Foster City Cops Occupied in Oakland

From the tranquility of suburban Foster City, to a downtown area that in recent weeks has more closely resembled a war zone

That was the change of scenery two Foster City cops experienced this morning after being summoned to the East Bay to participate in the dismantling of an Occupy encampment in downtown Oakland.

Foster City sent two Corporals to the East Bay at about 3:30 a.m. on orders from the Office of Emergency Services’ Mutual Aid Mobile Field Force, FCPD Captain Jon Froomin told Patch. The officers were expected back at the station by the end of their shift at noon.

The Occupy Oakland assignment was the third for Foster City police, who’ve seen protesters “throwing bottles and fecal matter” at police in some of their previous deployments, Froomin said. No Foster City officers have been hurt on their Occupy tours.

The FCPD cops were among hundreds of law enforcement officers who converged on the encampment just before dawn.

Monday’s raid was peaceful. Police used tear gas and flash grenades to quell the protesters in previous Occupy Oakland incidents that have made national headlines

“It’s a different experience,” Froomin said, “especially for our officers, because we don’t run into those types of situations (in Foster City), so in addition to our holding up our end of the bargain, doing what we’re committed to doing, it’s good training for our officers so should we have an event of similar nature or even close, we have officers who’ve been to other communities and been part of that process.”

Law enforcement agencies from throughout the Bay Area were sent to Oakland on orders from the OES.

Police made 32 arrests in the early-morning raid, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The raid followed a week in which the Occupy protests in the Bay Area have turned violent.

An Oakland man who reportedly frequented the Oakland Occupy rallies was shot to death just outside the encampment on Thursday - as had at least one of the suspects in his death.

Across the bay, two police officers were injured on Saturday during an Occupy San Francisco rally, the Los Angeles Times reported. One protester slashed an officer’s hand with a razor blade, and another suffered facial cuts while chasing a protester who stole his radio.

Earlier in the week, a 23-year-old Los Angeles-area man was arrested for possession of a semiautomatic handgun at a Nov. 8 rally in San Francisco, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Today’s raid came on orders from embattled Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, who told reporters after the raid that the protest had strayed from its original anti-Wall Street message.

"The encampment became a place where we had repeated violence and, this week, a murder,” she said. “We had to bring the camp to an end before more people were hurt."

The FCPD was among four Peninsula police departments tapped for today’s raid. Pacifica, Broadmoor, Daly City and Burlingame were the others.

“They’ve learned what to do, and what we don’t want to do,” Froomin said. “It’s a good opportunity to learn and bring that back here.”

- Bay City News contributed to this report