Oakland update

Hundreds of Oakland High School students were peacefully marching down Broadway towards Jack London Square to protest the administration' war drive amidst sweeping cuts to education.

When they got to Jack London, they turned around and started to head back up Broadway. When the march got to 2nd street, two motorcycle cops lurched into the crowd and began belligerently revving their engines as if they were in a sideshow.

It was a very dangerous situation as the crowd was very thick, and other motorcycle cops were actually doing traffic control alongside the march, so many students probably weren't concerned about the two motorcycle cops that were belligerently penetrating the crowd. They would rev their engines, and then lurch forward at marchers.

One of them was yelling for people not to continue down Broadway, but his voice was drowned out by the roars and chants from the march (not to mention the roar from his motorcycle).

Suddenly, a female african-american was being pushed around by at least three different police officers, one of them who was an african-american female who had also been on a motorcycle. The youth was thrown forcibly to the ground and handcuffed, and several other youths were beaten by nightsticks as the cops created a perimeter around the scene. I believe that at least one other person was taken into custody.

I am not sure what initiated the fracas, but it was a very dangerous scene as unarmed Oakland youths and event organizers engaged in shouting matches with well-armed OPD goons.

I can say that the cops confiscated several signs and flyers from marchers, and threw them down onto the ground in the middle of the street, causing quite a mess.

The march returned to Frank Ogawa Plaza, where it had started, and no other incidents happened as of 2:15PM.