•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Oakland, California. Seeking to cool the violent tone set by Tuesday night’s street clashes with Occupy Oakland protesters, police pulled down barricades on Wednesday near the City Hall plaza, dramatically reduced their presence and said they would allow nightly demonstrations in the area until 10 p.m.

Hundreds of protesters began arriving at 6 p.m. on Wednesday and packed the amphitheater of Frank Ogawa Plaza for a “general assembly.” A grassy section of the plaza — the site of an elaborate encampment that police dismantled on Tuesday morning — remained fenced off for cleaning.

When some people pushed open the chain-link fence just after 6 p.m., others jumped in to close it, seeking to display a commitment to nonviolence. But by 7 p.m., the fence was back open and the lawn full of protesters chanting, “Who’s park? Our park!” Police officers kept their distance.

One of those who ripped down the fence was Toby Barton, 37, who said he lives in a van in Oakland. As some people tried to get him to stop, he shouted, “This is direct action. Nothing changes until (stuff) gets torn down.”

David Hoffer, 24, of San Francisco, tried to keep the fence intact, saying, “We can’t be knocking down fences. If you want democracy, you have to work within our democratic system.”

The debate over protest tactics came after an afternoon news conference in which interim Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan defended the tactics of his department. “We are committed to allowing free speech,” he said, “but the First Amendment doesn’t allow violence or endangering the public or property.”

Tuesday’s removal of the camp saw mass arrests but was largely peaceful. However, a downtown march later in the day turned into a protracted street confrontation between protesters and police officers from more than a dozen agencies who set off tear gas and used shotguns to fire projectiles designed to inflict pain but not cause serious injury.

Police said they had to protect themselves from protesters who hurled rocks, bottles and paint, and ignored orders to disperse.

Protesters on Wednesday displayed rubber bullets and beanbags they said were fired at them the night before. Jordan said his department used the bags but not the rubber bullets but that other agencies may have used the bullets.

The chief confirmed there was at least one injury from Tuesday’s clash. Scott Olsen, 24, of Daly City, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, was in critical condition Wednesday at Highland Hospital in Oakland, hospital officials said.

The antiwar group said Olsen, a system administrator at a San Francisco software firm, suffered a skull fracture when he was hit by a “blunt object.” Olsen joined the U.S. Marines in 2006, served two tours in Iraq, and was discharged in 2010, the group said.

Video footage widely distributed on the Internet shows a protester, identified by the antiwar group as Olsen, being carried away by others with a head wound. While he lay wounded, the footage appears to show an officer tossing something — perhaps a tear gas canister — toward people trying to help him.

“I think it is a sad state of affairs when a Marine can’t assemble peacefully in the streets without getting injured,” said Jose Sanchez, executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Jordan said the incident was under investigation.

“I wish it didn’t happen,” he said. “Our goal is not to cause injury to anyone.”

The protesters are upset about growing economic inequality, among other issues. The Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday that the country’s top 1 percent of earners more than doubled its share of total income between 1979 and 2007, from about 10 percent to more than 20 percent. The US Census Bureau has reported that median income for the nation overall fell in each of the past 10 years.

But the street confrontations are bringing focus to a central question that those in the Occupy Oakland camp debated over and over during their 15 nights outside City Hall — whether demonstrators should opt for violence against police, meeting force with force.

The clear majority has supported nonviolence, and many are now frustrated that some in the crowd threw bottles and paint at the police. But some people favoring aggression are determined to continue the tactic. At the heart of the debate is what kind of message the movement wants to project, and in what way.

On one hand, television footage of chaos and tear gas riots earned the Oakland effort the kind of global news and Internet coverage it didn’t have before. On the other, many activists fear the violent image undercuts the basic message of reasoned rage over economic inequity and corporate greed.

David Hartsough, who helped lead civil rights sit-ins and marches in the South in the early 1960s, said he has been urging Occupy participants in Oakland and San Francisco to redouble efforts toward nonviolence.

“If people had fought back when police put the dogs on them in Selma and Birmingham, they wouldn’t have gathered the support they got,” said Hartsough, who founded the San Francisco-based Nonviolent Peaceforce.

When Tuesday’s protest devolved into a volley of rocks and tear gas, some organizers took to bullhorns to plead with the masked agitators to stop throwing projectiles at police. “If you throw something, you’re as bad as a cop,” one speaker said to the applause of several hundred people.

A chant followed, conveying the same message, but then someone from the back of the crowd lobbed a glass bottle that shattered on police helmets. Officers responded, lobbing tear gas again.

Occupy Oakland protester Casey Jones, 28, wore a T-shirt Wednesday reading “thrash and burn,” and skateboarded up and down Broadway yelling, “Bring it on!”

“I’m all about the riot — we need to be violent,” he said. “We need more numbers. We’ll just keep marching on.”

The San Francisco Chronicle