Oakland

Oakland Protesters Burn Confederate Flag, Block Freeway, After Police Shooting

August 14, 2015 CBS SF Bay Area, www.sanfrancisco.cbslocal..com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Oakland, police brutality

By CBS SF Bay Area - Protesters burned Confederate flags and shut down a freeway in Downtown Oakland Wednesday night, hours after police fatally shot a man suspected in an armed robbery and alleged carjacking attempt. On Wednesday evening, a group of protesters took to the streets in the area of the shooting to voice opposition to police violence. Confederate flags and trash cans were set on fire during the demonstration. Windows of a Starbucks were also reported smashed. Around 10:10 p.m., a group of protesters briefly shut down westbound Interstate 980 near Interstate 880. The freeway was reopened several minutes later. The protest was in response to the police shooting earlier in the day.

Why Oakland’s Crackdown On Protest Is Sure To Fail

June 6, 2015 Rachel Lederman, www.truth-out.org Resist! Law, Oakland, police brutality, Property

By Rachel Lederman in Truthout - Under pressure from business after a large May Day demonstration, in which dozens of new cars and bank windows were smashed, Oakland's new mayor, Libby Schaaf, has instituted a ban on nighttime street marches, which has outraged the Oakland activist community. The mayor's directive violates a federal court order and has escalated ongoing tension between police and protesters - while doing nothing to address the serious issues of state-sponsored racism, extrajudicial killings and police impunity, targets of the growing movement. Banning protests doesn't work as a way to stop property damage or squelch popular anger. Across the Bay, San Francisco tried it in response to vandalism during protests over the 1992 acquittals of the Los Angeles police officers who beat Rodney King.

Oakland Adopts A Privacy Policy To Prevent Law Enforcement Abuse

June 4, 2015 Occupy Oakland, www.occupyoakland.org Create! Oakland, police brutality, Privacy

By Occupy Oakland - Almost two years after the Domain Awareness Center first crept onto the radar of Bay Area activists… it will be allowed to power up. Two years past it was a system spec’ed to spy over all of Oakland, incorporating traffic cameras, Shotspotter, school cameras, license plate readers and social media, with no controls on information sharing with other agencies like the FBI or ICE. Now, it is a system confined to take input from the Port of Oakland (at least without Council approval of further expansion). It may not use new technologies such as facial recognition without Council approval, it may not transfer data to other agencies without Council approval, and its use, at least conceptually, is restricted by the newly enacted Privacy Policy the City Council passed at 3:00 AM on June 3rd, 2015.

Oakland Protesters Extorted For Exercising First Amendment Rights

May 27, 2015 James Job, www.thefifthcolumnnews.com Resist! Curfew, Freedom of Expression, Oakland, police brutality

The night of May 23rd, 2015 was an interesting one for residents and activists in the city of Oakland. Nearly 50 people were cited, arrested, or at least confronted by the Oakland Police after an ordinance passed by Mayor Libby Schaaf condemned peaceful protests after 10 PM. Say Her Name Protests started on May, 21st to bring awareness to female lives lost due to unnecessary police brutality. Some women are protesting in the streets topless with the names of young black female victims written on their bodies. There was a curfew implemented to extort the protesters, with the obvious intention of deterring people from protesting. At 4:50 into the video, the police line forces the people backwards in disturbing fashion. Two people were taken into custody for unlawful assembly, when they were lawfully assembled on the sidewalk. While they were not exactly speaking kindly to police, the two that were arrested on a public sidewalk – one lady lost her candle in the process – did not appear to violate any laws whatsoever.

Protesters Clash With Oakland Police Over Curfew Crackdown

May 26, 2015 Jeffrey Schaub, www.sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com Resist! Criminal Justice, Law, Oakland, police brutality, Wars and Militarism

Several people were detained during protests in Oakland Sunday night, following clashes with police out in force on orders that violence and vandalism would not be tolerated. Police said officers used force in two instances but did not describe the tactics officers used. About 100 protesters, including several clergy gathered at Frank Ogawa Plaza upset that the city began implementing a law that requires that protest marches be permitted and that they be limited to sidewalks and take place before dark. The group then headed towards Oakland Police Department, but officers turned them back. Some of the marchers— and the police who followed— blocked a portion of Broadway. Many of the protesters left the scene at that point. Some of those who didn’t, got into a shouting match with police. According the the San Francisco Chronicle, police issued 19 citations and made four arrests in all.

The Port Of Oakland Will Shut Down To Protest Police Violence

April 29, 2015 John Metcalfe, www.citylab.com Resist! Oakland, police brutality

It will mark the first time in more than a decade that the Port of Oakland employees have stopped work with the approval of business owners, according to a person familiar with the port's labor operations. The protests come during a growing national debate and protests over police violence, most recently with death of a 25-year-old Freddie Gray of Baltimore. Port of Oakland longshoremen, represented by International Longshore and Warehouse Union's Local 10 division, are leading the protests. "We're going to be marching on Friday," said Melvin Mackay, president ILWU Local 10. "It's about the police doing the right thing."

Oakland Has Read 4.6 Million License Plates Tracking People

March 26, 2015 Cyrus Farivar, www.arstechnica.com Educate! Oakland, Police, Surveillance

If you have driven in Oakland any time in the last few years, chances are good that the cops know where you’ve been, thanks to their 33 automated license plate readers (LPRs). Now Ars knows too. In response to a public records request, we obtained the entire LPR dataset of the Oakland Police Department (OPD), including more than 4.6 million reads of over 1.1 million unique plates between December 23, 2010 and May 31, 2014. The dataset is likely one of the largest ever publicly released in the United States—perhaps in the world. After analyzing this data with a custom-built visualization tool, Ars can definitively demonstrate the data's revelatory potential.

Badass Collective Bringing Direct Action To Black Communities

February 15, 2015 Alyssa Figueroa, www.alternet.org Uncategorized #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Blockades, Oakland, Racism

“All of us unsuccessfully attempted to bring black non-violent direct action trainers down there, and when we got to Ferguson most of the training team were white allies. We noticed that there was a shortage of black direct action trainers,” Faison said. “We looked at each other and said we need to develop some more folks to train our people and coordinate actions. And from there burst the BlackOUT Collective on the frontlines around 11 o’clock at night in front of the police station.” Since then, the collective has helped black communities think through, facilitate, train, and execute numerous direct actions. One of their first projects was helping a group of young organizers in Oakland who wanted to take action. The result of that process was Black Brunch, an action, now expanded into other cities, in which protesters enter restaurants that cater to a white crowd at busy brunch hours and conduct a ritual for black people killed by police. This includes reading the names of those killed by police and vigilantes.

Federal Reserve Blockaded For 4.5 Hours In Oakland

January 17, 2015 Harry Harris, www.insidebayarea.com Resist! Federal Reserve, Oakland, police brutality

Members and supporters of the Third World Resistance group protested Friday morning at the federal building in downtown Oakland, with more than 30 using PVC tubing, chains and U-locks to block the two main entrances. The peaceful protest drew at least 150 people and began before 7 a.m. at the main entrance to the Ronald V. Dellums Building, 1301 Clay St. and another entrance on Jefferson Street. A prayer dance was held before speakers made their presentations. The protest ended shortly after 11 a.m. without anyone arrested. Federal police stood by and observed the activity. The entrance to the courthouse portion of the building was not affected and employees and people with business at the main building were able to get in at an alternate entrance.

Nationwide Protests Are Bringing Issue Of Police Abuse To Forefront

December 5, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, DC, killed by police, New York (NY), Oakland, Police abuse, police brutality, Portland, Racism, San Francisco, Washington

Below are a series of headlines, photos and opening paragraphs from major media sources describing how they covered the nationwide protests against the grand jury decisions in police shooting cases in New York and Ferguson as well as police abuse which has become a nationwide epidemic. Some papers like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette where there were major protests did not cover the local protests in their communities. Others, like the Washington Post, focused more on the politics of the issue with photos of protests in DC and nationally. The Associated Press summarized the night of protests writing: "Thousands and thousands of diverse people united by anger took to the streets from New York City to San Francisco for a second straight night to protest a grand jury clearing a white police officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man. Grandparents marched with their grandchildren. Experienced activists stood alongside newcomers, and protesters of all colors chanted slogans. A 61-year-old black woman was accompanied by her daughter and twin 10-year-old grandchildren, a boy and a girl. She said it was important to her that the children saw a crowd that was racially mixed and diverse in many other ways all insisting upon the same thing - that something must be done." That was the message, too, in cities across America: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis Oakland, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., among them.

Inside Urban Shield – The Video!

October 18, 2014 Occupy Oakland, www.occupyoakland.org Organize! Militarized police, Oakland, Police the Police

It was to be expected, I suppose. Three Oakland police units, having nothing better to do on a Friday evening in a town where no one ever complains about crime, showed up before the Inside Urban Shield forum on the militarization of police, ostensibly to inquire into whether a gathering convened expressly to listen to speakers in an auditorium was getting ready to hella march. Fortunately, they must have gotten an emergency call for donut delivery, as they eventually left some eighty odd of us attendees to listen to excellent talks by Shane Bauer, Joshua Smith, Susan Harman and Julia Wong. Here is a video of the four speakers, with the time each begins listed, and some excerpts below...

Grassroots Resistance As Police Militarization Expo Descends On Oakland

September 6, 2014 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! Israel, Militarization, Oakland, Police, Protest

Sustained resistance in Ferguson, Missouri — in the face of riot police, and military service members, and war-grade weapons and vehicles — has forced the issue of police racism and militarization into the national and global spotlight. As the summer closes on a note of outrage, forces driving police militarization — including defense contractors, law enforcement agencies, and SWAT teams from around the world — are converging in Oakland, California on September 4th through 8th for the 9th annual "Urban Shield" exercise and weapons technology expo that is bankrolled by arms manufacturers and the Department of Homeland Security. They are being met with protests from grassroots organizations and local residents who say Urban Shield is not welcome in their city — or anywhere. "People all over the world are watching the militarization of U.S. law enforcement and making the connections between militarization on the global level and local policing," Lara Kiswani of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center told Common Dreams. "This is an opportunity for us here in Oakland to demonstrate how we stand against militarization."

Oakland Organizes To Stop Urban Shield

September 2, 2014 Alyssa Figueroa, www.alternet.org Organize! Militarization, Oakland, Organizing, Police

Heavily armed officers, weapons drawn, move across a bridge draped with a banner reading “No war for oil” and “We are the 99%." One corner of the banner sports the A anarchist symbol. Shortly after, they capture their targets: protesters. This scene may be all too familiar to protesters. But it’s actually a staged police training put on by Urban Shield, a SWAT team training program and weapons expo that has taken place in the Bay Area for the past seven years. This year, as last, Urban Shield’s weapon show takes place in the Oakland Marriot Convention Center in downtown Oakland, CA, September 4-8. In a city that has a tense relationship with police, hosting a conference that is ultimately an effort to militarize policing and hawk weaponry doesn't sit well with community members, who are organizing to stop Urban Shield from coming to town. “They try to put Urban Shield under this umbrella of public safety because there’s also collaboration with fire departments and emergency medical response teams,” said Kamau Walton, a War Resisters League organizer. “But the tools and the tactics they are utilizing, that they gain from the vendor show are being used against community members on a regular basis. And these are not emergency situations, these are peaceful protests, like the ones we’ve seen in Ferguson.”

Schedules For ‘Block The Boat’ & Other Info

August 30, 2014 1newsjunkie, www.1newsjunkie.blogspot.com Organize! Block the Boat, Oakland, Palestine, Solidarity

ALL USA Activists! Heres a comprehensive guide to all #BlockTheBoat Ship - ZIM schedules, maps, tools, guidelines #gaza Hello! This is a care package for anyone interested in helping to spread the #BlockTheBoat Movement. Hopefully this will make it a bit easier to get started. Included are links to useful online tools, lists of resources, schedules of ships, names of ports, texts from flyers, poster graphics, and more. Good Luck!

How Oakland Organized The Block The Boat Action

August 30, 2014 Hyphenated Republic, www.hyphenatedrepublic.wordpress.com Resist! BDS, Block the Boat, Direct Action, Oakland, Palestine, Solidarity

In August, 2014, an ad hoc coalition and ever-changing group of autonomous activists prevented the Zim Piraeus from offloading for four days and caused subsequent entanglements that prevented the vast majority of its cargo from touching dry Oakland land. Much has already been said about the relationship between labor and the BTB coaltion that was necessary for such a monumental win. I would like to speak of another hand in hand relationship that received less attention or press, but was just as important, and perhaps even more so, to the final impact of the Block the Boat coalition’s unprecedented victory in Oakland. That relationship between organizations in the Bay Area organizing scene that comprised the Block the Boat coalition and action taken through existing solidarity networks and individuals, acting autonomously. To understand the remarkable victory of Block the Boat, Oakland, one has to first trace the line of this uneasy partnership, and the incredible feedback loop it unintentionally unleashed, amping the Block the Boat signal higher and higher towards success*.

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