Extra

All day Wednesday occupiers in Civic Center Park prepared themselves for eviction. As the moment of truth approached, they used music, rhetoric, and solidarity to ready themselves.

They practiced maneuvers, gave interviews, and screwed up their courage for a confrontation with Berkeley Police, whom one occupier from Oakland called "pussies" compared to Oakland P.D. 

"At first, you choke on their gas," said one masked-man, "but then it gets to be sweet in your nostrils." 

Occupiers, who bragged to the OB general assembly Wed. night, that they would be joined by their occupier friends from Oakland—struck a common theme. We are willing to do whatever it takes to oppose police. 

A police van stood nearby, ready to facilitate protestors to "make the better move" to jail. 

As the general assembly convened in Civic Center Park, Berkeley police began a forceful stride at the Southeast end of the camp to pass out shelter information in prelude to a likely eviction of the camp, possibly at 10p.m. 

The OB general assembly, in a rare act of approved action, moved to stage a march on the walkways around MLK Park. The militant—self proclaimed radicals and anarchists—holding the encampment also agreed on the march, in yet another rare instance of consensus. 

The point of the march, as one occupier said, "is to let the cops take the camp, while we encircle it." 

As one of the occupiers, who had been in the camp since its founding almost two months ago put it, "this is the wildest general assembly ever—because the cops showed up."