As many of us watched in horror as Ferguson, Missouri police lobbed tear gas grenades and fired rubber bullets into crowds of their own citizens, demonstrations in Oakland and San Francisco yesterday made a show of solidarity with a national movement memorializing victims of police violence.
Michael Brown's death at the hands of Ferguson police is an all too familiar scenario for Bay Area residents. Oakland and San Francisco lost two of their own, Oscar Grant and Alex Nieto, at the hands of local police.
But as hundreds of peaceful demonstrators in Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza took part in the National Moment of Silence in honor of Brown, that quiet was disrupted by the loud chop-chop-chop of a helicopter hovering directly overhead. Read more »