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DESCRIPTION:Oakland—Despite claims by Oakland Police (OPD) and city officials that 
 law enforcement used restraint during last Thursday’s protests following 
 the Johannes Mehserle verdict, details emerging paint a very different 
 picture.  Police used excessive force against a largely peaceful protest, 
 violently attacking a number of people.  Police arrested many demonstrators 
 who had done nothing wrong, and then held them in jail through the night 
 and in some cases through the weekend and beyond.\n\nAmong those arrested 
 were NLGSF member, and prominent Oakland attorney, Walter Riley. 
 “Thursday’s law enforcement conduct must be investigated.  The police 
 were provocative and seemed determined to instigate violence, which of 
 course, served their police contract negotiations with Oakland at a time 
 when they are facing layoffs of 80 officers,” said Riley.  “In the 
 organized rally where protesters, including me, were helping to ensure 
 peaceful protest, the police helped to perpetuate a narrative of violence 
 by allowing a small number of people to vandalize businesses when they 
 could have stopped it.”\n\nAlso arrested were Oakland School Board member 
 Jumoke Hinton Hodge, 69-year-old former school principal Susan Harman, 
 journalists and legal observers.  Many of the arrestees were seriously 
 injured by the police, including a handful who were taken to the hospital 
 from the scene and at least one individual who was denied medication, 
 causing a potentially life threatening situation to an elderly member of 
 the community.\n\n“Last Thursday a court in Los Angeles sent a 
 disgraceful message about police violence, and that message was reinforced 
 by the conduct of Oakland Police and other law enforcement Thursday 
 evening,” said Carlos Villarreal, NLGSF Executive Director.  “OPD and 
 outside agencies brought in as reinforcement used overwhelming force on a 
 largely nonviolent assembly, sweeping up lawyers, legal observers, 
 journalists and community members, and seriously injuring a number of 
 individuals.”\n\nSeveral years ago the National Lawyers Guild and ACLU 
 obtained a $2 million settlement in a lawsuit over OPD brutality toward 
 demonstrators, and at that time OPD adopted new crowd control policies 
 designed to safeguard freedom of speech in just this sort of volatile 
 situation.\n\n“If OPD had followed its own crowd control policies, the 
 injuries would have been avoided," explained NLGSF attorney Rachel 
 Lederman.  "The aggressive use of police formations, baton beatings and 
 indiscriminate arrests were unnecessary and violated people's 
 constitutional right to protest.  To make things even worse, OPD violated 
 state law by jailing people for long periods of time who had been arrested 
 for very minor offenses.”\n\nThe National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay 
 Area Chapter (NLGSF) condemns the police abuse by OPD and other law 
 enforcement on the scene and is investigating possible legal action. The 
 NLGSF is a human rights bar association founded in 1937 with hundreds of 
 members throughout the Bay Area.  Find out more at www.nlgsf.org.\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/07/13/18653774.php
SUMMARY:Press Conference: NLG Decries Police Tactics, Assaults on Peaceful Protesters in Oakland
LOCATION:14th and Broadway, Oakland, CA
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/07/13/18653774.php
DTSTART:20100714T190000Z
DTEND:20100714T200000Z
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