On Tuesday night authorities told demonstrators in a new location, they had to leave by 10 p.m., but the "Occupy Oakland" protesters stayed in the park past that deadline. Some of the protesters camping at Frank Ogawa Plaza had to move to Snow Park next to Lake Merritt.
After 10 p.m. a few police cars could be seen circling the park, shining spotlights into the park, but as of 11 p.m. there was still no enforcement of the 10 p.m. park closing time. The number of protesters and spectators has been slowly growing through the evening.
There are at least two dozen people occupying the park and have set up a number of tents at Snow Park as well. The city handed out fliers to protesters at Snow Park saying there could be no activity or sleeping there after 10 p.m. The notice included a list of city ordinances against disorderly conduct, vandalism, and sleeping on benches. A number of the protesters came over here from Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of City Hall where hundreds of Occupy Oakland demonstrators have been packed in for days.
Some of them say they want the protest to spread to other areas of Oakland and over at the plaza, they are simply running out of room.
"It was getting to a point that we're running out of room over there and we started getting all these rules that we could not expand onto the concrete over there. People are tripping over each other's feet," said protester Maxwell Alan Pride.
"We feel that we want more supporters to come down here. So what we can do to embrace more supporters and make them feel more comfortable if we have more room, have another site to where they can see. A lot of people that can't make it in that direction of Frank Ogawa and want them to see us here," said protester Prince Hasheem Bason.
Around 8:30 p.m. protesters at Snow Park held a meeting to discuss what they would do if and when police come here to enforce the 10 p.m. curfew. Some say they leave the park peacefully. Other say they will peacefully resist and are willing to be arrested.
Earlier on Tuesday at the Occupy Oakland encampment authorities don't want to suppress the free speech of the 'Occupy' movements, but they were trying to figure out how to manage the protests.
Occupy Oakland was very quite all day with many onlookers questioning the purpose at the plaza.
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan stopped by the camp Tuesday and said protesters have been cooperative when officials have asked them to deal with complaints from nearby residents and business owners.
Right now, Oakland has no plans to remove the Occupy camp from the plaza.
