Crime & Safety

Pacifica Cops Occupied in Oakland

Two Pacifica Police officers and two Foster City Police Department Corporals summoned to Oakland to help dismantle Occupy encampment. This is the second time PPD has been there in recent weeks.

From the relative tranquility of Pacifica and Foster City to a downtown area that in recent weeks has more closely resembled a war zone.

That was the change of scenery two Pacifica and two Foster City cops experienced yesterday morning after being summoned to the East Bay to participate in the dismantling of an Occupy encampment in downtown Oakland.

Pacifica sent a Segeant and one officer while Foster City sent two Corporals to the East Bay at about 3:30 a.m. on orders from the Office of Emergency Services’ Mutual Aid Mobile Field Force, Chief Jim Tasa and Foster City Police Department Captain Jon Froomin told Patch.

Find out what's happening in Pacificawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Occupy Oakland assignment was the third for Foster City police and second for Pacifica Police, who’d been involved in prior engagements with Occupy Oakland. No Pacifica nor Foster City officers have been hurt on their Occupy tours.

The Pacifica cops were among hundreds of law enforcement officers who converged on the encampment just before dawn yesterday.

Find out what's happening in Pacificawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Monday’s raid was peaceful. Police used tear gas and flash grenades to quell the protesters in previous Occupy Oakland incidents that have made national headlines.

“It’s a different experience,” Froomin said, “especially for our officers, because we don’t run into those types of situations (in Foster City), so in addition to our holding up our end of the bargain, doing what we’re committed to doing, it’s good training for our officers so should we have an event of similar nature or even close, we have officers who’ve been to other communities and been part of that process.”

Law enforcement agencies from throughout the Bay Area were sent to Oakland on orders from the OES.

Chief Tasa said he is looking into being reimbursed for his officers' time in Oakland rather than taking the normal route with a mutual aid call and just expecting like treatment from Oakland Police should Pacifica need it in the future. 

Police made 32 arrests in the early-morning raid, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The raid followed a week in which the Occupy protests in the Bay Area have turned violent.

An Oakland man who reportedly frequented the Oakland Occupy rallies was shot to death just outside the encampment on Thursday - as had at least one of the suspects in his death.

Across the bay, two police officers were injured on Saturday during an Occupy San Francisco rally, the Los Angeles Times reported. One protester slashed an officer’s hand with a razor blade, and another suffered facial cuts while chasing a protester who stole his radio.

Earlier in the week, a 23-year-old Los Angeles-area man was arrested for possession of a semiautomatic handgun at a Nov. 8 rally in San Francisco, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Today’s raid came on orders from embattled Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, who told reporters after the raid that the protest had strayed from its original anti-Wall Street message.

"The encampment became a place where we had repeated violence and, this week, a murder,” she said. “We had to bring the camp to an end before more people were hurt."

Pacifica was among four Peninsula police departments tapped for today’s raid beside Foster City. Broadmoor, Daly City and Burlingame were the others.

“They’ve learned what to do, and what we don’t want to do,” Froomin said. “It’s a good opportunity to learn and bring that back here.”

- Bay City News contributed to this report


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