October 10: Occupy Oakland begins with a rally at Oakland’s Frank Ogawa Plaza. The occupiers rename it Oscar Grant Plaza in honor of a boy who was slain by BART Police on November 9, 2009. Some occupiers set up camp and spend the night.
October 19: A television reporter calls the cops after he is bitten by a dog owned by an occupier. When the Oakland Police Department arrives, occupiers surround them chanting “Cops go home!” The OPD retreats and the assault is never investigated.
October 19: Occupy Oakland issues an edict banning the press from pointing their cameras at the occupiers. “We ask that you point your cameras towards City Hall and not towards the tents,” Occupy Oakland organizer Sara Mizner said over a loudspeaker. KCBS reporter Robert Lyles asked Mizner, “You have the constitutional right to assemble hear, you have the constitutional right to protest, we have the constitutional right of freedom of press, so are you picking and choosing which constitutional rights to uphold?” Mizner responds, “Uh that is a tricky question.”
October 19: Police Chief Howard Jordan and City Administrator Deanna Santana decide Occupy Oakland must be evicted from the plaza. They begin contacting neighboring jurisdictions to ask for the hundreds of officers they believe will be necessary to clear the plaza.
October 20: After reports that occupiers pepper sprayed and beat a homeless man, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan signs on to Jordan and Santana’s plan to clean the park. At 8 PM Santana posts a “Notice to Vacate Frank Ogawa Plaza” that cites “increasing frequency of violence, assaults, threats and intimidation” in the plaza and the fact that occupiers had denied access to “emergency personnel to treat injured persons and to police to patrol the Plaza.”
October 22: Hundreds of Occupy Oakland protester march around Lake Merritt, invading one bank and shutting down another.
October 25, 4:45 AM: At least 200 officers from 18 law enforcement agencies surround Frank Ogawa Plaza. Occupiers try to fight police off with firecrackers, bottles, rocks, and fire extinguishers, but overwhelmed by the police’s numbers. More than one hundred occupiers are arrested as onlookers chant, “Cops! Pigs! Murderers!” At least one canister of tear gas is deployed. The entire incident takes less than 30-minutes.
October 25, 4 PM: About 500 protesters congregate at the Oakland Public Library on 14th street and decided to try and retake the plaza. The protesters then marched from the library towards Frank Ogawa Plaza pelting police with paint and other hazardous materials along the way:
October 25, 7:45 PM: After reported warnings to back away from the barricades are ignored, police fire several tear gas canisters into the crowd. “They didn’t have to force police into that situation,” Helen Walker, 46, a nurse from Albany, told The San Francisco Chronicle. “It was totally provoked, and if I could have, I would have stopped those idiots from throwing paint.”
October 25, 9:30 PM: The crowd, now at its peak of more than 1,000, again charges the police throwing rocks, bottles, and firecrackers. Again the police use tear gas to disperse the crowd. This KTVU video, a FOX affiliate, indicates that flash grenades were also used.
October 25, 11 PM: About 150 to 200 protesters remain, staring down cops outside Frank Ogawa Plaza. During the previous three hour stretch, police fired at least five separate volleys of tear gas at the protesters.
October 26, 7 AM: Occupiers vow to riot every night until they take back Oscar Grant Plaza.
