OAKLAND — Broken glass and boarded-up windows dotted Auto Row along Broadway on Saturday, as business owners were cleaning up a mess left by vandals during a nighttime protest that spun into chaos.
Car salespeople strolled in parking lots with dozens of damaged cars with sales prices visible despite battered windshields. Shop owners grabbed brooms to sweep glass, and took measurements of broken door windows.
The scar of graffiti, battered-down storefronts and damaged cars ran along Broadway from about 27th Street to the foot of Piedmont Avenue. Banks were hit downtown, as well.
The vandalism was a bookend to daylong peaceful protests throughout Oakland and left a sour taste in the mouths of merchants and city officials.
About a dozen people, many who reported Oakland home addresses to police, were arrested or cited during the vandalism.
“We had a full day of peaceful demonstration from Oaklanders who were lawfully exercising the right to free speech and peaceful assembly,” Mayor Libby Schaaf said by phone Saturday. “When the sun went down, we had a small group of cowards with rocks in their pockets and hatred in their hearts who really usurped the message of the day.”
Protests in Oakland began at 5:30 a.m. and ended for police around 1 a.m. Saturday. On the same day that a Baltimore prosecutor announced criminal charges for officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray, about 500 people marched peacefully from the Port of Oakland to City Hall. By midday, police announced no arrests or criminal activity.
By nightfall, about 300 to 400 protesters left Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, marching through downtown, Uptown through First Friday festivities and eventually along Auto Row.
Police Chief Sean Whent said his department’s patrol of the evening protest was not perfect, but his ranks were thinned from the series of protests Friday, along with the First Friday art event, and usual Friday patrol staffing needs. More officers, about 160 total, were dedicated to the nighttime protest than the morning protest he said, and plainclothes officers were within the crowd.
“It goes from being a peaceful march to being an unlawful assembly relatively quickly,” Whent said. “We have a policy and a culture in the city to cherish people’s First Amendment rights and give a lot of respect to that. It doesn’t take very long for a few people to take that peaceful march to something else — then begins the challenge.
“Ultimately, we need to be quicker; we need to be closer on the crowd,” he said. “It was far from perfect last night, but our primary mission is protecting human life; thankfully, that worked out OK.”
There were no reports of civilian injuries, but one officer suffered a cut to his leg, Whent said.
Along Broadway on Saturday, dozens of cars parked in the Chevrolet lot were damaged, as were others at the nearby Honda dealership, which was open for business.
Across the street at 3020 Broadway, 66-year-old Bruce Burrows clutched a broom to sweep the floor of the dealership his grandfather built in 1915 and where Burrows has hung out since he was 8. The dealership is no more, and the space is up for lease, possibly to be a mixed-use building to match the development of that stretch of Broadway, soon to be home to Sprouts Farmers Market and new housing.
“I don’t know whether or not we are going to board it up or replace the glass,” Burrows said. “Our options are open right now; we’re not dying to get a tenant in here. Hopefully last night didn’t scare a lot of people away.”
David DeBolt covers breaking news. Contact him at 510-208-6453. Follow him at Twitter.com/daviddebolt.
