Getting ready for a march. The police are always around Ogawa Plaza, or wherever these folks congregate. Heavy presence in the city yesterday.
So later, I'm sitting in the apartment, the Pats finished up destroying the Broncos, the TV is nattering on in the background, I've got my eyes closed and am partially drifting off... and all of a sudden, motorcycles. Loud. I thought maybe they were just passing by, but it kept up.
And then the chants started.
By the time I got up, found the glasses, found the camera, they had marched by the window... and I caught them walking down MLK, followed by 9 vans filled with cops, regular OPD cars, and unmarked police cars too. It was quite the procession. Two helicopters started circling later. The police actually generated more noise than the protesters.
Half tempted to throw on a jacket and go join them, but I hate shooting in the dark, and I really have no desire to tangle with the Oakland PD. This hardcore group has been confrontational in the past; last night only two were arrested in what the press described as a "peaceful" protest. Or, put it this way, there were more people ticketed at the 49ers game, so this was pretty tame in comparison.
Right now I've got a bandwidth limit on the phone modem (thanks Verizon!) and I'm testing the limits of that, so I can't put up a lot of pictures at this point. Plus, I'm not going to have a lot of time for such things for the foreseeable future - but if they march in the day and I'm around, I'll be sure to go shoot.
And eventually, other pictures too, promise. :-)