A report from yesterday's protests

We've discussed yesterday's peaceful protest on behalf of Occupy Oakland, and the violent police response that dispersed that protest, but I want to quote at length from zunguzungu's excellent report:

You might find it a bit confusing trying to keep track of the different times the Oakland Police department used tear gas on peaceful protesters yesterday. In the morning, they raided the Occupy Oakland camp and destroyed everything the occupiers had built, as I wrote about yesterday (and you can see video of that here).

But then, in the afternoon, this march gathered at the Oakland public library at 4 and proceeded to march back towards Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza. In response, OPD declared the protest to be an unlawful assembly, gave us 5 minutes to disperse, and then attacked the crowd with tear gas, flash grenades, and rubber bullets. I was there until that point, and I can testify that it was a peaceful march until the police attacked it.

If you read an account of the march like this one â or listen to the Oakland Police Chief here â you will get the impression that the crowd was the aggressor (âOccupy Oakland demonstrators clashedâ¦with policeâ and that âThe demonstrators sparredâ) and that â[OPD] had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks andâ¦chemical agents that were thrown at the officers.â Itâs very hard to see everything that is happening in a huge crowd like that, so the Oakland police chief may well be telling the truth when he says that his officers were âpelted by paint and a chemical irritantâ But whether or not his officers were hit with paint â and even if that justifies what happened next â it has nothing to do with how or why the OPD (and officers from every police department in the area) first used the kind of force they did, when they did.

Let's pause to emphasize this. There was undoubtedly violence as the protests and police response unrolled over several hours, but all reports are consistent in making clear that the police instigated the violence before any protesters did anything. I'd argue that a massive teargas attack that stranded people in wheelchairs and engulfed nonviolent protesters (including children) fleeing the scene is, in any event, a grossly disproportionate response to isolated violence from a peaceful protest.

When a thousand people marched first from the library to the detention facility at 7th and Washington (where the 70 or so occupiers that were arrested that morning were being held), we were met with tear gas for the first time. Then, when we turned back towards Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza, we were again hit with tear gas at the intersection of Broadway and 14th.

If you look at these pictures I posted yesterday, youâre seeing the crowd. The first and second were taken before the first round of tear gas, and the third and fourth pictures were taken only one block from Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant plaza, where the police announced on a bullhorn that it was an unlawful assembly, they would use gas to disperse us, and that we would be subject to injury if we stayed. They said this very clearly â and I saw the front line very clearly at this point â well before the crowd had done anything but take over the intersection. And then the police did exactly what they said they would do. They were not reacting to anything other than the presence of a very large and angry crowd of protesters, who were at that point simply present. They said that if the crowd did not disperse, they would use force to disperse it, and they made good on their promise.

At that point⦠The crowd left 14th and Broadway and began marching to Snow Park (whose occupation had also been raided by the police that morning); ⦠At Snow Park, it seems, the general assembly decided to return to Oscar Grant plaza and then they did. But this video accurately represents exactly what happened from my perspective up until that point: the police warned an otherwise peaceful demonstration that it was illegal, and they would use âchemical agentsâ to make them disperse.

Most of the most violent footage you will see comes from after this point; things got so much worse after I left, that the very mild tear gassing the first two times are not worth reporting on very much. This sort of thing went on for hoursâ¦

But the most important point, I think, is this: when we left the Oakland Public Library, the last speakerâs last words (after making as clear as possible to the crowd that we were marching to liberate Oscar Grant plaza from massed riot cops, and telling people who couldnât be down for that to stay at the library) were something along the lines of âNo matter what happens, this is only the beginning of a long struggle.â At the time, I was worried. He said that after this march, we should meet at 14th and Broadway every day at six p.m., from now on, and take âwhatever space we can.â But before the police tear gassed a non-violent protest, I was not confident that this thing would continue, was worried that today would be not the beginning but the ending. It didnât seem like much of a strategy, and without the camp to give the movement a center, well, I was worried. âWhatever space we canâ is not likely to be much. But now, who knows? Iâm ready to occupy some space. So Iâll see you at 14th and Broadway, today at six.

Follow zunguzungu on twitter today for more of this great coverage, as well as the excellent livetweets from Mother Jones reporter garonsen, Oakland North, the Ella Baker Center, and me. Or join us at 14th and Broadway today at 6.