{"id":8120,"date":"2009-09-25T19:31:57","date_gmt":"2009-09-25T09:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=8120"},"modified":"2009-09-25T20:02:07","modified_gmt":"2009-09-25T10:02:07","slug":"g20-police-upitt-prevent-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=8120","title":{"rendered":"G20 : Police @ UPitt prevent K.A.O.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Department<\/a> of The Great Majority Of The Police, Seemingly Ever-Patient And Self-Controlled, Stood For Hours As Kids Baited And Yelled, Shoved And Provoked. A Handful Of Officers Used Well-Placed Elbows While Batons Were Raised Only In Response to the Vandalism<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

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OMGWTF riots have consumed Oakland!<\/em><\/p>\n

Riots consume Oakland<\/a>
\nStaff Report
\nThe Pitt News<\/em>
\nSeptember, 2009<\/p>\n

What began as a peaceful gathering of people hoping to see President Barack Obama last night became an 8-hour-long protest-turned-riot that damaged Oakland businesses and prompted police to use force.<\/p>\n

About 50 people gathered near the bridge to Schenley Park at 4 p.m. yesterday to see Obama\u2019s motorcade drive to the Phipps Conservatory.<\/p>\n

The Obamas were hosting a working dinner in the greenhouse for the other G-20 leaders and their spouses. It was a precurser to the G-20 Summit, which officially opens tomorrow.<\/p>\n

The gathering was peaceful until additional protesters joined the original group at around 6 p.m. Police sent in reinforcements as the crowd grew and placed caution tape near the traffic light at the bridge to Schenley Park.<\/p>\n

Demonstrators ripped the tape and began leap-frogging over one another and toward the police.<\/p>\n

Police declared the event an \u201cunlawful assembly\u201d and warned protesters, in both English and Spanish, that if they didn\u2019t leave, they could be arrested or \u201csubject to other police action.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the people didn\u2019t move, police launched a smoke bomb into the group.<\/p>\n

It was the first of many times police would fire gas or smoke into the crowds, which eventually grew to include hundreds of, if not more than 1,000 people.<\/p>\n

The crowd simmered down for a few hours after the initial smoke bomb, at one point dancing to music provided by the Pittsburgh Hare Krishnas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s imposible for us to be stronger than them. They\u2019ve sticks and shields, but we\u2019ve got voices and we can all sing and be louder than them,\u201d said one man, who claimed to be a chaitanya, or leader, of the Hare Krishnas.<\/p>\n

Other groups began protesting around 10 p.m.<\/p>\n

People marching dressed in all black and wearing bandanas weaved their way throughout Oakland screaming, \u201cWe\u2019re here. We\u2019re queer. We have no fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many other people, most of whom looked college-aged, joined the march.<\/p>\n

Some of the protesters used bricks to bash in windows to McDonald\u2019s, Kinko\u2019s, The Pitt Shop, Pamela\u2019s and Bruegger\u2019s among other businesses. They also lit Dumpsters on fire.<\/p>\n

The group eventually joined the people protesting in Schenley Plaza and around the Cathedral of Learning.<\/p>\n

They showed up just in time to hear the police once again declare the event an \u201cunlawful assembly,\u201d at 10:37 p.m. over a loud speaker system.<\/p>\n

Police threw more than 30 canisters of gas into the crowds, which were now dominated by mostly college-aged people. Police surrounded the Cathedral around 11:30 p.m. and eventually covered the lawn of the William Pitt Union. At one point, they marched through the Schenley Quadrangle and onto Towers patio.<\/p>\n

Popping sounds could be heard from the Union.<\/p>\n

After one round of the sounds, two people laid on the ground, one of them over the Pitt logo on Forbes Avenue.<\/p>\n

Officers with batons hovered over one of the people, who took several minutes to stand up.<\/p>\n

Police eventually handcuffed both men.<\/p>\n

The police had said they would use \u201cless lethal weapons\u201d on people who wouldn\u2019t disperse. City police officers in Zone 4, which covers Oakland, declined to comment last night.<\/p>\n

One ACLU volunteer said he was disappointed in the way the police handled the protests.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are just kids,\u201d said Dave Ninehouser, an ACLU legal observer. \u201cThey need to call their parents and cry bloody murder.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Department of The Great Majority Of The Police, Seemingly Ever-Patient And Self-Controlled, Stood For Hours As Kids Baited And Yelled, Shoved And Provoked. A Handful Of Officers Used Well-Placed Elbows While Batons Were Raised Only In Response to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[36,351],"class_list":["post-8120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state","category-war-on-terror","tag-g20","tag-pittsburgh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6AyE-26Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8120"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8126,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8120\/revisions\/8126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}