The Blame Game and #OccupyOakland

I had heard last night that there was a(nother) planned eviction of Occupy Oakland set for this morning.  Nothing much to do but hope and pray that the cops wouldn't turn violent again.  Reading this morning's news, it seems that things were indeed relatively peaceful - legal observers and press observers were permitted to be in the camp unharassed by police, and while the encampment is gone again and there were 32 people arrested - mostly clergy and religious personnel from what I've heard, good job, I'm sure handcuffing priests is absolutely vital to the security of the nation - it did happen without the police brutality that has been the hallmark of these repeated attempts to quash the Occupy movement.

But this morning, in perusing my Twitter feed to catch up on the news, I came across this tweet from my local news channel, @abc7newsBayArea:

Screenshot of a tweet from @abc7newsBayArea reading "Mayor @JeanQuan said over 175 911 calls were not answered this past week because of police attention to #OccupyOakland"

This unfortunately follows the usual pattern of Mayor Quan's faux-populism attacks on #OO: point to various bad things in the city that are harming the people of Oakland, then blame the effects on #OO whether they're related or not.  When there was a shooting near the camp that ended with one man dead, even though neither the victim nor the shooter(s) were affiliated or involved with #OO, Quan used it to call for the encampent to disband because "violence is unacceptable".  It's Oakland, for fuck's sake!  One of the most violent cities in the Bay Area!  Shootings like the one that took place near #OO happen tragically often in Oakland, and statistically speaking it was just a matter of time before one happened in proximity to #OO.  Even OPD declared it unrelated, but Quan tried to make out like it was Occupy's fault and used it to justify evicting the encampment today


And now, this tweet this morning, which holds the not-so-subtle implication that it's #OO's fault that the police are spending time harassing #OO and were thus unable to respond to other calls.  Mayor Quan, you know there's a simple solution to that, right?  Leave Occupy the fuck alone.  All the cops have done around Occupy is stir up more trouble and escalate tensions.  YOU are the one choosing to devote so many police resources - and spending $2.4 million the city could ill afford to cover the costs of evicting #OO this morning, too - to Occupy and thus depriving your other constituents of what little protection or help they might have gained from the cops this past week when those calls were going unanswered.  Don't blame this on Occupy.  Take responsibility for your own actions and your own choices and what they are costing the people of your city, all because you're feeling threatened by some peaceful but very visible protests.