Oscar Grant Demonstrations in Downtown Oakland

     Today the verdict was released for the controversial Oscar Grant case. Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, which was a more lenient than most people would have liked to see. The resulting protest started at around 3:30 at 14th street and Broadway in downtown Oakland. At one point the protest completely blocked the path of a public bus, but as the afternoon progressed police contained crowd to  three blocks along Broadway. After it was clear that it was going to be a peaceful demonstration, I biked down to check it out. To my surprise, it was a actually very well-run demonstration: the police were professional and as courteous as one can be in riot gear and the protesters were surprisingly mature and well-organized (people took turns speaking at a microphone at the center of the demonstration). There were also a lot of photographers there to document the demonstration (to be honestly I saw more SLRs than I did protest signs). Unfortunately, these pictures sorta make the police look like evil bad guys (not very hard to do in when they are lined up in riot gear), but they actually did a very good job of ensuring the protest was safe and peaceful. Checking the news right now it looks like some looting did occur later in the night after I left. Too bad, it seemed for a second that Oakland might go through the night without resorting to violence.




     UPDATE: The pictures I am seeing from earlier in the day are even more dramatic than mine, so I don't feel that bad any more. Take the daylight pictures with a grain of salt, in reality things were very relaxed from 5pm to 8pm.