Last night OPD raided Oscar Grant Plaza again, bringing at least 17 cruisers and 40 to 50 cops in riot gear. I am still trying to get the details but this is what I know so far:

12 to 14 arrests were made; our NLG attorney says that all but two of those people are apparently being charged with obstruction. Two have more serious charges, at least one involving possession. On OakFoSho/Spencer’s video above, one of them yells out that the police have planted ecstacy on him. These two people – both African-American men who have been arrested previously at OO – are a couple of the more visible and outspoken occupiers and clearly were targeted. None of us who have spent hours and hours with them over the past three months has ever seen them using drugs. I find this incredibly suspicious.

The person you see on the KTVU video below is another regular who says that he just showed up with his camera and thus had not been doing whatever illegal thing the occupiers before had supposedly been doing. He is arrested in short order even though he says he was following police instructions to move back.

http://www.ktvu.com/videos/news/oakland-occupy-protesters-arrested-in/vFgyB/

According to a Facebook account from one of the occupiers of the Interfaith tent:

Police in riot gear advanced and gave no order to disperse, no warning and no explanation of what was happening.

People were told to move or be arrested.

The two African-American men I mentioned above had crossed the street but police went after them anyway.

An OO attorney appeared on the scene and those who had not been kidnapped attempted to march with her to the jail to find out about those who had been, but were met by a line of riot police.

Once they finally made it to the jail, they were denied entrance and shuffled back and forth from the police station to the jail when they attempted to find out why their comrades had been arrested. The attorney attempting to represent these clients was also given the run-around.

We are planning to Occupy City Hall today at 2 PM and demand the release of these political prisoners and the restoration of our rights to assemble at the plaza.

Stay tuned. Also, hopefully I have corrected all my typos – trying to post this in too big of a hurry – or perhaps in too much of an outrage. Deep breath.