Protests continue for fourth night in Berkeley and Oakland

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/10/protests-continue-berkeley-oakland

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For the fourth night in a row, protesters took to the streets in the San Francisco Bay Area, the latest in a wave of emotionally charged demonstrations after high-profile grand jury decisions that brought no charges against the white police officers involved in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

Early on Tuesday evening, hundreds joined a march in Berkeley that filled the streets and spanned several city blocks. The diverse group marched down Telegraph Avenue to Oakland, where they briefly congregated at Oakland city hall. The protest continued past midnight.

Erika Fournier, from Oakland, was near the front of the march. “There have been a staggering amount of black lives stolen by police brutality,” she said. “So when is the right time to make some noise about this? This is why we’re here. We want justice for those lives stolen, we want to see all lives matter in this country, and we’re also here because we want to see reform. The system is broken.”

The event remained largely peaceful. Lael Montgomery, who said he’d participated in stopping traffic on a major freeway in Berkeley the night before, followed masked protesters who overturned garbage cans in downtown Oakland, turning the bins right side up again. The message of the protests, he said, is that “we want to feel safe. We don’t want to see police, and feel nervous, and feel like our lives are in danger.” He added that a 16-year-old cousin of his died in police violence in 2002.

“I’ve just had it up to – whatever is the highest degree, with all of the anti-black violence that has been happening,” said Oakland resident Erin Gray, a student at the University of California at Santa Cruz. “It’s really exciting that people are finally waking up and taking to the streets,” she added.

The demonstration drew a response from multiple Bay Area law enforcement agencies. Throughout the evening, police stood in lines and clusters near freeway ramps to prevent demonstrators getting past, a protest tactic that has been adopted nationwide in recent weeks.

At about 9.15pm, a group of protesters nevertheless slipped through a fence and climbed up onto a freeway for a brief yet dramatic takeover that halted oncoming traffic. The roadway, crossing over 40th Street near Martin Luther King Boulevard in Oakland, connects major statewide and interstate traffic routes.

Several brought their bicycles onto the freeway, and some laid down in front of stopped cars with their backs on the pavement. Police arrived soon after, clad in riot gear and wielding batons. They advanced quickly toward the crowd, pushing them back off the roadway.

California Highway Patrol spokesperson Daniel Hill later confirmed in an email that police had deployed “less than lethal force,” but could not confirm which types were used, saying it was in response to objects being hurled at police. An officer standing on the freeway overpass was seen firing less-than-lethal rounds from a shotgun toward protesters on the street below, but Hill said he’d received no reports of officers deploying projectiles.

“The CHP’s primary goal in dealing with these protests is to keep people safe,” Hill said. The freeway is an incredibly dangerous place for pedestrians.” According to a CHP estimate, about 100 protesters gained access to the freeway. As of 1.30 am, CHP confirmed that it had made 13 arrests. The Oakland police department had not responded to a request for comment by press time.

As for the tactic of halting traffic on freeways, “it just seemed like the right thing to do,” said Kimberly, a 25-year-old Berkeley resident who declined to give her last name. “I think it gives more attention to the cause, more than taking over the streets,” she added.

“It’s about interrupting people’s daily routines. If we just go about business as usual, this is going to be forgotten. If we don’t stand up to things that are wrong, they can happen anywhere.”