Rally in Oakland after Johannes Mehserle Verdict

I arrived at 14th and Broadway in downtown Oakland CA about 5.pm. Folks had taken over this well known intersection and some young people were speaking. The mood was overwhelmingly positive and peaceful. Then some cops appeared on the NW corner of the intersection in a sort of dune buggy looking machine. They addressed the crowd from a loudspeaker but I couldn't hear what they said.

Whatever it was, the crowd started moving toward the buggy and eventually almost surrounded it. People did not take to the fact that cops were telling them what they should do or where they should go. As we approached the buggy and began to get close to it, the police appeared very concerned, I would say they were a little frightened. Some other cops came running over as the buggy began to withdraw a bit. Eventually, the dune buggy thing retreated and the crowd began to head west down Broadway following the buggy. At 13th and Broadway there was another cop car, a black sedan with a couple of guys in it. They got out of the car, or at least one of them did. It was hard to tell as the crowd was beginning to grow and aggressively drove the cops backwards.

The cops in the black sedan got back in the car and started to retreat in reverse, but in doing so they struck a young woman and knocked her down. The crowd got really angry about this and for a minute there were a few incidents of cones being thrown at the cop car and stuff like that.

The cops blocked off 11th street at Broadway and all the entrances to the cross streets. In fact, it was clearly an enclosed protest with the people occupying Broadway from 14th street to 11th but the cops hemming us in and blocking all exits.

Each intersection had its set of speakers and group of people as the riot police blocked the streets at each intersection, 14th, 13th, 12 and 11th streets. The mood by the time I left was very positive and friendly. There was a good mix of people there and a lot of talk about unity and the need to come together. It always fascinates me that so many people keep away from these things partly because of the few people that self indulge themselves by indiscriminate violence and breaking of a few windows, but also the media that latches on to this and uses it to keep the rest of us away. The other aspect of it is the intentional effort to keep white people away, to prevent them from joining with black folks at this injustice. The idea is to convince white folks that the anger that blacks feel at something like this is directed towards all whites and that is not the case and certainly wasn't present tonight.