Occupy Oakland activists escape hate-crime charges OCCUPY OAKLAND

Alameda County prosecutors dropped robbery and hate-crime charges Monday that they had filed against three Occupy Oakland demonstrators who got into an ugly altercation with a woman at a rally.

The activists - Michael Davis, 33; Nneka Crawford, 23; and 25-year-old Randolph Wilkins - had been scheduled to go to trial Monday.

Instead, Crawford and Wilkins were cleared, while Davis pleaded guilty to misdemeanor vandalism in a separate case in which he was accused of using chalk to write disparaging comments about Oakland police inside a BART station.

Deputy District Attorney Teresa Drenick said the dismissal was appropriate given Davis' plea deal, which calls for three years of probation and an order for him to stay away from Oakland City Hall.

Davis' attorney, Yolanda Huang, who had called the case a political attack on Occupy Oakland, said she was gratified by prosecutors' decision.

"It wasn't an appropriate use of public funds, and they recognized that," she said. "I think the Oakland Police Department should stop manufacturing criminal charges and pay attention to genuine issues of public safety."

At a preliminary hearing into the Feb. 22 altercation on Piedmont Avenue, prosecutors said Crawford had repeatedly called a woman who confronted protesters a "dyke bitch" as Davis grabbed her wallet.

Defense attorneys said the woman had been the aggressor and had herself used racial slurs.

Wilkins had not been accused of using a slur or of stealing from the woman, but prosecutors argued that he had pushed her around.