cops fire Rubber Bullets, Tear Gas, Many Injured and Arrested

Oakland North: Police raid Occupy Oakland camp, make arrests

Bay Citizen: Police Dismantle Occupy Oakland

San Francisco Chronicle: Cops arrest Occupy Oakland protestersLive UStream feed of the raidMayor Jean Quan’s statement

YSERBA: Police Raid Occupy Oakland, Push Me To The Ground