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On January 7, 2012, at 8:00 p.m. protesters gathered at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza and marched through the downtown streets of Oakland. During the march, protesters broke patrol vehicle windows, vandalized a media van, threw bottles at the police, and lit an object on fire at the intersection of 8th Street and Washington Street.
As of 11:00 p.m., six protesters have been arrested. Offenses ranged from assaulting officers, possession of explosives, resisting/delaying officers, and vandalism. One of the protesters arrested was in possession of an explosive device described as a quarter stick of dynamite.
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—the Oakland Police Department’s full statement on the January 7 “Fuck the Police” march to OPD headquarters.
I was sitting at home feeling sick with occuflu (round two!) and watching Spencer (aka OakFoSho’s) livestream. The tension was clearly mounting, and as I was putting on my shoes around 9:20 I was thinking, why am I doing this? When police started advancing with batons out on the same block when things went south in the earlier evening of October 25, though, I was out the door. And I still don’t totally know why.
I used to make fun of war reporter adrenaline junky dudes. I used to say they’d run toward the fire and miss all the stories of the people they ran past. And now I feel like I’m sometimes doing the same.
But on this march last night, most of the local press wasn’t around (forget national — we don’t have them here, not even AP). Often this is the strongest motivating factor for me in covering the breaking news, whether it’s plaza minutia or late-night brutality.
Still, I get nothing for breaking news coverage. I generally take the longview on Occupy; interviews, synthesis, analysis, not number of arrests and rubber bullets fired.
But I find myself really wishing I could’ve seen this alleged stick of dynamite.
