According to @occupyarrests, as of yesterday, 2,428 people had been arrested nationwide since the start of Occupy Wall Street.
Around 5:00 am this morning (10/25/11) hundreds of riot gear clad Oakland police stormed the Oakland Occupy Wall Street encampment. Reportedly using flash grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas they cleared the area of tents and arrested 70 people. According to legal observer Marcus Kryshka (see Marcus’ video), the police came in very quickly and denied media and legal observers access to the area.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has been remarkably peaceful. The 200 occupiers in Oakland were no less so. It is pretty clear that neither our government nor Wall Street is getting the very clear message from the 99% of us about who we think should be arrested. “One thing we can still be proud of is that America hasn’t yet managed to achieve the highest incarceration rate in history — that honor still goes to the Soviets in the Stalin/Gulag era. But we do still have about 2.3 million people in jail in America.
Virtually all 2.3 million of those prisoners come from “the 99%.” Here is the number of bankers who have gone to jail for crimes related to the financial crisis: 0.
The game is rigged and we know it.
Express your outrage at what happened this morning to Occupy Oakland by calling Mayor Jean Quan’s communications director Sue Piper, Special Assistant to the Mayor for Communications,
Office phone: (510) 238-7439
Cell phone: (510) 499-8933
Email is preferable: SPiper@oaklandnet.com
Or on the web: http://www.oaklandnet.com/contactmayor.asp
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Update- the arrested occupiers have been booked into jail, are being held on $10,000 bail each and won’t be arraigned until Thursday. Why weren’t they cited and released? Ask the mayor, and let him know that the whole world is watching.
http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_19188125
Occupy Oakland has been hit with tear gas again. THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!
Mercury News reports earlier this evening “The protesters, possibly as many as 1,000 people, are all gathered at 14th street and Broadway. Over the last 30 minutes, police have launched wooden dowls and some concussion gernades into the crowds. ” Yes– THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!
Annagrace. you are incorrect. KRON 4 news tonite stated that the people who were arrested will be released tonite.
Things change quickly.
& maybe our emails and phone calls made a difference…
The link to the mayor’s office in the post doesn’t work. Try this one. Occupy Oakland is an “issue” on the contact page http://www.oaklandnet.com/contactmayor.asp
I fixed the email link and added this one also.
Sadly, I don’t think it’s that they’re not getting the message. I think they are getting the message loud and clear, but they simply don’t care.
Oops. My post was a response to this quote in the article.
“It is pretty clear that neither our government nor Wall Street is getting the very clear message from the 99% of us about who we think should be arrested. “
For a bit of historical perspective check out Frank Rich’s New York Times article on the Occupy Wall Street movement: “The Class War Has Begun” [ http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/class-war-2011-10/ ]. It includes info and images on a 1930’s movement of World War I veterans trying to get economic justice by camping out at the White House. They had been promised a $1,000 “bonus” for their service, but were having difficulty getting the government to make good on the offer, even though the government seemed to have no problem handing out $2 billion to the banks and railroads at the time. Deja vu?
Rich’s article is a must read. Thanks for the link. BTW, Rachel Maddow had live footage of the bonus army and the fire that MacArthur set on their encampment blacks away from the White House and an indifferent Hoover.