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The man, whom several Occupy campers said they did not recognize, was shot in the head about 5 p.m. outside a BART station exit in Frank Ogawa Plaza, at 14th Street and Broadway. He was taken to Highland Hospital in Oakland, where he was pronounced dead, said interim Police Chief Howard Jordan.

Jordan - speaking to reporters over protesters who shouted, "This is not Occupy Oakland" - said two groups of people had gotten into a fight that ended when someone pulled out a gun and fired. Witnesses said they heard four to six shots, and saw several young men flee. No arrests have been made, and the dead man's name has not been released.

But in the plaza amphitheatre, dozens of people gathered after the shooting out of concern that it would be cited as another reason to tear down the camp. One speaker, whose words were then repeated and amplified by the group, said, "I live in Oakland, and this is a daily occurrence."

Later, protesters - who had planned to celebrate the camp's one-month anniversary - instead lighted candles for the victim and settled in for a night of music and presentations.

The motive behind the shooting remains unclear. Protester Khalid Shakur, 43, said two men had fought Wednesday, with the loser returning Thursday with friends. Shakur said he had told the group to stay away from the businesses in the plaza, but that he soon heard the gunshots.

Victim surrounded

Nathan Stalnaker, 29, of Oakland, said he had seen several young men surrounding the victim on the ground, kicking and punching him as he tried to shield his face from the blows. People from the camp tried to break up the fight before the gun was pulled, Stalnaker said.

Camp medics were the first on the scene, according to protesters. After the shooting, a number of people from the camp stood in a line and locked their arms, trying to keep onlookers away so Oakland firefighters could tend to the victim. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/10/BA051LTHDK
.DTL this is the LOCAL San Francisco Examiner report, not an unlinked Raptor quote.

Damned straight it happens every day...if it's not Oakland cops shooting an unarmed man on the ground in the head. It's Oakland, folks! Hate to tell you, but drive-by shootings and all other kinds of violence happen quite literally every day in Oakland, and Occupy protesters don't bring guns.

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Pfenning, the man who police suspect shot himself in the head with a handgun, was a 35-year-old transient with ties to the state’s Northeast Kingdom.

“He pointed the gun directly at one of the three people in the tent and made comments,” Deputy Police Chief Andi Higbee said. “I’m not willing to share those comments for the integrity of the investigation.” He said, however, that there was no dispute going on between anyone and Pfenning inside the tent when the gun was fired.

Higbee said two witnesses have told police that efforts were made to stop Pfenning from shooting himself . Higbee declined to say whether, according to the two witnesses, Pfenning told the tent occupants beforehand that he wanted to shoot himself.

Police retrieved the gun from the scene after the shooting and identified it as having been stolen from a home in Derby in 2009, Higbee said. He said he does not know if Pfenning had anything to do with its theft.

Rachael O’Donnell, who described herself as a longtime family friend of Pfenning, said his family and friends believe his death was an accident and in no way represented a statement about the Occupy Burlington movement.

“It was an accident. We believe he didn’t intend to kill himself,” O’Donnell said, but later added, “We don’t know what happened.”

Police said Pfenning had been drinking heavily in the days before his death and had pointed his weapon at others. They also said he had spent only two weeks in the military before being discharged from boot camp, but the group described him as a veteran, and one man at the vigil held an American flag, at half-staff.

O’Donnell said Pfenning was not a military veteran but had served two weeks in Army basic training before receiving a medical discharge due to asthma.

Efforts to reach Pfenning’s relatives Friday were unsuccessful. According to his Facebook page, he is from Westfield, Vt. and attended North Country Union High School in Newport. A number of friends posted statements on his Facebook page lamenting his passing.

“He was an awesome guy, really smart,” Ellen Drunsgaard, 21, of Burlington, said in an interview, describing her friend. “He loved to read. He always had a huge novel with him. He was pretty cynical about the world. He was discouraged about how the world had become.”

Drunsgaard, who is not a participant in the Occupy Burlington actions, said Pfenning had struggled with alcohol issues. Court records show he pleaded guilty to driving while under the influence of alcohol in South Burlington in 2009 and had his license suspended.

Drunsgaard, who attended Pfenning’s vigil, also said she had never seen him with a gun and did not believe the gun that led to his death belonged to him.

“It had to be a fluke thing,” she said. “He wasn’t a violent person.”

Jackson, the UVM student, described Pfenning as “hilarious,” and said he provided “endless comic relief. I’m going to miss him,” she said.

Another woman at the vigil said Pfenning was “not a martyr. His decisions were his own,” she said. “He is a part of us now.”

Still another woman, struggling to keep her candle lit on a cold, windy night, said that struggle was analogous to “the work Josh and all of us are trying to do.” That effort, she said, is “difficult and takes concentration.”

When a local activist began to make a speech about the School of the Americas, the demonstrators objected, and shouts broke out, “Keep this about Josh!”
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One day earlier, the police decision to cordon off the entire park as protesters met inside City Hall with Kiss and Schirling led the demonstrators to believe they had been lured inside by trickery so that police could shut down the encampment.

In a fluid scene, protesters rushed outside and soon they and police found themselves at close quarters as some tempers flared over the detaining of a female protester. Kiss intervened with police and told them to release Hayley Mason, 23, who had been handcuffed when police said she approached too close to the police tape. The decision to release her calmed the crowd, and the demonstrators Friday night seemed determined to avoid such tension.
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“A mob is not a good mindset to have, no matter how good your cause,” said Todd Lacroix. He said many demonstrators felt “betrayed” Thursday by the police but hadn’t returned looking for trouble. “A lot of people,” he said, “are willing to give (the police) the benefit of the doubt, that it was miscommunication.”

Schirling earlier praised most of the Occupy Burlington participants for their willingness to cooperate with the police but said there are some in the group who are seeking to cause trouble.

“We saw last night, for the first time, a few people who were trying to specifically incite altercations, to incite the crowd to do things or to try to provoke a response from law enforcement,” he said.

He said he understood what Kiss was trying to do in working out the disagreements Thursday evening, but said it shouldn’t become common practice.

“It was something that happened in the heat of the moment to try to defuse a scenario,” Schirling said. “It was not something the mayor had done before and we don’t anticipate that scenario again ... We’ve had a conversation about it. It was an anomaly and sometimes anomalies occur.”
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Kiss reminded the reporters that the Occupy Burlington encampment was part of a larger, Occupy Wall Street movement targeting dramatic income inequities in the United States.

“It is a national event addressing issues of economic and social justice that I think we all should reflect on,” he said.

Hayley Mason’s temporary handcuffing was one of two carried out by police at the park Thursday night, Schirling said. http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20111111/NEWS02/111111008/-
1/HEADLINES01/BPD-chief-Continued-encampment-would-pose-risk-public-safety Burlington paper, please note. I'm learning that the local papers and stations have the best chance of accurate reporting; once it gets national and/or on the internet, things sound quite a bit different.

So yeah, a guy who didn't make it in the Army and who had a drinking problem committed suicide (or a gun went off accidentally). Gawd knows that never happens anywhere else, either. And a miscommunication between proteters and officials led to some tempers flaring. Damn, they're a vicious, rioting mob of thugs, vandals and druggies, aren't they?

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A man was shot and killed Thursday just outside the Oakland encampment that anti-Wall Street protesters have occupied for the last month, causing a scream-filled commotion in the City Hall plaza where the camp stands and turning a planned anniversary celebration into a somber, candlelit memorial.

With opinions about Occupy Oakland and its effect on the city having become more divided in recent days, supporters and opponents immediately reacted to the homicide -- the city's 101st this year.
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For their part, protest leaders said the shooting involved outsiders and was only connected to their ongoing protest of U.S. financial institutions to the extent that poverty breeds violence.

"This one heinous immoral crime should not overshadow all of the good deeds, positive energy and the overall goals that the movement is attempting to establish," Khalid Shakur, 43, who has a tent in the encampment, said. "Murders happen on these city streets all of the time and the difference with a murder happening on a city street and at Occupy Oakland, you have a mass group of people who care about life and want peace."

Police Chief Howard Jordan said a preliminary investigation suggests the shooting resulted from a fight between two groups of men at or near the Occupy Oakland camp on a plaza in front of City Hall. During the altercation, one of the men pulled out a gun and fired several rounds into a crowd on the plaza's edge, Jordan said.

One of the bullets struck the victim, who was pronounced dead at a hospital, he said.

Investigators do not yet know if the men in the fight were associated with Occupy Oakland, but they are looking into reports that some protest participants tried to break up the altercation, Jordan said.

No suspects have been identified, said Jordan, who asked people participating in the protest who may have taken photographs or video that captured the shooting to contact authorities.

"We did have a shooting (near the plaza) once before, a couple shootings around some nightclubs but not right here in front of City Hall because this is attracting a totally different element to our downtown area," Reid said. "This is a public space, and people have a right to enjoy it."

Shake Anderson, an Occupy Oakland organizer who has slept at the camp since it was erected exactly a month ago, said the man who was shot could not be associated with the protest because he did not recognize him. Just before the shooting, a group of strangers ran into the encampment as if they were looking for someone, Anderson said.

"The person on the ground was not part of the occupation. I can verify that," Anderson said. "This is a street incident. It happens all the time."

Outside the yellow police tape encircling the crime scene, located in front of a coffee shop where the windows were broken last week following a day of peaceful anti-Wall Street marches, protesters lit candles and opened a microphone for camp participants to talk about where the movement is headed.

"It's not a celebration anymore, but a period of reflection," said Leo Ritz-Barr, a member of Occupy Oakland's events committee.

Before the shooting, protesters were planning to have a party to commemorate the encampment's one-month anniversary with music, dancing, a slide show and donated cakes. The celebration was canceled after the man collapsed and screams rang out across the crowded plaza.

John Lucas, 52, was part of an Occupy Oakland medic team that tried to tend to the man until paramedics arrived. He said a fistfight involving several men preceded the gunfire.

"Several people went after one guy, and the group got larger, and they beat him and he ran," Lucas said. "There were six or seven shots. Everyone starts running ... and there was another shot."

Lucas, who described himself as a licensed vocational nurse who attended City College in San Francisco, said he and other medics rushed to the wounded man, who was on his back and bleeding from the nose and mouth.

"He was not breathing and there was no heartbeat," he said. "We started CPR."

Protesters complained that the plaza had been without lights and water since Wednesday night. Mayoral aide Sue Piper said the issues stemmed from a tripped circuit and a failed water pump workers had been unable to fix because they were furloughed Thursday. Protesters have claimed the loss of light is part of a plan to force them out.

When Jordan arrived at Thursday's crime scene, people shouted, "Turn the lights on!" The chief agreed the area needs to be lighted. http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/shooting-injures-one-near-occupy-oakland
-encampmen/nFbKP/ bit different from how Raptor "reported" it. I wonder how much he cut out of the original report?

I agree that turning off the lights and water is an effort to get them to go, it's a typical tactic and not at all surprising. The mess the cops caused last time they tried to evict them brought bad press, so of course they're looking for other ways/excuses.

Note this is the 101st shooting in Oakland this year. So I guess I'm wrong; that's equivalent to one shooting every THREE days, not every day. Gee whiz.

Okay, that's as much time as I'm willing to spend clarifying one of Raptor's typical attempts to vilify OWS. I got a committee meeting, then demonstration, then general assembly--you know, REAL things that might just maybe possibly you-never-know make a change in this fucking mess we've been living in. Maybe people could keep this in mind next time he plays his little game so I don't have to spend the time clarifying the ACTUAL facts. or not.

Bear in mind: We live in a violent country. Violence is especially prevalent in big cities. In Oakland, if you add Richmond which is right next door, VIOLENCE is a daily occurrence, if not shootings...hell, in Richmond it's ten times worse!

Raptor, FauxNews and people like them are why we get the kind of lies and faked "news" that convinces people things are not what they are. Personally, I give him exactly as much credence as I give FauxNews, and will find it amusing to see how they portray these incidents. Naw, that would mean wasting my time, I already know. It's up to YOU guys to make up your own minds, but at least you could give a little less credence to his bullshit until you know the facts. Or not.

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The victim was involved in an earlier fight, and there was a return to the OWS camp for more violence, resulting in another fight,and 1 person being shot in the head.

What ever the altercation, the focal point clearly was the OWS camp.

OWS folks stood in a line and locked arms. Accounts differ as to the reason behind this action. That a spokesman felt the need to shout 'This is not Occupy Oakland ', seems to me a clear attempt at spin. Image first, regardless of the facts.

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