The Piedmont Avenue Three

Well, this seems to be a new low--even for the Oakland Police Department.

Three supporters of Occupy Oakland--Michael Davis, Nneka Crawford, and Randolph Wilkins (aka Teardrop)--have been charged with robbery and hate crimes. You can read OPD's press release here:

http://local.nixle.com/alert/4795029/

As I noted in my previous post, I was outside the Wells Fargo Bank on February 22nd, between approximately 5:15 PM and 6:00 PM.

I simply cannot imagine how these three people could have committed these crimes in broad daylight, on a major thoroughfare, without me (or apparently anyone else) noticing.

First of all, nobody was calling for a riot. That statement is ridiculous on its face.

I never saw anyone from Occupy Oakland cross to the other side of Piedmont Avenue.

OPD were present to escort bank employees to their cars after closing. I didn't see them arresting anyone.

I can testify that I was standing next to Michael immediately outside the Wells Fargo Bank between 5:45 and 5:55 PM. In addition, I saw Teardrop on the Wells Fargo side of the street shortly before then.

I am not going to state categorically that these crimes did not occur, but for those 45 minutes, there was certainly no visible evidence of anything being amiss on Piedmont Avenue--other than the upset customer I wrote about in my previous post.

There is something very, very wrong with this story.