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Because the police used kettling techniques to confine the marchers without any possibility of leaving and then declared them to be under arrest. At that point it didn't matter what you had done or why you were there. Which is why those arrested included at least 6 reporters.
After spending about an hour locked up alone in a drunk-tank cell block, OPD Sergeant Jeff Thomason arrived to release me, thanks to a call from Mother Jones co-Editor in Chief Monika Bauerlein. "You probably shouldn't have been in here to begin with," he told me apologetically as he escorted me in his personal car back to the scene of my arrest to retrieve my backpack where I'd stashed my steno pad. But for the time-being, it was irretrievable under a massive pile of occupiers' bags in the back of a police van.
At least five other reporters were arrested last night: Hanes, Ho, John C. Osborn of the East Bay Express, Yael Chanoff of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and graphic journalist Susie Cagle, who was previously arrested during the short-lived occupation of a vacant downtown building following Occupy Oakland's first port shutdown last November. Chanoff was taken to the Santa Rita jail. The others were all quickly released at the scene. (An officer told Cagle that he was doing her a "favor.")
Kristin Hanes, who worked as a reporter and anchorperson for KOMO News Radio from 2006 to 2010, was covering the protests for ABC News San Francisco station KGO when she was arrested.
“We were all walking down the same street and they kind of – they came at us from both sides, issued us a dispersal notice but there wasn’t really, you know, anywhere to go,” said Hanes.
“They kind of herded us all into this little area, pushed up to this building and I heard a bullhorn saying that you are being arrested and we are essentially surrounded, kind of pushed together like sardines here,” Hanes added.
... Arresting officer: 'Do you have any knives, guns, weapons?' Me: 'Of course not, I'm a reporter.' Officer: 'That might be the most dangerous of them all.' Finally, I was released
Marching through Oakland the protesters were always followed by the police until Oakland PD made the decision to trap them on a street and arrest as many of them as possible. At least 150 were then arrested. I narrowly escaped arrest because the employee's of the local YMCA allowed us to enter the building and escape through the back door.
Video taken by a reporter at the YMCA. The following is an edited clip, but there is also a link to the lengthier full video.
On a personnel note, I know an EMT who lives in this part of Oakland who was one of the people that the employees of the YMCA allowed to leave through the building thus also avoiding arrest.
I'm not a "lib," I'm a Marxist socialist. Libs are far too conservative for me.
I don't. Just because some people on the left make that hasty overgeneralization doesn't mean we all do. I don't think most Tea Party members are overtly racist.
Once again, OWS is not an organization, and there are no leaders to condemn anything. Many individual members of OWS have condemned their actions.
OWS has a diversity of views, not all of which represent the majority of the protesters. I still support OWS.
Excuses, excuses, excuses. OWS has become this violent, anarchist occupation. You support them, therefore you support their tactics. It's really that simple.
I don't support their (those few -- far less than 400 -- who broke the law) actions, secretly or otherwise. They were wrong and should be prosecuted in accordance with the law. However, I wouldn't call them "violent criminals" because they aren't violent criminals. Violent criminals hurt other people. Murderers, rapists, armed robbers are violent criminals, protestors using extreme actions are not.
Personally, I think the actions of the elite, the banks, the politicians, and the capitalist system are far more damaging than a few protesters throwing rocks.
Throwing rocks isn't violent? Interesting take you have on the situation. So capitalism is more damaging than violence? Heaven help this country....
The OWS movement is morphing and that is not good.
The Move Your Money campaign they did was good and got results and impacted those big banks.
The OWS folks need to go back to their history books and look at the times of the civil rights movement.
What if there was no MLK taking the peaceful approach ? What if there were only the Black Panthers who took the violent approach to demanding change ?
You think things would have turned out the same if the only group leading the civil rights change were the violent Black Panthers ?
OWS needs to look at their history and decide which road they are taking.
Even in the last march that Dr. King was involved in there was violence with similar results in how the press covers the event. On Saturday in Oakland their were roughly 2000 demonstrators. Only around 20 were charged with any acts of violence or destruction. Those 20 get all the press.
Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. (Right) The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. [Applause] Now we've got to keep attention on that. (That's right) That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the window breaking. (That's right) I read the articles. They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that 1,300 sanitation workers are on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to that. (Yeah) [Applause]
Never said they did. You can be arrested for committing a non-violent or non-destructive act.
And please show me where ANY Tea Party person was arrested.
In your prior entry, the one I responded to. You seem to infer that there were 400 thugs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ringwise
Sorry Libs, can't have it both ways. You can't assume that the few extremists that attend Tea Party rallies represent the entire movement, then call these thugs a minority.
There are 400 of them, and I've not seen ANYWHERE that the OWS movement has condemned their actions.
The people arrested at the YMCA were not acting as thugs and they represented the vast majority of the people arrested. Most of the arrested were released several hours after their arrest, which I think is a pretty good indication that the police didn't actually consider them to be a danger or a threat.
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