LiveStream from Occupy Oakland
UPDATE 0945 GMT: It appears that the situation is now a stand-off as police do not show an inclination to move --- at this time --- on the protesters' central location in the plaza in Oakland.
UPDATE 0815 GMT: Gary Aronsen of Mother Jones: "Loud bangs. People retreat from the plaza as some break windows of City Hall. Vandalism all over. People are pissed about it but can't stop it."
Joshua Holland of AlterNet: "At least five loud explosions."
It appears police have advanced about two blocks, pushing back demonstrators.
UPDATE 0800 GMT: Police have reportedly given protesters a five-minute warning to clear a central plaza.
UPDATE 0700 GMT: Police reportedly mobilised to disperse protesters, who had set barricades and reportedly set some of them alight. Tear gas appears to have been used.
Malia Wollan writes for The New York Times about the latest mass protest in California:
Thousands of Occupy Oakland protesters expanded their anti-Wall Street demonstrations on Wednesday, marching through downtown, picketing banks and swarming the port. By early evening, port authorities said maritime operations there were effectively shut down.
“Maritime area operations will resume when it is safe and secure to do so,” port officials said in a statement, asking marchers to “allow your fellow 99% to get home safe to their families.”
Despite the disruption of work, the crowd at the port was peaceful.
Protesters had called for a citywide general strike on Wednesday, and asked other demonstrators in cities across the country to do the same, after violent clashes with the police here last week that included tear gas barrages and injuries involving both police officers and protesters.
While the city was not shut down by the protest, many businesses chose to remain closed Wednesday. Some that stayed open posted signs declaring their support for the marchers.
Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland, a supporter of the movement who had nevertheless come under fire from the protesters after last week’s confrontations, had called for a minimal police presence on Wednesday. The police did keep a very low profile throughout the afternoon as the crowd grew and as splinter groups of hundreds of protesters broke off from the main body and pushed into surrounding streets.
“We support many of the demands, particularly the focus on foreclosures, fair lending practices and making capital available to low-income communities,” Ms. Quan said at a news conference.
Police officers needed to be on hand, she said, to protect everyone’s free-speech rights in balance with legitimate public safety concerns.
Some of the protesters blocked entrances to branches of Chase and Wells Fargo banks shouting: “Banks got bailed out. We got sold out.”
For more than a week, protesters had circulated strike posters and leaflets throughout the city reading “No Work. No school. Occupy Everywhere” and “Liberate Oakland and shut down the 1 Percent.”
Protesters in New York, Boston and Philadelphia also marched on Wednesday, some expressing solidarity with Oakland’s event.
The protesters here marched late Wednesday afternoon to Oakland’s waterfront, home to the fifth-busiest shipping port in the country, to try to shut it down. Rumors circulated through the crowd earlier in the day that port workers had failed to show up for their morning shifts, but port officials said that was not the case and that all seven maritime terminals were operating during the day.
About 40 port workers out of 325 did not report for work on Wednesday, said Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which did not authorize a strike.
But by early evening, Mr. Merrilees said, the port was shut down.
“Nothing is coming in or out of here right now" he said.