There are a few helicopters overhead my place right now and the sounds of police sirens are prevalent.
Here is the report from the San Francisco Chronicle.
A protest over the fatal shooting by a BART police officer of an unarmed man mushroomed into a violent confrontation tonight, as a faction of protesters smashed a police car and storefronts, set a car on fire and blocked streets in downtown Oakland.
The protest started peacefully shortly after 3 p.m. at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland, where BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle shot 22-year-old Oscar Grant of Hayward to death early New Year's Day. BART shut down the station well into the evening commute, although the demonstration there was peaceful.
However, shortly after nightfall, a group of roughly 200 protesters split off and head toward downtown Oakland, prompting the transit agency to close the Lake Merritt station.
The local news is showing a large group of protesters around Jackson and 14th, a few blocks from me.
I will post more as I research this.
Some more info:
Protesters blocked the intersection of 14th and Broadway, near the downtown BART station entrance. As police put on helmets and gas masks and stood in a line formation, protesters held signs that read, "Your idea of justice?" and "Jail Killer Cops."
One man lay in the intersection with his face down and his hands behind his back - seemingly evoking the position that Grant was in when he was shot.
Youtube clip just posted
UPDATE: Apparently the mayor of Oakland, Ron Dellums was NOT leading a protest ( previous update was wrong) he just showed up to the march/rioting to help calm the situation.
Update 2: It appears the mayor has led a very large crowed to city hall in an attempt to calm the situation. I can not find a live link currently with audio. CBS 5 here in SF has a helicopter shot, but no audio. There is also suppose to be a news conference from the Oakland police any minute now. It appears the situation is calming down for the time being.
Update 3 9:51 PM PST: Local news is reporting that a second protest has been announced (by who I do not know) for tomorrow morning. Just in the past 5 minutes it appears the situation is escalating a bit again. The local news is showing live shots of tear gas being shot at people, and you can see dozens of protesters running. I can see at least 4 shots fired at the crowd. I am still waiting for a new conference from the Oakland police.
Final update for the evening: Dellum in front of city hall an hour ago said
Dellums explained "Oakland doesn't have any jurisdiction." Dellums told the crowd he has since asked the Oakland Police Department to investigate the killing as they would any other homicide _ which is a new development. "I have inserted us into the process," he said. Downtown Oakland became the site of a mini-riot Wednesday night, after a relatively peaceful demonstration that began at the Fruitvale BART Station turned violent.
The scene was surreal.
No jurisdiction? Is that because it was technically in Fruitvale? I am confused by this statement.
Personal update 11:09pm PST: I need to go to bed, but the helicopters are now directly over my house and it is absolutely deafening. So I am gonna try and update some more...
Update on officer involved:
The BART police officer under investigation for the fatal New Year's Day shooting of an unarmed man quit his job Wednesday rather than speak with investigators, an official said.
Former officer Johannes Mehserle, 27, has given no comment to BART investigators since the incident in which cell phone videos appeared to capture Mehserle shooting Oscar Grant III as Grant lay facedown on the ground at the Fruitvale station, BART spokesman Linton Johnson said Wednesday.
"We had a meeting scheduled for him to talk, and his attorney and a union rep came in his place and dropped off a letter of resignation instead," Johnson said. "It's interesting, because he was supposed to be talking for the administrative part of our investigation, which is privileged information and couldn't have been used in any criminal investigation anyway."