This is the escalator down to the 14th & Broadway BART station at Oscar Grant Plaza in downtown Oakland, CA.
We Have Chalk, They Have Guns. Tell Me Who Are The Violent Ones?
It is steps away from where Scott Olsen was shot in the head by a bean bag round on October 25, 2011 by the Oakland Police. It is also just steps away from where I watched a young woman with no shield and no intention of hurting anyone get bashed in the head by an OPD officer and bleed down her face on May Day, May 1st, 2012.
Fifty yards to the left is the amphitheatre, where, in the aftermath of January 28th, the police almost caused a riot which could have trampled older people and made them fall down the marble steps of the stage. Because of a unpermitted sound system.
Three miles to the north multiple UC Berkeley students were beaten with batons on November 10th because of a tent pitched on Sproul Plaza.
It is 372.5 driving miles from downtown Oakland to Los Angeles, where last night the LAPD shot an innocent bystander in the eye and another person in the chest with rubber bullets because some people were committing the high crime of chalkifying a sidewalk.
The chalkify going down Friday afternoon at OGP in solidarity with the artists and protesters terrorized by the LAPD last night.
It is about 7800 miles from Oakland to Cairo where a year and a half ago people were gunned down in the streets by police for wanting a better future for themselves and their children.
It is a long way to Mars. The distance varies from about 55 million kilometers to 400 million kilometers. There, the rover Opportunity, one of the most astounding technological achievements humans have achieved, is in its eighth year of a planned 90-day mission, still making it's way about the Red Planet without a police escort.
Thank the Gods the police have not (yet) reached Barsoom so to beat the device senseless for maliciously blocking a crater and then arresting it for drawing wheeltracks onto the surface of a public planet.
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Shot of escalator by OaklandElle.
Chalkify shot at OGG by Fresh Juice Party.
5:12 PM PT:
#OccupyLA @OccupyLA
People involved with OLA and at last night #chalkwalk #chalkisnotacrime will be on #KPFK in a few moments. #OWS ~ TD http://kpfk.org/...
5:21 PM PT:
Freedom @OccupyFreedomLA
There's no question #LAPD brought the violence to #DTLA last night
5:47 PM PT: From the radio show. One of the LA Occupiers.
"I chose to hide behind a BMW... I figured they ((the police)) weren't going to take a shot at it."
5:48 PM PT:
"Hundreds of police. Helicopters hovering overhead. Mass confusion."
5:50 PM PT: "I was just walking down the street and they fuckin' shot me."