Activists from Occupy Oakland attacked police on Saturday during attempts to take over civic property, injuring three police officers.

The Associated Press reports:

Police were in the process of arresting about 100 Occupy protesters who failed to disperse Saturday night, hours after officers used tear gas on a rowdy group of demonstrators who threw rocks and flares at them and tore down fences.

Police Sgt. Christopher Bolton said the arrests came after protesters marched through downtown Oakland a little before 8 p.m. Saturday. Some protesters entered a YMCA building.

Meanwhile, about 100 police officers surrounded City Hall while others swept the inside of the building to see if any protesters broke in…. (more…)

Lee Stranahan is literally on the front lines of clashes between police and Occupy San Francisco activists.

Watch live:

Occupy San Francisco activists have been joined by recently-evicted Occupy Oakland activists.
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UPDATE 4 (5:35 am PST): Oakland mayor Jean Quan has announced that the Occupy Oakland protest will be removed once again, as the city council plans a no-confidence vote in response to her failure to uphold law and order.

UPDATE 3 (7:42 pm PST): According to this new video, released by an Occupy Oakland activist who witnessed the incident, the shooting occurred during a fight over “a bag of weed.” He concludes: “It’s gotten real nasty down here, real fast.”

UPDATE (7:30 pm PST): Breitbart.tv has just released video of Occupy Oakland activists assaulting a local ABC news crew as it reported on the fatal shooting:

UPDATE (7:14 pm PST): The victim is dead, according to the San Francisco Chronicle and KTVU.

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A shooting has been reported near the site of Occupy Oakland–the second fatal shooting today at an Occupy demonstration, after an incident at Occupy Vermont this morning.

Our source on the ground at the Occupy Oakland protests sent this video of police and EMTs administering CPR to the victim:

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

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It’s sad that teachers – who have such an influence over the future of America – where right in the mix when the riots and vandalism broke out Wednesday in Oakland, California.  Obviously that’s where their hearts are at.

Trouble was brewing when the Oakland Education Association – an affiliate of the National Education Association – endorsed the #Occupy mob’s call for a national strike on Nov. 2.  One declaration from the union stated, “We must shut down the schools to save the schools.”

Huh?  Perhaps a more accurate statement would be, “We must shut down the schools to protect our pensions and power.”

According to sources within the union, its leaders – including OEA President Betty Olson-Jones – were a part of the plotting to confront Bank of America, Whole Foods, and the sea port.

Do the taxpayers or the media even care?  Or is this just how they roll in Oakland?

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Last night, Oakland mayor Jean Quan and city officials told the press that the Occupy Oakland “general strike” had been “peaceful,” despite violence and vandalism.

Mayor Quan repeated her support for the “99 percent movement,” and other leaders described the protests as “primarily peaceful,” politely asking for no fires to be set and no “bottles, rocks, or human waste” to be thrown at police.

Meanwhile, Occupy Oakland had other ideas–clashing with police in the streets, building barricades, and setting them on fire:

A resident of Oakland has sent us his photographs from today’s Occupy Oakland “general strike” march, which turned violent.

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Live Feed–complete with shouts of “F*** the police!”:

Live video from your Android device on Ustream

Occupy Oakland activists vandalized a Whole Foods store on Grand Street this afternoon during their “general strike” march:

Occupy activists painted “STRIKE” on the building’s walls and windows, and damaged a fence, among other acts of vandalism–ignoring those few who cried “non-violence.”

Fights appeared to break out among activists as some attempted to discourage further damage to the store, and were attacked themselves.

Russia Today released this video:

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From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The owner of Sankofa African Arts and Jewelry said that on the two mornings since protesters returned, her front doorway has reeked of urine.

She said her business has declined by 80 percent since Occupy Oakland began.

“I really, really want them to leave,” said the owner, who gave only her first name, Ellen. She has owned her business for 17 years. “What they are doing is making business worse.”

A camp supporter overheard her lament and shouted: “You would have lost your business anyway with the way the economy is going.”

Ellen burst into tears.

Moji Ghafouri said business has gone down 25 percent at her Caffe Teatro. Protesters also smashed one of her windows.

“I’m a small business,” she said. “If you’re against corporations or big business, I’m not them.”

Ghafouri said part of the problem is City Hall’s doublespeak – like banning people from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and then letting people camp overnight anyway.

“If they’re not going to enforce it, don’t say it,” she said.

Meanwhile, one 1%-er is ecstatic:

As the camp grew in size Friday, filmmaker Michael Moore flew in to pump up supporters. (more…)

Push youngest/oldest to the front lines….This is a battle over images, not just over the park.

- Charles Lenchner, Occupy Wall Street activist, Oct. 13, 2011

If the police overreact (as they are likely to) and we take the blows, and it is recorded, it will go worldwide and further tremendously galvanize the movement.

- Tarak Kauff, Veterans for Peace organizer, Oct. 13, 2011

Woman in a wheelchair, Occupy Oakland riot, Oct. 25. Photo: Bradblog.com

When the activists of Occupy Oakland attacked police en masse on October 25th, throwing paint bombs and provoking volleys of tear gas, the images galvanized the Occupy movement as never before.

“Come see the violence inherent in the system!” they have all but shouted, using wild allegations of police brutality, and fallacious arguments about First Amendment violations, to build solidarity among scattered activists.

The outrage is sincere–but so is the jubilation.

Clashes with the police affirm the activistsʼ fantasy–that they are the leading a revolution, that the truths they speak are so potent that the “1 percent” must use force to suppress them.

The clashes also assuage the jealousy–what Harvard literature professor Philip Fisher once called “nightmare envy”– western radicals feel when watching the Arab Spring, where the struggles are deadly real.

But the Occupy activists have not just yearned for confrontations with police; they have planned them. (more…)

UPDATE 2 (10:34 pm): Live streaming from the main group of activists.

Streaming video by Ustream

Police are moving to clear Occupy San Francisco. The remaining activists are organizing for resistance (below, recorded earlier). Leaders are encouraging non-violence, and asking for volunteers to be arrested.

Video streaming by Ustream

Meanwhile, Occupy activists across the country are tuning in online to a mass General Assembly in Oakland, where activists have torn down a police fence and are voting on a call for a “General Strike” on November 2. (more…)

Big Government has learned that Occupy Wall Street activists and supporters are circulating this blog post from the left-wing site Firedoglake, entitled: “What to Do When the Media Says a Protester Attacked a Cop.”

The plan is simple: find someone else to blame for Occupy violence against police.

The Firedoglake post was published on Saturday, October 22. By then, there had already been several incidents of violence and attacks on police at Occupy demonstrations throughout the country. Moreover, it had become clear that some Occupy activists were determined to initiate or provoke clashes with police, such as those witnessed on the streets of Oakland last night.

Once posted on Firedoglake, the proposed public relations strategy for dealing with accusations of anti-police violence was then circulated via email to organizers of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demonstrations.

One activist suggested: “Might it be useful to put it out to the media that OWS is expecting infiltration and agent provocateur violence, and OWS is concerned about how it will play out, since OWS is peaceful?” (See below – email addresses redacted.)

OWS Media Strategy

The Occupy strategy outlined on Firedoglake consists of five steps:

1) Challenge the assumption that the violent protester(s) are actually Occupy Wall Street protesters…

2) Scour all the footage and photos you can find of the instigators of the violence at the protest…

3) Crowd-source the images and ask for help identifying them…

4) Write a post about it on a blog with info on the person(s) andtheir background…

5) Contact the media and point out who that protest was started by…

“That is what you do in this age of easy access to video, photos and social media,” the post continues.

The problem is that video, photos, and social media from the Occupy activists have often captured evidence of their own enthusiasm for violence and provocation. (more…)

Photo credit: Pajamas Media

UPDATE: A source reports that 30-40 arrests have been made, which suggests that 100-300 activists left when police arrived.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

(10-25) 05:58 PDT OAKLAND — Oakland police arrested dozens of people at a plaza outside City Hall, two weeks after the protesters began building an intricate encampment as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement against corporate greed and economic inequality.

At about 4:57 a.m., officers began making arrests and removing tents and makeshift shelters at the Occupy Oakland protest at Frank Ogawa Plaza near 14th Street and Broadway. By 5:05 a.m., the bulk of the arrests had been completed, and arrestees were led away in plastic handcuffs.

…

Officials said protesters had plugged power cords into city utility poles and had denied access to emergency responders who needed to get into the plaza. The city was also alarmed by the activists’ decision to try to police themselves with a volunteer security team.

Protesters had vowed to resist eviction and protect an encampment of about 150 tents, where pathways made of wooden pallets connected a kitchen, a garden, a medical station and an area for children to play.

For more than an hour before the police moved in, several hundred people appeared ready to defend the camp, placing Dumpsters, boards, pallets and even metal police-style barricades around the plaza as blockades.

After the mass arrests, protesters vowed to return. (more…)

Scott Johnson of the Oakland Tribune reports that violence has spiraled out of control in the tent camp in Frank Ogawa Plaza at Occupy Oakland.

A substitute teacher living in the camp was “throttled.” Women have been attacked. And a knife was pulled in one of several confrontations.

The demonstration, which has been addressed by celebrities such as Danny Glover, and by the American hikers recently released from Iran, has descended into anarchy.

A police officer has compared the tent camp to the savagery of the feral children in the novel Lord of the Flies:

One Oakland police supervisor said that the participants first appeared to him as “freethinking activists” but have since devolved into something more sinister. He said it was “interesting for a group that claims to be against current civilization and rules to set up a far more oppressive society than our own.”

Drugs and drug dealers have also been spotted at the Occupy Oakland tent camp, although the city’s Democrat mayor, bizarrely, denies that illegal and unsafe activities are taking place.

Journalists have been barred from the Occupy Oakland tent camp–despite the fact that it sits on public grounds–according to a consensus decision of the Occupy Oakland General Assembly (twinkles).

One journalist was attacked by an activist’s dog.

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Over the past few weeks, journalists, pundits, and regular citizens have been clamoring to find the answer to one question:  What is this whole “Occupy Wall Street” movement about? Who are the protesters? What brought them together? Do they hate the government or the banks more? What do they plan to do to the government or the banks if they get their way? What is their way– what policy platform do they stand for? Do they plan to run any candidates for higher office, like the Tea Party?

While none of these questions can be answered definitively, we here at Big Government will attempt to answer them the best way we can, through the gold standard of Web 2.0, video clips. Though this is not an exhaustive collection of videos relating to Occupy Wall Street, we hope this snapshot–this collage, this moving picture kaleidoscope–gives our readers a revealing look inside the ideology, tactics, and tone of the Occupy movement.

To start, let’s take a look at the communication and organization tactics of OWS. The protesters have moved beyond the passé systems of democracy or republicanism and, instead of bitterly arguing and letting the slightest majority make choices for the group, they make their decisions through wider “consensus.” There are a few novel techniques they employ to reach consensus.

First is what’s been dubbed the “human microphone’: with such big crowds and little opportunity to set up sound systems, individuals who speak for or to the movement speak in short phrases which the masses then repeat so everyone can hear. For instance, protesters used “human microphone” discussion to reach the consensus that civil rights leader Congressman John Lewis should not be allowed to speak… through the human microphone:

To determine consensus, the crowd must communicate non-verbally to whomever is speaking through the man mic. This is their system: (more…)

The Occupy Oakland movement officially kicked off on Monday, October 10 at 4 pm. In a bold act of solidarity, the Oakland Education Association provided the occupiers with four Porta-Potty units, but that wasn’t enough for a movement as large as this one.

An email obtained by Education Action Group from an Occupy Oakland leader explains the problem:

“If you didn’t already know, OEA has pulled through and donated some funds to have porta-potties available at Occupy Oakland. … People are really grateful to see how the teachers are supporting this. However, less than a day later, the potties are already full! They cost $35 a unit to service, and there are four units. We need to gather some funds to either add more units, or to make a consistent servicing schedule throughout the occupation. … Please email me if you are able to help with monetary donations!”

In a short amount of time, the occupiers have issued an impressive amount of communiqué, of which the Porta-Potty SOS email was only a part.

A sign at #OccupyOakland summarizes the movement's intent.

The mob has issued a manifesto/blog, which contains this message for “the politicians and the 1%”:

“Since we don’t need permission to claim what is already ours, we do not have a list of demands to give you. There is no specific thing you can do to make us ‘go away.’ And the last thing we want is for you to reinforce your power. … Our goal is to bring power back to where it belongs, with the people so we can fix what the politicians and corporations have screwed up.”

However, the Oakland mob provides an extensive “wish list” of supplies to their “comrades” in the 99%. Here’s a sampling of the occupier’s demands –er, needs, and in their own words:

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