Our reporter Susie Cagle published on TruthOut again last week the second in a multi-part series on the history of Occupy Oakland. It is obviously a moving a target as things with Occupy Oakland continue to progress. We will update you all as more pieces in the "History of Occupy Oakland" are published. Susie continues to cover this topic for publications like Alternet and is a frequent radio guest to help tell the story of what is happening. You can support her continued effort by contributing to this pitch (all funds go to Susie) and/or her WePay page.
Read the full piece at TruthOut.
Our reporter Susie Cagle published on TruthOut last week the first in a multi-part series on the history of Occupy Oakland. It is obviously a moving a target as things with Occupy Oakland continue to progress. We will update you all as more pieces in the "History of Occupy Oakland" are published. Susie continues to cover this topic for publications like Alternet and is a frequent radio guest to help tell the story of what is happening. You can support her continued effort by contributing to this pitch (all funds go to Susie) and/or her WePay page.
Activists and Anarchists Speak for Themselves at Occupy Oakland
Occupy Oakland, January 28, 2012. (Photo: J. Paul Zoccali)
Posted by Spot. Us on 02/10/12Our reporter Susie Cagle published on TruthOut last week the first in a multi-part series on the history of Occupy Oakland. It is obviously a moving a target as things with Occupy Oakland continue to progress. We will update you all as more pieces in the "History of Occupy Oakland" are published. Susie continues to cover this topic for publications like Alternet and is a frequent radio guest to help tell the story of what is happening. You can support her continued effort by contributing to this pitch (all funds go to Susie) and/or her WePay page.
See Susie's full piece at TruthOut.
You should really just be following me on Twitter these days by the way — where, sorry conspiracy theorists, but the powers that be are not censoring the #Occupy hashtags.
But if you’re not, I’ve recently written new Occupy stories for the Awl and the SF Appeal, and I’m contributing more frequent coverage over at In These Times on the Uprising blog with the inimitable Allison Kilkenny.
Flash mobs, mic checks, port shutdowns, all of it, and so much more in the works.
If you’re reading this, you probably already know that full-time freelance reporting is not an easy life to live. I have no institutional support or colleagues on whom to rely for help, and my expenses are all on me. While I’ve embraced my poverty for the last several years, I’ve been able to supplement my income with various short gigs and well-paid drawing jobs. Covering a popular movement, especially in an economically depressed city, is not nearly so lucrative.
But I don’t really fucking care.
You can contribute more to this Spot.Us pitch to help me stay on the Occupy beat and not have to take on some less than ideal illustration jobs to make ends. If you can, a couple bucks would help more than you might think. You can click "free credits" if the opportunity is there and help contribute money free to you! And thanks so much to everyone who has helped already.
Posted by Spot. Us on 12/18/11
Our reporter has done a short history of Occupy Oakland that has been published by Good Magazine. Note: This is not the final piece. Just something to tide you over and give us an overview of what has happened with Occupy Oakland since it began.
Yesterday marked Oakland's first day in six weeks without an Occupy encampment—the camps were peacefully cleared last weekend by the city's embattled government after weeks of confrontations between demonstrators and police at Frank Ogawa Plaza outside City Hall.
The camp may be gone, but Occupy Oakland lives on. As one man put it as he loaded supplies into a van outside a raided Snow Park at 1:30 a.m. Monday morning, "This isn't the end of the occupation—it's just the end of phase one."
View the short illustrated history of Occupy Oakland at Good Magazine and stay patient while Susie works on a more thorough version to come soon.
Posted by Spot. Us on 11/23/11
I was arrested while reporting on Occupy Oakland on Thursday at about 1 am, wearing my press pass. My arresting officer acknowledged that I was press, and his officer friend even recognized me and knew my work (if you’re reading this, sir I would sure like to interview you!). I had a meeting set with the OPD press information officer for 8 hours later to obtain my official OPD press credentials. When I told this to the cops, they replied, “Do you want us to call her and tell her you’ll be late?”
I was detained for 15 hours and ultimately charged with the same misdemeanor as other demonstrators and NLG legal observers: PC 409, failure to leave the scene of a riot. Our arraignment dates are a month from now, and we were explicitly warned against returning to the plaza in the meantime. As I told ABC7, I feel like the OPD does, I think: confused.
You know it’s bad when Occupy Veterans is sending you personal supportive messages. This is a crappy video that I took while trying to run to safety — instead I ran into the kettle.
If you are interested in the whole saga, swim up my Twitter stream. The Oakland Police Department arrested 103 people that night, some of whom were not involved in Occupy at all. 95 received the PC 409 misdemeanor citation, but interim OPD Chief Howard Jordan told the New York Times that the group of arrestees were “generally anarchists and provocateurs.”
I am not the first journalist arrested while covering Occupy, and I doubt I’ll be the last — but I’m not clear on if other journalists are being charged with crimes, or arrested and released. Any information appreciated.
I’ll have a full piece about this clusterfuck at Alternet. I’m also still fundraising at Spot.Us for my illustrated history of Occupy Oakland (buy original art!). I may have an awesome new publisher for that — more details next week.
From the Alternet piece: "Journalists have no special protections in Occupy demonstrations, especially journalists representing national media organizations. Local police rules give privilege to local media with locally dispensed "official" press passes, resulting in a local media who are more or less embedded with the government. This system actively discourages prying outside eyes.
But my experience counterintuitively revealed the opposite. At a time of such intense public scrutiny, the Oakland Police Department made the mistake of arresting a journalist, and sending her into the heart of an ugly process with which not only demonstrators but many other Oakland residents have long been familiar. They gave me an unmatched, visceral opportunity to understand what makes Oakland residents so angry with the police."
Posted by Spot. Us on 11/10/11
Susie Cagle, the reporter behind the illustrated history of Occupy Oakland pitch, was arrested last night at the protests.
Unfortunately - we don't have all the details but you can read more about it at Fishbowl LA. Their post was reblogged by Poynter and both reference Susie's father, a professional cartoonist, who has also blogged this event.
Susie's Twitter stream is being updated by a friend and it includes actions we can take to help get Susie released from custody.
Earlier while covering the protests Susie was also tear-gassed. Between these two events it would be hard to doubt Susie's integrity as somebody that puts herself out there to do reporting for all of us, her donors and the general public.
We will keep you up to date as best we can.
Posted by Spot. Us on 11/03/11
Above is one of the drawings I did of Occupy Oakland's Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant plaza camp before Tuesday's raid -- actually less than 12 hours before. This was the free school and library before it was trampled and thrown in the back of city garbage trucks.
I'll be posting more of these this week, since things have gotten a bit calmer. After Wednesday's day of General Strike actions I'll start to compile these into a serialized piece that will run on a site that I am building just for it, as well as through syndication with several national outlets.
If you are interested in running the full piece or some part of it, please get in touch. I know text-heavy websites tend to think all these pictures will break their format, but that's not the case -- it's easy to post this stuff and make it work for you, and I will show you how.
Posted by Susie Cagle on 10/31/11You probably have heard the news by now of yesterday morning's raid on Occupy Oakland, which resulted in over 100 arrests. You can read my account at Alternet. Further police action yesterday evening and into the night resulted in more arrests, as well as many injuries from tear gas, flash and concussion grenades, "non-lethal" projectiles and swinging batons. I was able to capture video as I was targeted with a tear gas canister as a peaceful march headed toward OPD downtown HQ and the jail where many demonstrators are still being held.
This is clearly a different story now, and this pitch will undoubtedly change. What won't is my commitment to this story. I appreciate everyone who has donated so far, and hope others might see the value in this project. Thanks for your support.
Posted by Susie Cagle on 10/26/11I'll be posting my live sketches to Twitter all day today and throughout the week as well. Follow me there -- http://twitter.com/#!/susie_c.
Posted by Susie Cagle on 10/22/11
This is from the food line on Wednesday. I couldn't draw the burritos before they were all snatched up. (I also can't flip this photo in the Spot.Us CMS, sorry.)
Posted by Susie Cagle on 10/22/11
