Quan says she'll call national Occupy leaders
Will Kane,Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writers
San Francisco Chronicle January 30, 2012 01:06 PM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Monday, January 30, 2012
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(01-30) 13:06 PST Oakland -- Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said today that she is going to call national leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement and implore them to disown Oakland's protest movement.
Quan said Saturday's demonstration, where 400 protesters were arrested and City Hall was vandalized, showed that the contingent of protesters who have targeted Oakland were not as non-violent as they claim they are.
"I plan to call some of the national leadership of Occupy this week to say that the Oakland group is not nonviolent and has not agreed to be nonviolent," Quan said in an interview on KCBS. "The national Occupy movement has said they are nonviolent."
Saturday's protest involved protesters throwing objects at police, breaking into buildings and vandalizing property. Some officers were injured in the melee.
According to jail records, many of those arrested were cited for remaining at the scene of a riot. Some were cited and released at the scene and others were taken to jail and booked on the misdemeanor count. Some posted $2,500 bail after being booked.
At least 43 people remained in custody as of this afternoon. Of that figure, 24 protesters who were booked during a mass arrest at the YMCA were being held on suspicion of burglary, obstructing officers and remaining at the scene of a riot, while several were being held for wearing a mask for the purposes of avoiding identification, which is a misdemeanor.
Among those facing the most serious allegations include Robert Ovetz, 45, of Woodacre and Ahimsa Windthunder, 34, who were each arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery on an officer and felony assault.
Rachel Lederman, a civil rights lawyer based in San Francisco who is working with the Occupy movement, said police have overreacted and have used excessive force, creating "an increasing level of confrontation with Occupy Oakland over the past several months" and that officers on Saturday had boxed in peaceful protesters.
She said some protesters had carried shields with them because "these young people have felt the need to protect themselves when they're likely to be shot with so-called less-than-lethal projectiles."
Quan said weekly protests by self-proclaimed members of the Occupy movement have cost the city millions of dollars.
"What they are doing against the city economically is not nonviolent either," she continued on KCBS. "Every Saturday they are doing demonstrations and in my city that is my night of highest police need. They are taking away resources from my city and creating a situation that is making it more difficult for me to keep the city safer."
Quan said she feared protesters were baiting Oakland police with violence and vandalism and hoping that they're response would get national headlines.
"One of the problems is that the Occupy demonstrators have decided that Oakland is their one and only playground and target," she said. "It is because of their tactics that this group is getting smaller and smaller, they are trying to get national publicity on this."
In an earlier interview before Saturday's protest, Quan told KQED-TV's "This Week in Northern California" that the movement's anger toward herself and Oakland has been unfairly portrayed by national media outlets in part because she is female and Asian.
"You don't see that kind of anger in San Francisco, where Mayor (Ed) Lee handled it in a different way," KQED-TV reporter Scott Shafer told Quan.
"Well you guys used tear gas and batons too," Quan said, referring to San Francisco. "I think it is a different time, I think it is how the media plays it. There is also probably a little misogyny and a little racism, when I looked at what happened in terms of how the national media portrayed it, and how Occupy's internal media portrayed it."
"You think they are tougher on you because you're a woman, and an Asian woman?" Shafer asked.
"I'm pretty disturbed that I had to stop my Facebook for a while and spend a lot of time putting in new filters and cleaning it up and that Occupy doesn't listen to anybody but its own media," Quan said. "They have their version of what happened. It is not a true version."
See Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's KQED-TV interview, which aired before the Saturday protests, go to: http:// sfg.ly/y7Bqnd
E-mail the writers at
wkane@sfchronicle.com and
hlee@sfchronicle.com.
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