My heartfelt congratulations and appreciation to the Oakland Tribune, the Bay Area News Group, Sean Maher and Kristin Bender for the following fantastic report on the riot in Oakland following the Mehserle verdict. This is an impressive and much-needed positive approach to the outrage that followed the reading of the verdict in the Oscar Grant murder trial.

I completely understand the wide range of emotional reactions by individuals who have a stake in this trial.  I support the right to public assembly, protest and free speech.

I do not condone the vandalism and looting that some individuals chose to engage in as a result of the verdict.

Mr. Maher and Ms. Bender showed great courage in reporting this story and finding some positive meaning in an otherwise series of tragic events. 

In chaos, many worked to keep the peace in Oakland
By Sean Maher and Kristin Bender
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 07/09/2010 03:54:44 PM PDT

OAKLAND — Broadway was littered with empty shoe boxes and hangers as a puzzled Tarrell Gamble left his downtown investment banking office Thursday evening.

“I didn’t really understand what was going on,” Gamble said Friday. “When I got closer, I realized people were starting to loot. I didn’t know how long it had been going on, but I started to go over there and kick people out, telling them, ‘Get out, get out, get out.’”

The Foot Locker shoe store at 14th Street and Broadway had its windows smashed and had been looted of high-end sports shoes and T-shirts. Men, including one wearing a handmade Oscar Grant mask, balanced two, three and four boxes of shoes in their arms as they squeezed through a throng of people and out the door of the vandalized store.

More than an hour after the organized — and relatively peaceful — demonstration ended on Broadway, things began heating up and police herded the crowd north on Broadway, away from the City Center. There were plenty of people out to trash the city. [snip]

 But there were peacekeepers out there, too, including a team of 50 civilians in orange vests dispatched by the city to help patrol the streets.

As dozens rushed the Foot Locker, Gamble, 34, stood guard.

He tried to prevent people from entering.

He yelled.

People continued to loot.

[snip]

Gamble kept his calm.

“It’s the difference between right and wrong,” he said Friday. “At what point do you stand up for what’s right?”

Police arrested 78 people Thursday night and early Friday. More than 1,000 people came to downtown Thursday evening and early Friday.

Most were peaceful, but a small group smashed windows, vandalized or looted 60 to 100 businesses, said Oakland police spokeswoman Holly Joshi.

Of those, at least six stores, including a coin shop, jewelry store, grocery store, and beauty salon, had items stolen, police said.

Gamble was joined at the storefront by Alicia English, a 26-year-old Oakland resident and activist who had attended the demonstration.

“I stood out there,” she said, “trying to stop people, and I said, ‘I refuse to represent my people like this. I’m not here to make my people look ugly. I’m here for Oscar Grant, and if you’re not here for Oscar Grant, you got to go. This is not something he’d want you to do.’”

Geoffrey Pete is an Oakland resident and downtown commercial building owner who said he spent about eight hours in downtown attending the demonstration and talking to more than a dozen young men about staying out of trouble. Some listened. Some nodded and said, “OK, we got you, old-timer, we got you,” said Pete, 59.

“As a business owner in town, I have a responsibility to come down and do everything in my power to (keep) the peace. You can only do what you can do.”

August Mears, an artist who works as an executive assistant at Kaiser, started her peacekeeping days before the Thursday night violence.

Mears used about $500 of her own money and donations from two Oakland businesses to print about 1,100 posters reading “LOVE not Blood for the Streets of Oakland.”

She had done an original oil painting a few years ago for a show and turned it into a poster last week when she heard about the threat of unrest, she said.

The big red heart with yellow wings is simple but the message is powerful, she said. And she hopes some people heard it. “No one thing is a solution to everything,” she said. “But every little bit helps, and those little bits add up. I am trying to do my part.”

For full article, click [1] here.

Have a peaceful weekend!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

[2] Guide to Self

“Like GPS for your life“