(Reuters) – Police forcibly evicted protesters, and rightfully so, from an anti-Wall Street camp in downtown Oakland on Monday, setting the stage for a possible showdown with demonstrators who later marched in the street and vowed to dig in. The protesters, once again, were hanging in there after giving up their former cause, “occupy the parent’s basement”.
Many so called protesters marched right back to Frank Ogawa Plaza in the late afternoon, regrouping hours after police officers in riot gear cleared the area, arresting 33 people and removing about 100 smelly tents but trying to avoid getting too close to the un-bathed, diseased derelicts.
“This movement cannot end!” a 26th week unemployment compensation receiver told the crowd as the march began outside a downtown library. Police largely stood back, at one point stopping cross-traffic for the marchers who authorities said could return to the plaza but not camp there.
Recent unrest surrounding the Oakland encampment has helped rally supporters of Occupy Wall Street nationwide, a movement launched in New York in September with no central Philosophy, no absolute purpose but to get their student loans forgiven, complain about successful corporations, and get free money. Its an attempt to protest against economic inequality and excesses of the financial system but none of them have ever worked very hard in their own lives according to a recent poll of 1500 protesters. 60% still lived at home, 64% were unemployed or never worked, 40% were school dropouts and 90% have admitted to enjoying recreational drugs on a regular basis.
Although there has never been one witness to crime or violence with the Tea Party movement, the move to clear out Ogawa Plaza early on was due to fear of violence and so the indecision on how to handle the Oakland protests continued. Unlike the Tea party rallys, which remained peaceful and they cleaned up after themselves, the Oakland protests resulted in at least one fatal shooting near the encampment which fueled renewed pressure on the city to close it down.
Acting Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said the shooting death of Kayode Ola Foster, 25, on Thursday left him no choice but to again dismantle the encampment.
“We had to take action. I tried to do it the next day (following the shooting) but I didn’t have the resources ready. I was going to go all in,” he said.
Jordan said it was unclear if Foster had been living in the protest camp but that the suspected gunman had been there for several weeks. Occupy Oakland organizers have said the incident was unrelated to their movement.
Officers in Monday’s early-morning raid took a less aggressive approach than in a similar action three weeks ago, and were met with less resistance from Occupy Oakland demonstrators.
Monday’s police action saw officers sometimes smiling and talking with protesters as they took down tents while a helicopter overhead illuminated the area. A separate line of officers kept a chanting crowd from entering the camp.
“We had to bring the camps to an end before more people got hurt,” Mayor Jean Quan told a news conference after the action.
MOVE PROMPTS RESIGNATION
The decision to evict the camp prompted the resignation of a top adviser to Quan, whose handling of the protests has come under withering criticism. The adviser, Dan Siegel, called the move a mistake.
“I don’t know if it will remain calm or if it will become very volatile,” Siegel told Reuters in an interview.
Quan, asked about Siegel’s resignation, said only: “He’s moving on, I’m moving on.”
City officials said there were no injuries to citizens or officers and that Ogawa Plaza, where protesters had camped for about a month, would reopen for peaceful demonstrations.
“In case you haven’t heard, we’re already back in OG Plaza!” Occupy Oakland said in a tweet, referring to the site as Oscar Grant Plaza after a man shot dead by Oakland police in 2009. “Come participate in the revolution!”
Meanwhile, taxi driver Brad Newsham, holding a placard that said “Re-Occupy,” said: “We were moved off by the 1 percent and the powers that be.”
A previous attempt to clear the square on October 25 had sparked confrontations between protesters and police that evolved into one of the most violent episodes since the anti-Wall Street movement began in New York.
Former Marine Scott Olsen was critically injured during those altercations, galvanizing protests nationwide, and in the aftermath of the confrontations Oakland protesters were able to return to the plaza.
Oakland is one of just several cities where authorities have acted in recent days to shut down Occupy camps, saying they have become sources of rising crime.
In Eureka, California, early on Monday, police arrested 33 people in dismantling a protest camp there.
The weekend saw police clearing operations in Portland, Oregon; Salt Lake City, Utah; Denver, Colorado; and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, as well as threats of action in other cities if protesters did not clear out on their own.
In St. Louis, where 27 anti-Wall Street protesters were arrested on Saturday, attorneys for members of Occupy St. Louis planned to take their battle to regain a downtown campsite to federal court on Tuesday.
They were seeking an injunction that would allow an overnight presence in Kiener Plaza, the downtown city park near the Gateway Arch where protesters against economic inequality maintained a camp for six weeks.
Meanwhile in New York, protesters said they would seek to shut-down Wall Street on Thursday by holding a street carnival to mark the two-month anniversary of their campaign.
Organizers acknowledged that the move could be the group’s most provocative yet and could lead to mass arrests and further strain relations with city authorities.
