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Title: From Ferguson to Oakland Author: CrimethInc., Anonymous Date: December 12th, 2014 Language: en Topics: Ferguson, Oakland, police, the state Source: Retrieved on December 15th, 2014 from http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/r/from-ferguson-to-the-bay/
A wild and growing anti-police revolt is in full swing across the Bay
Area. It is a node in the growing national movement sparked by the
insurrection in Ferguson following the police execution of Michael
Brown, and at the same time it is a continuation of local struggles
dating back at least to the 2009 Oscar Grant riots in Oakland. Some of
us who have participated in events in the Bay over the past two and half
weeks urgently desire to communicate to others around the world about
what is unfolding here. Our aim is not to claim bragging rights or to
establish Oakland as the riot capital of the United States. On the
contrary, it is necessary to spread word of the unprecedented nature of
these events precisely because it suddenly seems more possible than ever
before that revolt against white supremacy and the police could spread
beyond the usual spaces of protest.
In order to illustrate the magnitude of what has unfolded since a grand
jury announced it would not indict Darren Wilson for killing Michael
Brown, we must make one point clear: we are losing track of how many
highways have been blockaded, which stores have been looted, which
intersections have seen the fiercest fighting with police. All of this
has been unfolding on a nightly basis for over two weeks. Roughly 600
people have been arrested. Many of the main business districts across
the East Bay are boarded up. It has become routine to hear police and
news helicopters tracking the latest riot each night. Militarized police
forces from across northern California are now regularly being deployed
in our streets. Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, and Emeryville have
all experienced riots and looting.
Many of us have been through various movements and small-scale revolts
in Oakland and the Bay Area over the past decade or more. Yet this is
something different. While the numbers taking the streets on any given
night are not massive—usually in the range of 500 to 1500—the
consistency and level of intensity that this insurrectionary wave has
unleashed have not been seen here in decades. All this is unfolding
outside the control of any organization or political clique. At this
point, there are barely even specific call outs for marches or meet ups:
crowds of neighbors, students, activists, and militants are now
gathering each night on their own chaotic initiative. An informal
alliance of graffiti crews, groups of friends composed primarily of
young Black and Brown rebels, and clusters of anarchists of various
stripes and backgrounds has emerged to create the most vibrant and
combative tendencies within the uprising. Those who show up with
suggestions as to where the energy of the crowd might best be applied
are given a hearing, and sometimes their proposals are carried out.
Those who attempt to calm and manage the situation are ignored, and
often attacked if they attempt to impede others’ actions.
The initial wave of rioting, marches, and blockades in Oakland during
the week of November 24 was just the beginning. There followed multiple
blockades of the 880 and 980 freeways, numerous die-ins blocking
roadways, and shutdowns of the West Oakland BART station—and then the
riots began in earnest. Here is a rough timeline of the events of the
past two and a half weeks, followed by our initial reflections.
2014
November 24: A grand jury in Ferguson refuses to indict officer Darren
Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown. Ferguson burns. Over 2500 meet
in downtown Oakland and proceed to block the 580 highway for hours. Then
the crowd marches back downtown to the police station, where clashes
erupt on Broadway. Participants erect burning barricades and loot
several corporate stores, including a Starbucks and Smart and Final
grocery store. Dozens are arrested.
November 25: A small crowd takes over highway 880 in Oakland. A larger
crowd blocks highway 580 later in the night, and nearly 100 are
arrested. The remaining crowd creates massive burning barricades across
Telegraph to hold back police. A series of corporate stores are looted
in North Oakland and gentrifying businesses are smashed. Another mass
arrest occurs near Emeryville at the end of the night.
November 26: A destructive march plays cat and mouse with Oakland police
in downtown and West Oakland for hours before being dispersed by police.
Multiple businesses in downtown are damaged and more are arrested.
November 28: A coordinated civil disobedience action at the West Oakland
BART station shuts down all service in and out of San Francisco for over
two hours. That night, in San Francisco, nearly 1000 protesters lay
siege to the shopping district of Union Square during Black Friday,
clashing with police and damaging fancy stores. They march into the
Mission district, where stores are looted and banks are smashed. The
night ends in a mass arrest of the dwindling crowd.
December 3: A New York grand jury fails to indict any officers in the
choking death of Eric Garner. Crowds block Market Street in San
Francisco. In Oakland, a march weaves through downtown; riot police
prevent it from reaching OPD headquarters. Instead, participants march
through the wealthy Piedmont neighborhood.
December 4: Another march weaves through Downtown Oakland, eventually
heading east towards the Fruitvale district, where there is a showdown
with Oakland police and a mass arrest. In San Francisco, a die-in blocks
Market Street for a second night.
December 5: Hundreds march through downtown Oakland, holding a noise
demo in front of the jail to support those arrested during the revolt.
The crowd moves on to take over the 880 freeway before being pushed off
by police. Next, the march surrounds the West Oakland BART station and
destroys the gates protecting the riot police inside. The station is
shut down for an hour before the march moves back downtown, where
property destruction, clashes with police, and arrests occur.
December 6: A march originating near UC Berkeley campus eventually
clashes with Berkeley police near their headquarters and proceeds to
loot multiple stores, including a Trader Joe’s and Radio Shack. The
crowds grow as many students take to the streets. In response, police
departments from across the region pour into central Berkeley, firing
dozens of rounds of tear gas and physically attacking demonstrators and
bystanders, inflicting serious injuries.
December 7: On Sunday night, another march starts in Berkeley and moves
into North Oakland, clashing with police, destroying multiple California
Highway Patrol (CHP) cruisers, and taking over Highway 24. CHP officers
use tear gas and rubber bullets to push back the crowd. People respond
with rocks and fireworks, then march back into downtown Berkeley,
destroying bank façades and ATMs. They attack cell phone and electronics
stores, culminating with the looting of Whole Foods. The night ends with
hundreds of people gathering around bonfires in the middle of Telegraph,
popping bottles of expropriated Prosecco. Police are afraid to engage
the crowd, but some participants are snatched in targeted arrests.
December 8: The third march from Berkeley is by far the largest. Over
2000 people take over Interstate 80, stopping all traffic for two hours,
while another segment of the demonstration blocks the train tracks
parallel to the freeway. The crowd attempts to march on the Bay Bridge
but is pushed back into Emeryville where over 250 people are mass
arrested.
December 9: The fourth march from Berkeley sets out once again down
Telegraph Avenue into Oakland and shuts down another section of Highway
24 and the MacArthur BART station. Increasingly violent clashes ensue
with CHP officers in full riot gear, who open fire with rubber bullets
and beanbag rounds, causing numerous injuries and ultimately pushing the
crowd off the freeway. The march then looped through downtown Oakland
and made its way into Emeryville, where a Pak N Save grocery store was
looted along with a CVS pharmacy and a 7 Eleven. The night ended with
another round of arrests, scattering the crowd.
December 10: Hundreds of Berkeley High School students stage a walkout
and rally at city hall. A smaller fifth march from Berkeley makes its
way into Oakland where a T-Mobile store is looted and other corporate
stores are attacked. People point out and attack undercover CHP officers
in the crowd, who pull guns on the crowd as they make an arrest.
The rhythm of unrest has changed tempo repeatedly over these twenty
days, but shows no signs of quieting. Revolt has shifted fluidly between
various forms of resistance—from relatively calm marches to mass highway
blockades, intense street fighting, and targeted expropriation. This has
kept the movement resilient and capable of bringing in a diverse range
of new participants day after day, even when there are sharp
disagreements over which tactics are appropriate and little consensus
over what direction the movement should take.
It is difficult to anticipate what will happen next. No one predicted
that this revolt would be sustaining this level of intensity more than
two weeks after people first gathered at 14th and Broadway while
Ferguson burned. At this point, it appears likely that the momentum will
continue in some form until at least the week of Christmas.
The long-term repercussions are unclear. At the very least, it seems
that the reactionary period of social decomposition that followed the
high points of struggle here in the Bay during 2011 and early 2012 is
over, and something new and even more ferocious is taking shape. We can
also tentatively conclude that the tactic of blockading major
infrastructure, including highways, has spread beyond the high water
mark previously set by the port blockades of the Occupy movement. There
have been at least ten highway blockades in the East Bay alone over the
past couple weeks; such blockading is now considered a favorable tactic
even by those who identify as “peaceful protesters.”
Meanwhile, the consistent pace of combative demonstrations that traverse
municipal boundaries is pushing local law enforcement infrastructure to
its limits. Police units are increasingly reluctant to engage with the
crowds; officers who find themselves locked in street fights are
retreating more frequently. Media reports suggest that the first two
weeks of protests have cost Oakland $1.36 million in overtime alone.
Of course, the unrelenting pace of events is also straining the
anti-repression infrastructure that has become such a vital sustaining
force for rebellious movements here in the Bay. This infrastructure is
one of the lasting local manifestations of Occupy Oakland; it has roots
stretching back to the Oakland 100 Support Committee, formed in the
immediate aftermath of the original Oscar Grant riots. Arrests are now
occurring every night, arraignments every day, rides must be coordinated
to and from Santa Rita Jail constantly and additional money is
desperately needed to bail out arrestees with more serious charges. How
we follow through with displays of solidarity and direct material
support for arrestees will determine how much strength we gain from this
uprising moving forward.
Standing in the streets of Oakland in December 2014, it seems that we
have come full circle almost exactly six years after Oscar Grant was
executed by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. The journey that
began by the Lake Merritt BART station on January 7, 2009 when that
first OPD car was smashed has taken many twists and turns through
various waves of protest and movements, many of which have manifested in
rioting and clashes with police in and around downtown Oakland.
Meanwhile, a wave of small uprisings has unfolded in an increasing
number of locations across the country in response to one police
execution after another: Portland in 2010, Denver in 2010, Seattle in
2011, San Francisco in 2011, Atlanta in 2012, Anaheim in 2012, Santa
Rosa in 2013, Flatbush in 2013, Durham in 2013, Salinas in 2014,
Albuquerque in 2014. In each of these local uprisings, the name of a
person whose life was taken by the state was snatched from oblivion and
burned into collective memory through the actions of those who chose to
revolt.
The brave people of Ferguson pushed this past the point of no return by
doggedly refusing to leave the streets night after night, showing that
these revolts could extend in time and increase in intensity. If there
is one answer as to why those of us in the Bay now find ourselves in a
near insurrectionary situation tonight, it is simply this: we are no
longer alone. Another city has set a new precedent for resisting the
racist police state, so Oakland is no longer an outlier.
The new paradigm of struggle emanating from Ferguson was further
reinforced during the second week of the revolt, as news spread that a
New York grand jury had failed to indict any NYPD officer in the
strangling of Eric Garner. What had previously been restricted to
singular outbursts of anger in reaction to individual cases of police
executing Black and Brown people became a systemic struggle confronting
the structures of white power and state violence within this country.
This struggle is no longer just about Michael Brown, Eric Garner, or
Oscar Grant, or even the thousands killed by police whose names have
never entered the public consciousness. It is about the violent
marginalization and enforced social death of entire Black and Brown
communities. It is about the role of the police in exercising lethal
force with impunity to maintain this order and uphold the slave state
foundations of American capitalism.
We can now finally speak of a national anti-police movement that came
into being through the fires and blockades of late 2014. This should be
celebrated as a massive victory for resistance in the United States. An
important milestone has been reached and we are watching the results
unfold every night before our eyes.
Many days ago, it became impossible to predict what would come next. We
hope this uncontrollability spreads to new locations, in ever more
creative forms of disruption and attack.
– Some Oakland Antagonists, December 10, 2014
To support arrestees in this struggle, please donate to the legal
support fund.