There was tension on both sides of the San Francisco Bay overnight surrounding both the Occupy Oakland and Occupy San Francisco camp sites.
In the end, all remained quiet with no confrontations at either site. In fact, city leaders in Oakland and San Francisco seemed to reverse positions Thursday with wins going to the Occupy corner.
In Oakland, although the city said they would not allow anyone to be on the grass at Frank Ogawa Plaza, allowed tents to go back up Thursday. A fence that was set up by city workers to keep people off the grass was taken down by protesters and turned into a triangle-type pyramid. (Pictured below)
A tense night in San Francicsco, proved to be a lot of people standing around and waiting for nothing.
Dozens of San Francisco police officers were seen gathering on Treasure Island in riot gear. Word spread that San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was going to make the call that the camp had become a health hazard and order police to clear it.
San Francisco police officer Carlos Manfredi told Bay City News that police were mobilized to deal with a possible riot in Oakland and never intended to raid the camp. "In light of what was occurring over in Oakland, we didn't know if there was going to be any spill over," Manfredi told BCN.
But a rumor that a raid might come overnight Wednesday caused a large crowd of pro-Occupy protesters to gather at Justin Herman Plaza. Included in that crowd was five members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and other city and state officials.
The elected officials were also there because they did not want the same thing to happen in San Francisco as it did in Oakland Tuesday morning when that camp was raided and dozens arrested. The protest that followed that raid including the dispersant of tear gas at several points and the critical injury of one protester who was hit in the head with a canister of tear gas. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan had this to say about his injury: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} "I want to express our deepest concern for all of those who were injured last night, and we are committed to ensuring this does not happen again. Investigations of certain incidents are underway and I will personally monitor them."
A second vigil was held Thursday night in Olsen's honor in Oakland.
