Shorter version? Nothing new here, the actual report hasn't been released to the public, and the recommendations for the Oakland Police Department might get done someday, if they get the money, and if they get the time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's code for maybe the next administration will get around to it.

Via:

Oakland police received some harsh criticism for the way they handled the Occupy demonstrations last fall, but Oakland's police chief is not taking offense.

Details of the 121-page report were made available to city leaders more than six weeks ago, but they held on to it. They released it to the media less than five minutes before they held a carefully worded and brief press conference.
...

The report was not kind. Among the criticisms, it calls the Oakland Police Department's response to protesters last year, "flawed by inadequate staffing, insufficient planning and lack of understanding of crowd management techniques." The report even called many of their policing methods "outdated".
...

The report recommends that OPD institute a mutual aid policy to include OPD and responding agencies abilities -- a move Jordan says, will require time and additional resources.

"These are things that we can't do overnight, these are long range changes that I intend to implement. It's just not something we're going to do right away," said Jordan.

Possibly the worst part of this "report" is the fact that city officials claim to have paid $100,000 for it. There's your tax dollars at work, Oakland, a report that restates the obvious and doesn't place any blame on any of the city's officials.

Ask and you shall receive? Difficult to believe it was so easy. Recently obtained internal emails between Oakland City Hall and police through a public records request that give a look into the mindset of Oakland officials during the violent police raids of Occupy Oakland that began last October.

During that same confrontation, Scott Olsen, an Iraq War veteran with Veterans for Peace, was injured in the head, and images of his wounded body being dragged off and of officers tossing a gas grenade into a crowd of people helping him made him into a symbol of the Occupy protest.

Via:

In one message written Oct. 13, a sergeant said he'd been confronted by protesters camping at Frank Ogawa Plaza and that one implied they would remove officers by force if they entered the camp without permission.

Five days later, Deputy Chief Jeffrey Israel told Chief Howard Jordan,"We can either wait for a riot, or order them to cease their night time occupation."

Soon after, images of the protest began making national and international news.

A Washington, D.C., crisis manager recommended that Oakland apologize, but the mayor's team disagreed and re-crafted the message instead.
...
When Jordan received an update that crime was actually down 19 percent in the last week of October, he wrote an email to one of Mayor Jean Quan's advisers.

"Not sure how you want to share this good news," he wrote. "It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland."

Making no mention of the hell the Occupy Oakland protesters have suffered at the hands of the Oakland Police, KTVU does mention "just how stressful of a situation it was for leaders."

Not one email was written by Mayor Jean Quan in all of the over a thousand communications received. Face-to-face communication - her preference, says her office - leaves no evidence that could be used in a court of law. The emails sent out by police, the crisis manager, followed by their actions on Occupy Oakland protesters seem to indicate just what the Mayor's orders were.

A petition for the recall of Quan was certified just last month when she failed to heed calls for her resignation in the aftermath of the Occupy Oakland raids.

More on the Wednesday night raid at Occupy Oakland: Adam Katz (@GeekEasy) films himself being arrested as he backs away from police who refuse to say where exactly they want him to go.

He notes on the video above - that he filmed himself - the following:

I heard on twitter that the Occupy Oakland vigil was being raided by riot cops. I headed down there with a camera and FlipCam to document this event.

When I arrived I saw most everything had been cleared, so I walked toward a group of cops, stopped 25 feet from them and snapped a picture.

One call tells me to step back. I said "okay, but where should I step back to".

The video continues from there....

I had been in the plaza for 2 minutes and had taken one photo when I was arrested for absolutely no valid reason.

Also, the National Lawyer's Guild is demanding that the Oakland Police Department stop harassing the Occupy Oakland protesters.

Via:

“We have already had to sue the Oakland Police twice in the past year for violating their own Crowd Control Policy, but the violations continue,” explained attorney Mike Flynn, president of NLGSF. “We have ongoing litigation in federal court to stop the unconstitutional arrests, violence against, and illegal prolonged detention of demonstrators in the Alameda County Jails. Yet, OPD has continued to assault Occupy Oakland protesters, confiscate their food and belongings, and hold them under cruel conditions in jail for days at a time, only to release most with no charges or with only very minor violations.”

California law requires that persons arrested for minor offenses be released with a citation, and not held in custody, with certain specific exceptions. Yet, the Occupy protesters have routinely been held handcuffed for hours in police vehicles and detained under unconscionable conditions in jail. The 12 people arrested last night are currently being held on $5,000 and $10,000 bail, even though it is unlikely they will be charged with any crime. The same practices were directed against Oscar Grant demonstrators in 2010, resulting in a pending NLG class action civil rights lawsuit, Spalding et al. v. Oakland and Alameda County. In that case, NLGSF is asking U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson to enforce the Crowd Control Policy the court ordered in previous NLG - ACLU litigation arising from OPD violence against protesters, and to stop the pre-charging detention. A second NLG - ACLU lawsuit filed in November, 2011, Campbell et al. v. Oakland, also seeks to stop OPD from violating the Crowd Control Policy by shooting protesters with less lethal projectiles and requests compensation for those who were injured, some quite seriously.

“It’s unbelievable the amount of resources the City is expending in these lean times for the sole goal of squelching political protest,” declared NLGSF Director Carlos Villarreal. “In the midst of the biggest social protest movement in decades, the City of Oakland and the OPD must decide whether they are going to be 1%-ers, using violence and propaganda to crush the Occupy Wall Street movement, or whether they will support the 99% and devote their resources to actually solving problems.”

Oakland police have arrested members of Occupy Oakland who were demonstrating in front of City Hall.

Police in riot gear moved in on the protesters in Frank Ogawa Plaza - also known as Oscar Grant Park to the protesters - late Wednesday night and Occupy Oakland organizers said as many as 20 people were arrested.

The police action came two days after the city revoked a permit for the protesters to set up a teepee in the plaza. The teepee was supposed to be removed nightly and not be used for cooking or food storage, and it had been in the park since November.

But according to Mayor Jean Quan's goon squad, the protesters refused to comply with the terms of the permit despite multiple warnings, assertions disputed by Occupy Oakland.

This piece written by Ben Ehrenreich looks at the push by city officials across the country to end the occupation movement, by evicting them from the parks.

Mayor Villaraigosa did us all a favor. His massive police raid on Occupy L.A. provided a few clarifications that will prove important as this movement moves forward, which it most certainly will. First, he could not have more powerfully confirmed Occupy’s critique of the corruption of our political system. It doesn’t matter if the mayor is a white, billionaire media mogul a la Bloomberg or a working-class Chicano with deep roots in the local labor movement. Oakland’s Jean Quan is a “progressive” Democrat. So is Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, who unleashed riot police on Philly’s occupation just before the L.A. raid. (Forty-five minutes before cops swarmed the park, occupiers here were chanting, “Philly got raided, L.A. won’t take it!”) Race, class origins, longstanding political affiliations count for little. Party allegiance couldn’t be less relevant. Look at our president, at his wars, his bailouts, his complete silence on the repression of the Occupy movement. Proximity to power causes even the most stalwart progressives to suffer strange fits of amnesia and to develop violent allergies to all forms of popular democracy outside the conventional channels. If L.A. “charted a different path,” as the mayor put it, it is only because his cops crushed dissent more efficiently and elegantly than New York’s or Oakland’s, and without so many embarrassing YouTube videos. But they answer, as Villaraigosa does, to the same bosses.

Second, even the most refined manners will not be rewarded. For all of Occupy L.A.’s efforts to remain in the good graces of the police and the City Council, the camp here suffered the same fate as less courteous occupations elsewhere in the country: tents slashed and destroyed, the park fenced off, the more courageous and stubborn activists dragged away, cuffed with zip ties and bused out of sight. It doesn’t matter how many hoops you jump through, how many permits you apply for, how many health and safety inspections you undergo: they don’t want you here. They don’t want to see you, don’t want to hear your voice. Nationwide, the message has been as consistent as it has been clear: there is no room for genuine political protest in the United States. The First Amendment makes for excellent PR, but should you be fool enough to take it seriously, you will eventually find yourself staring at your own reflection in the face shield of a riot cop. Whether you ask for permission or not.

Full article online here.

Take This Book: The People's Library at Occupy Wall Street - A project is underway to rebuild the The People's library, and the project to fund that and the online library is about half-way to the fundraising goal of $10,000. Read about the project here and donate if you wish.

Oakland mayor Jean Quan - who backed Occupy Oakland until she decided not to - is under fire, and there's talk of a recall.

Oh, and Occupy Oakland re-established their encampment...for about 30 seconds.

Wall Street tourists say free the Wall Street bull: "Woe is the Wall Street Bull, who just can't catch a break these days: he's been on police-enforced lockdown since October thanks to Occupy Wall Street protestors, who've been known to paint his balls with anarchy symbols, amongst other things. Now, lower Manhattan community members are complaining that business is down because the tourists are being scared off by the bull's barricade. How long until Shepherd Fairy screens a limited-edition "Free The Bull" poster?"

Mayor Bloomberg tells the tourists "No bull, no way."

The Occupy Wall Street general assembly has proposed setting aside a chunk of their remaining funds for bail money for arrested protesters. At last read, it didn't seem the idea was getting much support from fellow occupiers, possibly because of jerks like this?

An occupy geek squad is building their own better, and more private version of Facebook.

Blue Shield of California has agreed to a $2 million settlement of a suit to end a probe into over 1,000 cases of the health insurer dropping patients from their insurance coverage after they become ill and actually need to use their insurance.

Occupy Washington D.C. (formerly known as "Stop the Machine") have extended their stay at Freedom Plaza.

No one is talking, but another wooden structure was built and then destroyed by park police at McPherson Square.

Last but not least, look at all the big banks contributing thousands upon thousands to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

Scott Olsen, the Iraq War veteran injured at the Occupy Oakland encampment on Oct. 25th has since been released from the hospital and gave his first interview yesterday.

In the interview Scott talks about the challenges he faces after being hit in the head by a projectile at Occupy Oakland, specifically the traumatic brain injury he sustained and the weeks of therapy it took for him to regain his speech. In the video it is evident that he still struggles a bit with speaking. But Olsen states that he is doing much better than he was.

Olsen also addresses the city of Oakland and the Oakland Police Department who are investigating the incident, stating that he is waiting to see what they are going to say about themselves in their own investigations. He has not been interviewed by anyone investigating for the police department, nor has he heard anything at all from the District Attorney's office.

Olsen also conveys at end of the interview that the Occupy Movement was intended to be peaceful and should remain that way, that by working together and being open with one another would solve most of the problems that the movement faces with bureaucracy.

Scott looks great, and it's obvious that he has worked very hard to regain his speech. He also has scars that are hidden underneath a bandana in the video. We wish him all the best, and a speedy, complete recovery.

You can follow the full story online here.

(Publisher's Note) John Amato:

This is the last time you can donate to C&L's Scott Olsen Solidarity Funder: 'We Are All Scott Olsen'

You can also snail mail a check to our address. Please write "Scott Olsen" in the notes section.:

CrooksandLiars.com
PO BOX 66310
Los Angeles, CA 90066

We plan to have a C&L member deliver a check to Scott directly so please help out if you can spare a few bucks..

What a mess. The staff at city of Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's office are fleeing faster than she can sign a contract for additional police to handle an eviction.

As reported here Monday, legal adviser Dan Siegel resigned following the raid of Occupy Oakland, along with
Oakland Deputy Mayor Sharon Cornu following shortly after. Three other officials and staffers have resigned in recent months: Quan's crisis communications manager, the city attorney, and the police chief. Other officials have expressed interest in quitting, so more positions might be opening up in the near future.

Will Quan fill those positions before she's voted out of office?

Update:

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Admits Cities Coordinated Crackdown on Occupy Movement

Reports late Sunday night of an "imminent" raid on Occupy Oakland quickly spread to the protesters.

Via:

"The Oakland Police Department is planning an enormous operation to evict hundreds of Occupy Oakland protesters from their encampment near City Hall early Monday morning, according to police and city officials with direct knowledge of the plans."

"Oakland has agreed to pay for 700-to-1,000 officers from numerous agencies to be deployed over the next three days, according to an Oakland official who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity. The operation was shaping up as the largest and most expensive police action in Oakland in recent memory."

"The cost of the operation could reach $1 million, the official said. Combined with the city's previous effort to evict the protesters, including at least two violent clashes, cleanup and private security that may be hired to prevent the protesters from resettling on the plaza, the overall cost of Occupy Oakland could reach $5 million, he said."

The city of Oakland closed 13 schools this year to "save" $2 million. Crushing a group of peaceful campers? Priceless.

Thirty-two people were arrested today, including many clergy members, and Occupy Oakland's tent city has been dismantled.

The decision to evict the protesters by Mayor Jean Quan has cost her more than the $1 million she shelled out for extra police back-up. Dan Siegel, Quan's legal adviser, posted on Facebook that he has resigned over Monday's police raid of Occupy Oakland.

Via:

His Facebook post: "No longer Mayor Quan's legal adviser. Resigned at 2 am. Support Occupy Oakland, not the 1% and its government facilitators."

Siegel and Quan have been friends for decades, since they attended University of California, Berkeley together. Siegel was on Quan's transition team before she took office in January and stayed on as an adviser after that, drawing controversy when he openly opposed a gang injunction policy sought by the city attorney.

I wonder if Jean Quan is aware that there are people camping outside of the movie theaters waiting to see the latest "Twilight" movie? Die-hard "Twilight" fans beware!

A "Special Comment" from Keith Obermann discusses how Oakland, California Mayor Jean Quan has gone from supporting people's rights to being an oppressor, and calls for her to repent for the treatment of the Occupy Oakland protesters, or resign.

Olbermann calls out Quan for her use of 500 police officers in a pre-dawn raid Tuesday morning, followed by more tear-gas bombs, rubber bullets and bean-bag rounds on Tuesday night. Quan, herself once a victim of the Oakland police’s bullying, now “is the bully,” he says. He calls on Quan to dismiss acting Police Chief Howard Jordan and allow protesters to return to their location, “or, having betrayed everything she’d supported and all those who have supported her, she must resign.”

Quan has come under heavy fire since Tuesday's raids, and especially so after the night-time raid that left an Iraq war veteran, Scott Thomas Olsen, a 24-year old former Marine in critical condition when he was hit in the head by a tear gas canister. Olsen suffered a skull fracture, and brain swelling that puts him at risk of permanent brain damage.