Occupy Oakland activists rally for former pariah
One obstacle Occupy Oakland faced after building a City Hall encampment came not from authorities but from within - a mentally ill homeless man with a long prison record who witnesses said beat fellow campers in fits of rage. Some were so frightened they moved out.
No one called the police on the man, who called himself "Khali." Instead, he was banished in an act of freelance justice, with a protester knocking him unconscious with a two-by-four Oct. 18. Police cleared the tent city a week later, and Mayor Jean Quan has cited the incident as a motivating factor.
Times have changed. On Monday, dozens of Occupy Oakland protesters went to a courthouse in Pleasanton to rail against prosecutors for filing assault charges against Marcel "Khali" Johnson, 38. Some said they have come to see him as a good man with problems who needs support, not more prison time.
"That's the beauty of Occupy," said Laleh Behbehanian, a UC Berkeley graduate student trying to help Johnson. She spoke after telling activists how they can visit him, in groups of four, at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/09/BAS21MMU8J.DTL
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