I think we are fixing to see things get ugly and people get hurt or killed. This is one of the first stories I have seen that does not make the police out to be the storm troopers rushing in and violating everyone's rights. Death at Occupy camp brings pressure for shutdown comment (1) Share favorite <FORM id=aa class="vote_form is_anonymous" method=post action=/ur/api/redirect/?next=/news/news/deaths-occupy-camps-bring-pressure-shutdown/nFbxm/><BUTTON class="sprite iconVoteUp" title="Vote this item up" name=value type=submit value="1"></BUTTON> Vote (0) <INPUT value=292 type=hidden name=content_type><INPUT value=357369 type=hidden name=object_id></FORM> View Larger Associated Press Occupy shooting Associated Press and Channel OAKLAND, Calif. — Occupy Oakland protestors were issued a formal notice to vacate by the city on Friday, the day after a fatal shooting near the camp at Frank Ogawa Plaza. The notice came almost exactly 24 hours after the shooting that killed a man in his early 20s was killed just before 5 p.m. on the 1400 block of Broadway Thursday. The notice, which was distributed to the campers early Friday evening read in part "The City of Oakland and its police department support and protect the right of all individuals to engage in free speech and their right to assemble. However, this encampment is a violation of the law." The notice stated that anyone choosing to remain in the encampment was subject "to administrative penalties, civil penalties, citation, and immediate arrest." Citing a strain on crime-fighting resources, police also pleaded with Occupy Oakland protesters to leave their encampment. The Oakland Police Officer's Association, which represents rank-and-file police, issued an open letter saying the camp is pulling officers away from crime-plagued neighborhoods. "With last night's homicide, in broad daylight, in the middle of rush hour, Frank Ogawa Plaza is no longer safe," the letter said. "Please leave peacefully, with your heads held high, so we can get police officers back to work fighting crime in Oakland neighborhoods." In a statement issued Friday, Quan said Thursday night's shooting had "elevated concerns about the safety of the encampment and people who also use the space." "The risks are too great and it is time for the encampment to end," Quan said. Both protesters and police have said there is no apparent connection between the shooting and the encampment. However, Quan said that the Police Department's resources need to return to addressing violence and said that the homicide "underscores the reasons why the encampment must end." Quan said that a cameraman was also assaulted after the shooting by a group of individuals at the encampment, and suffered a mild concussion. In addition, emergency personnel were called to the camp at 4 a.m. Friday to assist a 20-year-old male who seemed to be suffering from a drug or alcohol overdose. He was taken to Summit Medical Center for treatment. Ongoing problems with vandalism have been reported near the encampment, and Quan's statement said that electrical power boxes for outside lights have been forced open. City public works employees have been conducting daily vandalism and graffiti cleanups and daily power washing of the plaza and surrounding areas. Since the shooting, anonymous fliers have been posted around the encampment urging protesters to leave. "Occupiers, turn on your brains and see the harm you are causing to our town," it says. "You have devolved into mob rule. You have lost sight of the goal." City Council President Larry Reid said outside City Hall that the shooting was further proof the tents must come down. He was confronted by a protester who said he wouldn't be in office much longer. "You didn't elect me," Reid snapped back. "You probably ain't even registered to vote!" Reid said the encampment has been a major setback for the area while attracting sex offenders, mentally ill and homeless people, and anarchists. "This is no longer about Occupy Wall Street," he said. "This is about occupying Oakland and extracting whatever you can get out of Oakland by holding our city hostage." The Oakland shooting occurred the same day a 35-year-old military veteran apparently shot himself to death in a tent at a Burlington, Vt., Occupy encampment. On Friday, a man was found dead inside a tent at the Occupy Salt Lake City encampment, from what police said was a combination of drug use and carbon monoxide. A preliminary investigation into the Oakland shooting suggested it resulted from a fight between two groups of men at or near the encampment, police Chief Howard Jordan said. Investigators do not know if the men in the fight were associated with Occupy Oakland, he said. Meanwhile, a $10,000 reward was being offered for information in Thursday's shooting death. The Oakland Police Department and Crime Stoppers of Oakland announced the reward on Friday. Police Officer Johanna Watson says in a statement that witnesses have told investigators that one suspect had been living for the past several days in the plaza in front of Oakland City Hall where the protest camp is located. The department released a description of that man and for a second suspect. Protesters said there was no connection between the shooting and the camp. The coroner's office said it was using fingerprints to identify the victim and that a positive identification was not likely to be released before Monday. Protesters have been girding for another police raid as several City Council members have said the Oakland camp must go. After police cleared the camp last month, Quan changed course and allowed protesters to return. The mayor's reversal strained relationships with city police and other San Francisco Bay area law enforcement agencies. More than a dozen agencies joined Oakland police in the Oct. 25 raid on the camp under a mutual aid policy in which each agency covers its own costs. Alameda County Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. J.D. Nelson said Friday that Oakland will have to pick up the entire tab if it asks for deputies to assist another raid. Mutual aid was designed for law enforcement agencies to assist each other in unplanned emergency situations, Nelson said. "When government officials allowed those campers to go back in, well now you know what you're getting. It's not an unplanned event," he said. In Vermont, police said a preliminary investigation showed the veteran fatally shot himself in the head in a tent in City Hall Park. The name of the Chittenden County man was being withheld because not all of his family has been notified. The shooting raised questions about whether the protest would be allowed to continue, said Burlington police Deputy Chief Andi Higbee. "Our responsibility is to keep the public safe. When there is a discharge of a firearm in a public place like this it's good cause to be concerned, greatly concerned," Higbee said. The discovery of the man believed to be in his 40s at the Occupy Salt Lake City camp led police to order all protesters to leave the park where they have camped for weeks. The man has not been identified. Group organizers said many of the roughly 150 protesters plan to go to jail rather than abandon the encampment. "We don't even know if this is a tragedy or just natural," protest organizer Jesse Fruhwirth said. "They're scapegoating Occupy." Salt Lake City police Chief Chris Burbank said officers have made 91 arrests at the camp, roughly the same number seen in the area during all of the last year. Tensions were also high at the 300-tent encampment in Portland, Ore., which has become a hub for the city's homeless people and addicts. Mayor Sam Adams ordered the camp shut down by midnight Saturday, saying the tipping point came this week with the arrest of a camper on suspicion of setting off a Molotov cocktail outside an office building, as well as two non-fatal drug overdoses at the camp. "I cannot wait for someone to die," he said. "I cannot wait for someone to use the camp as camouflage to inflict bodily harm on others." Many at the camp said they would resist any effort to remove them. "There will be a variety of tactics used," said organizer Adriane DeJerk, 26. "No social movement has ever been successful while being completely peaceful." Police said some elements inside the camp may be building shields and makeshift weapons, including nails hammered into wood, while trying to gather gas masks. "If there are anarchists, if there are weapons, if there is an intention to engage in violence and confrontation, that obviously raises our concerns," Portland police Lt. Robert King said.
No social movement has ever succeeded while being completely peaceful? Does this goober not know about MLK or Gandhi? People like that make me glad I'm single and childless and armed
Well with all this time they have free, wouldn't it be great if they Would have used it in a constructive way. If they were really concerned for their fellow man and the future, Volunteer. Feed the poor, build them homes, clean a park, there are so many ways One can improve the world around you but sitting on your **** and whining Isn't one of them.
Well Dawg we knew it was coming and they brought it on themselves ,now it's the peace officers who are going to receive the brunt of it !! Damn shame !!!!!
It's sad, but to be expected. Overdoses and suicide should be expected given the people who are there. No one should act surprised. The shooting is odd, but it is also Oakland, and the kid who got shot was from Richmond. If you are from around there, that should explain everything. I think it will get worse, crime wise and reputation wise, though I'm fond of the OWS movement. Some of the tent cities should pack up. This should have been expected of course. When you have a protest camp open to all, it makes sense that people who have no job and no future, might...just might, not have a job and a future for a reason, and they are arriving next to the people who have a good reason to protest.
One thing they could have done with the free time was put in aplication's for employment. Hate to say it ( What we have here is a failure to communicate with society. Some men wont have it any other way, you wanted it and you got it.) Said by the Warden to Cool Hand Luke
True that has been against this group all along the leaches and trouble makers latch on to these group's who have good idea's and a cause worth fighting for. By the time the leaches are done the cause is lost in the rubble they leave behind. Some times I wonder and Im sure they do if some of them are not paid for the sevice they do.
Yes they are, there was/maybe still is a commie group out of Canada offering $450.00 to 650.00/wk for protestors. I can't think of the name of the group right now though. BWM
One thing I have noticed in the discussions here and especially on the news is that everyone tends to inject their own reasoning and rationale into these protests. Celebrities and politicians all have different views as to what it is they are supporting, it is government corruption, it's corporate greed, it's congressional gridlock. The supporters have as many agendas as the protestors. Ask 20 of them what they are protesting and you get 20 different answers. But what I have seen is it all boils down to "We want a piece of the pie." Wall Street got bailouts so we want it too. We don't want to pay back our student loans, we don't want to have our houses foreclosed on when we fail to make the payments, we want to make a 6 figure salary too. It's all me, me, me. I think that the left is so desperate to find a counter to the Tea Party that they will support anything, they ran to latch onto this. I predict their support of this anarchist movement will come back to bite them in the end.
Have you walked by one of those camps? We did over the weekend. I mean some of those people are RIPE. Smells like major dookie, seriously. If people want to protest that is fine but when they don't practice good hygene and damage surrounding businesses then they have to go. Their right to protest is fine but people also have the right to operate their businesses. These people are infringing on other peoples' right to make a living. Why can't they just have their protests during daylight hours. That keeps the hygene problems down and prevents the seedy camp environment from scaring customers away from businesses.
It's finally got bloody and provoked by a protester Occupy Wall Street finally gets a face–and it’s bloody Since the Occupy Wall Street movement began, protesters, armed with their intentionally vague demands, have lacked a defining moment or iconic image to help propel media coverage. This week, they got both. First, police clashed with protesters during Tuesday's early morning raid on Zuccotti Park, and arrested several journalists. Then on Thursday, the Occupy movement got its face--albeit a bloody one. During a demonstration in Lower Manhattan, 20-year-old Brandon Watts of Philadelphia grabbed a police officer's hat and was subsequently tackled and arrested, sustaining a gash to his forehead. Watts' bloody face appeared on the cover of the Daily News and Metro newspapers on Friday. (Interestingly, the New York Post went with the Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore for its Friday front page; the New York Times featured an A1 photo of the protests above the fold, but no blood.) Before grabbing the hat, Watts allegedly threw an AAA battery at officers who had set up a barricade. According to the Daily News, he was charged with assault and grand larceny after receiving medical treatment at Bellevue Hospital. According to the paper, it was Watts' fourth arrest since the protests began in September. Thursday also saw more police clashes with journalists. Michelle Fields and Direna Cousins, a pair reporters from the Daily Caller claim they were attacked by the NYPD. The conservative publication has been critical of Occupy Wall Street, but protesters reportedly came the aid of Fields and Cousins. After Fields was knocked to the ground, several Occupy Wall Streeters "came up to me right away and asked if I needed any medical assistance," she wrote. "They were actually very kind and helpful. It was the police officers who were very aggressive."
Heard on the news yesterday the OWS protestors were trying to block and prevent the Wall Street employees from getting in to their offices. Sorry, that is ILLEGAL! No longer 'peaceful protest' at that point. "Book 'em, Danno!"
Where the unions supplying food to all the Occupy protests or just the one in NYC? Free food is a magnet. Shootings, assaulting camera crews and instigators trying to ignite a riot. Maybe 0bama will get the class war he wanted.
