Oakland Police Fire Rubber Bullets at Anti-War Protesters - ap

Oakland Police Fire Rubber Bullets at Anti-War Protesters
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 4:49 p.m. ET

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – Police opened fire with non-lethal projectiles at an
anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland on Monday, injuring at least a dozen
demonstrators and six longshoremen standing nearby.

Most of the 500 demonstrators were dispersed peacefully, but police shot the
projectiles at two gates when protesters refused to move and some of them
allegedly threw rocks and bolts. The longshoremen, pinned against a fence,
were caught in the line of fire.
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Police spokeswoman Danielle Ashford said officers fired bean-bag rounds and
wooden dowels. They also used ``sting balls,'' which send out a spray of
BB-sized rubber pellets and a cloud of tear gas and feel like a bee sting
when they hit someone.

Demonstrators said they targeted the port because at least one company there
is handling war supplies. They said it was the first time they had been
fired upon in Bay area protests since the Iraq war began last month.

``Oakland police are being the most aggressive of any department I've seen
in the Bay Area since the war began,'' said protester Damien McAnany, a
database manager. ``The San Francisco Police Department never used any of
this stuff against us.''

Liz Highleyman, a San Francisco writer who has been at many of the major
protests across the country in recent years, said the police response
reminded her of the World Trade Organization riots in Seattle four years
ago.

``This is a level of injury as high as I've seen anywhere since Seattle in
1999,'' she said.

About 200 of the port demonstrators later marched to the federal building in
Oakland, blocking a street and chanting: ``Out of the office and into the
streets! U.S. out of the Middle East!'' They were joined by Oakland City
Council members Jane Bruner and Jean Quan.

``They should not have been using the wooden bullets,'' Bruner said. ``Given
what's happening in the world today, we're going to be seeing more of this.
And we should be prepared to handle it.''

Oakland Police said at least 24 people were arrested.

``Some people were blocking port property and the port authorities asked us
to move them off,'' said Deputy Police Chief Patrick Haw. ``Police moved
aggressively against crowds because some people threw rocks and big iron
bolts at officers.''

Six longshoremen were treated by paramedics, some of whom had bloody welts
the size of a silver dollar.

``I was standing as far back as I could,'' said longshoremen Kevin Wilson.
``It was very scary. All of that force wasn't necessary.''

Steve Stallone, spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union, said most of the dockworkers went back to work after the protesters
left. A few were too shaken up to return.

He said a union arbitrator was evaluating the situation, trying to determine
whether the longshoremen should cross the protesters' picket line and go to
work, when police started firing.

``They didn't care,'' he said. ``They just attacked the picket line. They
declared it an illegal assembly and gave people two minutes to disperse. The
police did not move to arrest anyone, they just started shooting.''

Protests also took place Monday at the federal building in San Francisco and
at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. And seven people were arrested when
they temporarily blocked an exit ramp off Interstate 280 in San Francisco.