The Oscar Grant Plaza Gazette, Friday, October 28, 2011. Day 19.

CAMP OCCUPIERS SET FOR RELEASE

Friends and family of the nine defendants still in custody after the police raid which leveled Occupy Oakland early Tuesday morning will have to wait until tonight to lay eyes on their loved ones. At 2:15p.m., Judge Karen Rodrigue informed a small crowd at Oakland’s Wiley M. Manuel courthouse that the arrested protesters would not be making an appearance in the courtroom. The district attorney has decided not to charge them, for the time being. According to Judge Rodrigue they will remain in holding cells at the courthouse until the end of the court day, when they will be bussed back to Santa Rita and released. The judge was additionally quoted as saying that they will be processed out “probably late, late at night,” which, in the relevant experience of this reporter, means cold oranges, mystery meat and misinformation until approximately midnight.

Of the more than one hundred protesters that were arrested on October 25th, all but eleven were cited and released. The court set a $10,000 bond for the eleven that were held, and two bailed out ahead of today’s arraignment.

According to Bobbie Stern, the head of the National Lawyer’s Guild team representing the protesters, there is no unifying theme to explain why these eleven defendants were singled out for three days of incarceration. A rumor has been circulating that some of them had no address to give the police but, according to Stern, “you’re not supposed to incarcerate people for being homeless.” She says that crowd control protocol was completely ignored by the inter-agency coalition of 500 police officers that destroyed our encampment and attacked protesters with tear gas, concussion grenades and rubber bullets. According to section 853.6 of the California Penal Code, protesters aren’t supposed to be held at all: at most they are to be cited and released.

The protesters still awaiting their court dates have been charged with such misdemeanors as failure to disperse, loitering and resisting arrest. Those released tonight may be brought in on their charges at a later date, though this is considered unlikely.

FROM A COMRADE, ON THE OAKLAND GENERAL STRIKE

For bibliographical suggestions, check out this:   http://flyingpicket.org/node/25

The best book treatments, with some flaws, are George Lipstiz’s Rainbow at Midnight, about the whole post-WW2 strike wave, Robert O. Shelf’s American Babylon, and Chris Rhomberg’s No There There. If you have time, start with Lipsitz’s Rainbow, because it’s the least academic.

The Oscar Grant Plaza Gazette aims to be a voice & record of the historic Occupy Oakland movement, part of a national & international movement of resistance. Please consider writing your thoughts, reflections, opinions, and what you’ve seen – you are part of this movement & we want to get your words out there! Send submissions to oscargrantplazagazette@gmail.com — we’ll strive to publish all materials received.  We reserve the right to decline to run materials which would render us legally liable.