Big props to the City of Oakland

I’ve been seeing the media (Fox in particular) portraying the situation in Oakland as being near-anarchy. Black people rioting and burning and looting due to their not being happy with the legal process.

I’m gonna stay away from right or wrong in the Oscar Grant case and simply comment on the situation as I observe it. Many people were frustrated and believed Mr. Mehserle’s sentence should have been more severe. A multi-racial crowd of as many as 1,500 people gathered to protest near 14th and Broadway. Speeches, calls for action-NOT calls for violence. Angry people venting, exercising their rights as Americans to protest.

The police were ready in force, Oakland police with San Francisco and many other departments on hand to back them up. But they kept their presence out of the way for the most part. They closed off some streets so that people could still enter and exit the downtown area but it was easier to control the flow. The CHP closed off some freeway access and the Fruitvale BART station where the killing occurred was closed. The police did not attempt to intimidate people by a show of force, knowing their presence might provoke members of the crowd.

Several local newspapers, among them the Oakland Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle, had live bloggers at the scene. They uniformly reported peaceful crowds, and also all of them reported people with bandannas over their faces and heavy sweatshirts entering the area. Local community volunteers notified police of those who drew their suspicion, not out of being pro-police but out of being pro-Oakland. I make the distinction because the main concern of the volunteers was that an event they supported would be peaceful and effective.

The majority of the protesters filed away after 8pm when the protest ended. At a certain point violence broke out, with an estimated 150-200 people taking part. Local residents complained of people with hammers smashing windows, the same people having blowtorches. Locals complained they live here and walk these streets every day, what gave these people the right to destroy things here?

Here’s a typical comment from a 22 year old West Oakland resident: “Before the sun went down, I was happy with everything,” he said. “It’s no longer about Oscar Grant. The people who went in there and came out with shoes, that’s not about Oscar Grant anymore. What we had before the sun went down, that was justice. This is just pure stupidity.”

Oakland has a population of around 400,000. The high estimate of those rioting and looting was 200, and quite likely a number of them were not local residents. Demographically there is a very high proportion of young people there. Yet out of 400,000 people, statistically this is a very small number.

It looks to me like the people of Oakland did their job. They kept their kids home and out of trouble. Pay no attention to Fox News or CNN. The media loves to run stories of burning and looting, and a certain element wants to make it seem like Black people are lawless and don’t respect law enforcement. Don’t believe it. Oakland did its job. The police reacted with force only when a few lawbreakers disrespected the city and its people. The people of Oakland protested, then went home. The parents controlled their children.

Big props to Oakland.