From the Los Angeles Times [2], July 11:
OAKLAND, Calif. — As business owners boarded up broken windows and scrubbed graffiti here Friday, Oakland officials assessed the damage wrought by protesters after the verdict in a high-profile police shooting case and blamed outside agitators for the worst of it.
Thursday night's demonstrations in downtown Oakland were the first big test of the city's new police chief. They began peacefully enough in the hours after former Bay Area Rapid Transit officer Johannes Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the Jan. 1, 2009, shooting death of Oscar Grant 3rd.
But after a nearly three-hour speak-out in front of City Hall ended, some protestors began throwing bottles and rocks at officers in riot gear who had circled the downtown in order to contain the protest. As the evening went on, stores were looted, fires were set and the windshield of a California Highway Patrol cruiser was smashed.
In all, 78 men and women were arrested, Chief Anthony Batts said during a Friday morning news conference, three-quarters of whom were from outside Oakland. Batts described many of them as "anarchists," and vowed that authorities "will be moving forward to identify them and make further arrests."
See our last posts on the Oscar Grant case [3], the global anarchist scare [4] and the struggle in East Bay [5].
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