OAKLAND, Calif. - Small-business owners in Oakland's tree-lined downtown swept up broken glass Tuesday and tried to distance their city from the prior night's images of young men setting garbage cans on fire and throwing bottles at storefronts.
'The rage and anger -- I get it, we have to change something. But intimidating people and singling people out doesn't help anything,' said Julie Harleman, owner of Maple Street Denim, a clothing boutique near the heart of Monday's protests over the Michael Brown grand jury verdict.
'People don't really think of the psychological effect [protests and vandalism] have,' said Kerri Lee Johnson, her neighbor, who was opening up at Marion & Rose's Workshop. 'We're still getting over three years ago.' She's worried, she says, of more 'nights of chaos.'
The city experienced destructive protests in early 2009 after the shooting death of unarmed black teen Oscar Grant III at the hands of a transit police officer, and then violent confrontations with police during the Occupy protests of 2011. Day to day, it's also wrestling with serious issues of drug and gang-related violence: The city has had more than 70 homicides this year, and has a violent crime rate that's three times the rate of nearby Berkeley.
As the sun went down Tuesday, protesters were starting to gather again in downtown Oakland.
More than 1,000 mostly peaceful protesters converged late Monday on the downtown Oakland thoroughfare of Broadway after a grand jury in Ferguson, Mo. announced it would not press charges against Darren Wilson, the white police officer who in August shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. At one point, the Oakland protesters laid down in a silent 'die-in' protest as others drew chalk lines around their bodies.
The jury decision, seen by Brown's family and many African-Americans as emblematic of a justice system that holds black men and women to a different standard than their white counterparts, set off protests around the country. Those in Ferguson, Mo. had a particularly destructive edge: According to St. Louis County Police, at least a dozen buildings were set ablaze and two police cars were set on fire as a result of Monday night's protests and vandalism.
In Oakland, some protesters climbed on the nearby Interstate 580, shutting down one direction of a major freeway connector for more than an hour. A cluster of others smashed storefronts around Broadway and Eighth Street and set garbage cans on fire. By Tuesday morning, the front of Starbucks and the Smart & Final grocery store were boarded up with plywood. Workers were installing nine new windows at the Wells Fargo at 12th and Broadway, near the BART station. More than 40 were arrested in connection with the vandalism and looting.
'They done tore this city up,' said Mike Johnson, a homeless man who said he was hiding in the park during the worst of the destruction.
Danelle Alvarado on Tuesday was sweeping up piles of broken glass after looters broke the storefront windows of a MetroPCS store, taking all the phones, the safe, the computer, leaving a trashed store and a spray of blood on the walls. Her husband works at the store and she came to help out.
'This is not right, this is disrespectful,' she said.
The handful of stores damaged cast a pall over 'Old Oakland,' one of the focal points for a revitalization effort that's attracted young, hip entrepreneurs from nearby San Francisco and Berkeley, who have opened up Belgian beer bars and custom clothing shops alongside the neighborhood's Chinese establishments and municipal offices.
K.C. Lutes and Mireya Albarran, two of the founders of the Manifesta hair salon on Broadway, said they received a call from a neighboring business that about six individuals, distinct from the larger group, were throwing bottles and rocks at store fronts. The owner of a nearby bar and his security guard came to help, and forced some of them off.
Some of the peaceful protesters came by to apologize and help clean up when they saw the damage, Albarran said. One fetched some plywood to board the window. By Tuesday, the fragrant-smelling salon showed little signs of the prior night's rampage.
But Lutes and Albarran, echoing a sentiment shared by other neighboring businesses, said they're afraid all people will see are the photos of Oakland burning and looting. Their message, said Lutes: 'If you love Oakland, don't stop coming.'
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Entities 0 Name: OAKLAND Count: 8 1 Name: Albarran Count: 2 2 Name: Ferguson Count: 2 3 Name: Berkeley Count: 2 4 Name: Lutes Count: 2 5 Name: Michael Brown Count: 2 6 Name: Mo. Count: 2 7 Name: San Francisco Count: 1 8 Name: Brown Count: 1 9 Name: Calif. Count: 1 10 Name: Wells Fargo Count: 1 11 Name: K.C. Lutes Count: 1 12 Name: Mike Johnson Count: 1 13 Name: Starbucks Count: 1 14 Name: MetroPCS Count: 1 15 Name: Eighth Street Count: 1 16 Name: Mireya Albarran Count: 1 17 Name: Darren Wilson Count: 1 18 Name: Julie Harleman Count: 1 19 Name: Kerri Lee Johnson Count: 1 20 Name: Danelle Alvarado Count: 1 21 Name: St. Louis County Count: 1 22 Name: Marion & Rose Count: 1 23 Name: Maple Street Denim Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1plKqhV Title: Oakland protests over Ferguson decision turn violent Description: A second night of coast-to-coast protests over a Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict a white police officer for fatally shooting a black man found fertile ground â€" again â€" in Oakland, where protesters looted businesses, lit fires, attacked police and shut down two freeways.