The longshoremen who were lined up at the gate waiting to go to work have said the police attacked the demonstrators without giving any warning. Some longshoremen I heard interviewed on NPR yesterday also said the demonstrators hadn't done anything to provoke the police.

A number of the longshoremen were shot in the melee, apparently. This is from today's LA Times:

"Steve Stallone, spokesman for the longshoremen's union, said protesters did not provoke the police response. "It was a completely nonviolent demonstration," Stallone said, though he acknowledged that after the police barrage of bullets, a few demonstrators tossed rocks at officers.

Calling officers' responses "reckless and stupid," Oakland School Board member Dan Siegel, a lifelong veteran of demonstrations, said the police "were far [more] violent than they needed to be."

Siegel's law partner, City Councilwoman Jane Brunner, joined the demonstrators in front of the federal building in downtown Oakland. "It's important that our police react to demonstrators calmly," she said. "I think they overreacted."

Oakland Deputy Police Chief Patrick Haw and Mayor Jerry Brown defended the police action, but others said they believed it was excessive. Vice Mayor Nancy Nadel called for an investigation into the officers' actions."