Wednesday’s Occupy Oakland protest was by most accounts, a success. More than 10,000 protesters participated, as did a scattering of local businesses.
The protester ranks were buffetted by SEIU 1021, the largest union in Oakland, which pledged their support days beforehand.
Marching from City Hall to the Port of Oakland, the protesters left a trail of vandalized banks (and a Whole Foods) in their wake.
Come nightfall, the protest, which until then had been mostly peaceful, took an unexpected turn as protesters occupied an abandoned building and set up a burning barricade. About 60 protesters were arrested by the Oakland Police Department early Thursday morning.
As has been the case with most Occupy events, Twitter was the place to go to moniter the protest in real time.