Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has experienced poverty, racism and gender discrimination. As a student she went on strike at UC Berkeley in support of ethnic studies and boycotted grapes to support farmworkers. She fought to prevent the eviction of poor Asian seniors from the International Hotel in San Francisco, and she considers Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King, Jr., her heroes.

But after Tuesday’s predawn raid on the Occupy Oakland camp at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, followed that night with police in riot gear shooting tear gas, bean bags and rubber bullets into large crowds of protesters, Quan finds herself in an unusual position. After less than year in office she is being criticized and booed by the working class, underemployed and unemployed — the so-called 99 percent she has supported, fought for and defended her entire life.

“I’m pretty sad, and obviously it’s very painful,” she said Friday. Somebody in the national media “said I should have resigned. But I don’t have time to think about politics. I have to keep people safe.

“I’ve been able to organize the communities and balance the budget. It’s painful to have all your work defined by one thing. The city probably did make some mistakes. That’s why I apologized to the family of Scott Olsen.”

Quan, Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan and City Administrator Deanna Santana made the decision last week to remove the Occupy Oakland camp from Ogawa Plaza because it had become a public safety hazard and efforts to communicate with the organizers had failed. Jordan said he needed five days to make the arrangements.

Quan said everyone’s priority was for the safety of the police officers and the campers. She said the discussions centered mostly on timing, and the use of force did not come up. “We had been handling the Mehserle protests without less-lethal (ammunition),” Quan said.

She flew to Washington, D.C., Sunday for a prearranged series of face-to-face meetings with White House administration officials to secure money for the Port of Oakland. She said she was just about to go to bed Monday night when she got a call telling her the raid was going to happen. She caught a red-eye flight back the next day.

Quan said she did not tell the chief to hold off, though she said she wished it had happened while she was in town. She said she got an update before she boarded the plane and was told it had gone smoothly and there were no problems.

But by the time she landed at 9:40 p.m., her daughter was texting her to “stop the tear gas.”

She drove directly to the Emergency Operations Center and learned that Olsen, 24, a former Marine who survived two tours of duty in Iraq, was struck in the head by a tear-gas canister and knocked unconscious. He was rescued by other protesters who rushed him to the hospital where he underwent brain surgery.

Jordan, Quan and Santana have since tried to justify the city’s use of force. They have launched an investigation to determine if it was used properly and whether law enforcement agencies called in to provide mutual aid during the protest followed Oakland’s policy on less-lethal ammunition.

The city adopted a crowd-control policy after many innocent bystanders were injured by less-lethal ammunition during an April 7, 2003, anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland.

Clearly the city violated its own policy, said civil rights attorney Jim Chanin, who helped forge the agreement and said he was shocked that once again, it appears that Oakland overreacted with violence against people exercising their First Amendment right to go to a march.

He said the police department needs to be held accountable.

“Quan still has time to show some leadership and hold the police accountable and let the chips fall where they may,” he said. “This has obviously been a big problem for her. I think there will be time for judging her when it’s over. But this is still happening, and she needs to step up. She has to balance the actions of the police and the rights of the protesters.”

As far as leaving the camp be, Quan said the city is continuing to reach out to the protesters to try to make sure that area is clean and safe. She said inspectors walked through the small camp on Friday and other than one propane tank, there were no problems.

“Today it did not seem to be unsafe, we have to make it day to day,” she said.

Dwight McElroy, president of SEIU Oakland local, said he was concerned about Quan’s leadership and very upset about the use of tear gas on the protesters. He said his members support the Occupy movement and were distressed that they were required to participate in dismantling the camp.

“The (actions during the protest) illustrate a total disconnect between the moving parts that should be in concert, the police and the administration,” he said. “I respect that hard decisions must be made, but obviously, the embarrassment of what occurred Tuesday night was not part of the original plan.”

Quan said she would continue to try to communicate with the movement, which she supports, and balance the rights of the protesters with the safety of the city.

When asked if she would be able to prevent a repeat of Tuesday’s events, the mayor said “I’m going to try my damnedest.”