April 2, 2012: Police Push Protesters Into the Street [Read description]
EDIT 5/2/12:
I'm tired of people crying "but you were blocking traffic!" No, we weren't. For the majority of the time we stood there, we stood off to the side. The traffic on the street behind us was moving along fine with an officer helping direct traffic from time to time. The only time we were in the way of traffic was when the SF Sheriff's officers moved us into traffic to get a sheriff's bus through. We weren't not informed of what was going on, the officers simply came at us without telling us a single thing. There was no warning and no information as to why they were coming at us with their weapons drawn. At the time, it seemed they were coming at us for no reason. We had no warning whatsoever. While I don't agree with calling the cops "pigs", many protesters did get defensive because we had no warning and no idea why the police were coming at us with their weapons drawn. It's sort of understandable why protesters would get defensive and overreact a bit when armed officers are coming towards them for seemingly no reason, isn't it? We had no idea why the police were coming at us. While it may not necessarily justify the acts of name-calling the police, it does shed some light on why people acted the way they did and perhaps I should have given more detail when this was originally posted.
So no, we were not blocking traffic until the police pushed us into traffic, hence why this video has the name it does. That being said, I don't necessarily agree with the way other protesters were shouting at the police the way they were. When I was filming this, I was completely silent. I was not one of the people shouting at the police and I am not responsible for what the other protesters said. I do think some people took it a bit overboard with calling the police "pigs". I have a lot of love for my brothers and sisters in this entire movement, but that doesn't mean I'll agree with everything my fellow protesters do/say.
ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION WHEN POSTED:
In my opinion, this was completely unnecessary what the officers did. The paramilitary looking officers didn't need to push us into traffic like that and they certainly didn't need to hurt anyone. SFPD went overboard. Completely overboard.
This is footage from the raid that SFPD did on the building Occupy SF occupied, the building was located on 888 Turk Street and Occupy SF was in there for a day before being raided.