Officers from the Oakland Police Department and other regional law enforcement agencies raided the Occupy Oakland encampment early this morning, tearing down the protest site while activists and supporters milled about in the intersection at 14th and Broadway streets, chanting and shouting "Shame! Shame! Shame!"

Protesters had received eviction notices from the City of Oakland in the days before the raid, and word that a police crackdown was imminent traveled via Twitter and text message updates, bringing several hundred people out into the intersection beginning around 2 a.m. Read more »

Late yesterday afternoon, the word was that Occupy Oakland might be facing another raid Nov. 9. As things happened, there was a clash between police and protesters in the East Bay yesterday -- but not in Oakland. Campus police brought heat to neighboring Berkeley instead, where protesters angered by income inequality and the rising costs of higher education have launched Occupy Cal, a student-led occupation on the University of California Berkeley campus. Read more »

Spirits were high at Sup. Ross Mirkarimi's election night party at Carnelian by the Bay Nov. 8, as polling numbers seemed to be trending in his favor in the race for San Francisco sheriff. Around 10:30 p.m., supporters were flooding into the main lounge, a spacious venue with low lighting and huge windows overlooking the Bay Bridge. Plastic deputy sheriff stars were being passed around as party favors.Read more »

At the Carnelian by the Bay behind the Ferry Building, District 5 supervisor Ross Mirkarimi seemed like a guy who didn't want to speak too soon.

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Chris Cunnie's event at the Delancey Street Foundation was packed early with top pub safety officials -- San Francisco police chief Greg Suhr, San Francisco Firefighters Union president John Hanley, San Francisco Police Officers Association president Gary Delagnes.

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Having spent all day in Oakland Wedesday for the General Strike launched by Occupy Oakland, I knew something was wrong when I read reports like this one, which appeared in the San Jose Mercury News:

"Quan said she was happy the crowd -- which police estimate hit 7,000 people at one point -- protested all day with only a small amount of destruction and violence." (Emphasis mine.)Read more »

UPDATE: Police have issued another dispersal order, declaring an unlawful assembly anwyhere on Broadway past 14th Street.

UPDATE: I'm getting reports that police have told media they're planning to arrest everyone in the camp.

UPDATE: I just spoke to the Guardian's Yael Chanoff, who was on the scene when police broke out the tear gas. She said it went off at least three or four times, and that a line of riot police was stationed on 16th Street nearby Frank Ogawa Plaza, the site of the encampment which has been renamed Oscar Grant Plaza by Occupy Oakland.Read more »

The grand finale of a day of rallies and marches scheduled for Oakland's Nov. 2 General Strike was a shutdown of the Port of Oakland, in which hordes of protesters accessed the property from different entry points, standing atop train cars and trucks while whooping and chanting. Clusters of groups blocking each gate of the sprawling property featured something different: Brass bands, small assemblies using the "human mic" style of communicating as a crowd, dance parties, and impromptu reunions.Read more »

At a rally of some 2,000 activists held in Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza Oct. 26 -- the day after a brutal police crackdown left 24-year-old war veteran Scott Olsen in critical condition from a skull fracture inflicted by a police projectile -- Occupy Oakland's general assembly reached a 96 percent consensus agreement to call for a general strike to be held Nov. 2. Read more »