I was arrested while reporting on Occupy Oakland on Thursday at about 1 am, wearing my press pass. My arresting officer acknowledged that I was press, and his officer friend even recognized me and knew my work (if you’re reading this, sir I would sure like to interview you!). I had a meeting set with the OPD press information officer for 8 hours later to obtain my official OPD press credentials. When I told this to the cops, they replied, “Do you want us to call her and tell her you’ll be late?”

I was detained for 15 hours and ultimately charged with the same misdemeanor as other demonstrators and NLG legal observers: PC 409, failure to leave the scene of a riot. Our arraignment dates are a month from now, and we were explicitly warned against returning to the plaza in the meantime. As I told ABC7, I feel like the OPD does, I think: confused.

You know it’s bad when Occupy Veterans is sending you personal supportive messages. This is a crappy video that I took while trying to run to safety — instead I ran into the kettle.

If you are interested in the whole saga, swim up my Twitter stream. The Oakland Police Department arrested 103 people that night, some of whom were not involved in Occupy at all. 95 received the PC 409 misdemeanor citation, but interim OPD Chief Howard Jordan told the New York Times that the group of arrestees were “generally anarchists and provocateurs.”

I am not the first journalist arrested while covering Occupy, and I doubt I’ll be the last — but I’m not clear on if other journalists are being charged with crimes, or arrested and released. Any information appreciated.

I’ll have a full piece about this clusterfuck at Alternet on Monday. I’m also still fundraising at Spot.Us for my illustrated history of Occupy Oakland (buy original art!). I may have an awesome new publisher for that — more details next week.

This is one of the sketches I did of the Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant camp pre-raid — actually just 12 or so hours pre-raid. I’m trying to put together a show of occupy art at the Oakland and SF camps with the generous support and aid of SomArts and other galleries in Oakland. Stay tuned for more details there, and if you or someone you know has been creating art around occupations here (best if it’s easily displayed — drawings, paintings, prints, photos, etc) please get in touch.

A lot has changed in the last week. If you need to catch up, I suggest following me on Twitter, or reading one of these various interviews and articles.

My Spot.Us piece now has full funding, thanks to all who contributed. At least now that things are a little calmer, I can return to drawing. I was originally planning to run the first part on Monday, but I need some time to restructure and rework this thing before it gets going. I appreciate your patience. And hey, you can still contribute to the fund if you’re interested in buying original art — there are art incentives at $20 (field sketch), $50 (small watercolor) and $100 (large watercolor) levels. Thanks!

I’ve been working on this piece about Occupy Oakland since October 10, and it’s finally coming together — it will be a five-part series for Oakland Local and Truthout. From the pitch:

Could Occupy Oakland be a model for this movement — and how does it work?

From the General Assembly to the food lines to the self-policing. Since the camp at Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza first coalesced on October 10, it has grown rapidly to fill the plaza; and just as quickly, demonstrators have worked to create an infrastructure that turns this protest into a commune that welcomes a broad range of residents with a functional kitchen, library, media center, childrens space and their own camp security.

Occupy Oakland has not been without its incidents and backlash over cleanliness and mainstream media access. But as authorities are cracking down on occupation demonstrators across the country — and even just across the Bay in San Francisco –Oakland presents another option. So what does that look like?

Please pass along this Spot.Us pitch to anyone you think might be interested. I haven’t done the crowd-funding thing in a while and it always makes me itch. I think this is a worthy project, though, and I’ve definitely been putting in the hours. And hey, big spenders can get original art!

I did a little thing for the Awl’s year-end coverage about earthquakes, and how they are coming for us. An expert has since informed me that my fault infographic is marginally screwy — I made a copyediting error in my late-night rush to file. This is where I’d make some quip about blogs and fact-checking, but instead I hope you’ll enjoy the thing nonetheless.

Yes, this is the real forecast for the day after tomorrow in Oakland, California. So let’s just give it up, guys. Use all the plastic you want, gorge yourself on factory farmed burgers and have tons of Catholic babies. We’re clearly fucked as it is.