Report: Occupy Evictions Coordinated by Private Law Enforcement Think Tank

Occupy Oakland Calls for Day of "Re-Occupation”: Tomorrow - Sat., Nov. 19 with March and Actions beginning at 2:00 PM.

Image from Occupy Oakland

(OAKLAND, Calif.) - Leading members of the Oakland Occupy movement are questioning the evictions of a dozen Occupy camps across the country, following news that they have been coordinated by conference call between mayors’ offices and police departments and a private law enforcement think tank named PERF (Police Executive Research Forum).

According to a just-published report in The San Francisco Bay Guardian, PERF, an international non-governmental organization with ties to law enforcement and homeland security, has been coordinating the conference calls to advise major metropolitan mayors and police chiefs.

PERF has also issued a written blueprint for dealing with mass political protests. See http://www.policeforum.org/dotAsset/1491727.pdf and http://www.policeforum.org/library/critical-issues-in-policingseries/MassDemonstrations.pdf

As many as forty cities are reported to have accepted PERF’s advice, including San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Portland, Oakland, Atlanta, and Washington DC.

And Mayor Jean Quan, who has faced opposition from all sides for her handling of the Occupy camp across from her offices in City Hall, disclosed in an interview with the BBC (@5:32) that she spoke on a conference call with 18 other cities leading up to the raids.

PERF’s leadership includes Philadelphia Police Department Commissioner and former Washington DC Metro Police chief Charles Ramsey who was responsible for mass arrests at numerous protests against international banking institutions; former Philadelphia Police Department Commissioner and former Miami chief of police John Timoney, responsible for the so called “Miami Model,” coined after the brutal police crackdown on the 2003 protest against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas; and Minneapolis police chief Tim Dolan, who was responsible for the crackdown on protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention.

The Occupy movement, which has galvanized tens of thousands of Americans aspiring to a future without corporate domination, had long suspected that the recent street-clearings across the country were being coordinated.

Barucha Peller, an Occupy Oakland organizer said today, "We are not surprised that a coordinated nationwide effort to evict occupy protests has been underway because the occupation movement has swept the country and the world in historic proportions; in Egypt they were able to oust a dictator and in Oakland we held a general strike and port blockade costing millions to the one percent. Evictions continue to be necessary for the survival of those the state authorities protect, the one percent."

Quan told the BBC she had spoken with protesters in Oakland who were interested in "separating from anarchists" and that this played a role in the decision to evict Occupy Oakland.

Occupy Oakland has identified these protesters as being a part of Block by Block Organizing Network, an activist group led by Mayor Quan’s husband who have been obscuring themselves as "Occupy Oakland protesters" in order to work in tandem with Mayor Quan’s interests and undermine Occupy Oakland’s credibility.

In response to the recent eviction of Occupy Oakland and evictions across the country, Occupy Oakland has called for a day of "re-occupation" on Saturday November 19th, in which Occupy movements in cities across the nation re-take spaces in which to hold encampments and First Amendment protests.

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