Update 6:30 p.m.: Protesters have lost steam. The chants are dying down and the crowd has thinned out to about 20 people. Allison reports that Embarcadero was closed for five minutes but has since reopened. Montgomery Street station has also opened to passengers coming and going. However, if you are hoping to hop on Muni, word on the street is that the line to get on the F Market is a nightmare!
Update 6:10 p.m.: BART spokesman Jim Allison tells SF Weekly that Montgomery station is closed to all passengers while Civic Center and Powell Street stations are only allowing passengers to exit, not enter the station. BART could not confirm whether there have been any arrests yet, but Allison said that cell phone service was working as normal throughout BART. No word on whether Embarcadero station will be closed. "It's a fluid situation," Allison said. "We're just trying to keep the passengers safe."
Update 5:50 p.m.: Protesters splintered off into separate groups. Chen is following a group down Van Ness Avenue, where they are walking in the middle of the street and disrupting traffic. Angry drivers are honking at the chanting protesters.
Update 5:40: About 100 protesters left Civic Center BART and are marching on Market Street. Chen tells us that police say Powell Street station is now closed.
Update 5:30 p.m.: BART closed down Civic Center station and no trains are stopping. Police are there in riot gear, declaring it to be an illegal assembly.They will begin arresting protesters in five minutes.
Update 5:20 p.m.: One train was held up briefly at the Civic Center station while protesters chanted "No justice, no peace, disband the BART police."
SF Weekly's Caroline Chen headed down to Civic Center BART station where it was all quiet except for the sound of a lonely violin. But by 5:10 p.m. about 75 protesters are gathered downstairs, as promised.
So far there's no sign of service disruption, just a bunch of cops, reporters, and rabble rousers standing around with signs.
Bryan Stow, the Giants fan beaten into a coma outside of Dodger Stadium in March, is showing great signs of improvement -- he is now following simple commands and moving his body.
SF Weekly readers might recall the crazy story of a former CoCo County cop and PI who were busted for stealing drugs and operating their own brothel -- it's just not that kind of story you forget. After three months of investigation, the two former cops allegedly involved in a string of lawlessness were indicted by a federal Grand Jury and arrested this morning.
Normal Wielsch and Christopher Butler, both 50, were allegedly in cahoots to steal drug evidence with the intention to sell it and operated a massage parlor in Pleasant Hill where they protected prostitutes in exchange for weekly payments.
When Gavin Newsom was mayor, he worked hard to burnish his persona
as a fabulous man of the people. He would roll up to a gritty corner in Hunters Point with a camera crew and ambush a few passersby, hoping they'd talk with him while the cameras rolled. But after 10 minutes, he'd hop back into his tinted-window Chevy Suburban and disappear.
A group of San Francisco animal lovers is taking on a not-so-domestic animal-rights issue.
In Defense of Animals, a international nonprofit, will deliver 15,000 signatures tomorrow, asking the South Korean government to crack down on illegal dog and cat feasting in parts of that country. The group will meet at the South Korean consulate in San Francisco, followed by a rally at 11 a.m.
"The majority of people in South Korea do regard cats and dogs as companion animals, yet there is still a segment of the population that eats dog meat," says Hope Bohanec, spokeswoman with the nonprofit.
Whether you think the rallies are an effective means of protesting against BART, it's noteworthy just how fast this rally was put together. Not so long ago, protests needed weeks, if not months, of organization. Today, using a host of social media sites, Anonymous has been able to organize a protest in just four days.
While Anonymous' website is not particularly easy to find though a Google search, it has made itself heard through its Twitter feed, YouTube channel, news Tumblr, and, of course, Facebook. #opBart is humming with new tweets every minute, and Anonymous' digital flyers are making their way across media sites. The MuBARTek poster evokes Egyptian ex-president Hosni Mubarak.
Don Casper, a deeply involved San Franciscan who managed to save taxpayers billions of dollars by blowing up a cockamamie state scheme, was killed last night. He was struck by a pickup truck as he went on a jog Sunday evening in western Sonoma County. Casper was 63.
He had been spending an evening with his friends, Eugene and Linda Payne. An avid jogger, Casper told Linda Payne he was heading out for a run a bit before 7 p.m.-- but when he didn't return for 90-odd minutes, Linda went out looking for him. She ended up identifying his body on the side of River Road at the behest of California Highway Patrol officers. Eyewitnesses said Casper was hit by a white Ford extended cab pickup, which then fled the scene.
"A distinctive skidmark in the eastbound lane of River Road comes to a stop at a running shoe and sock in the road, with the body of the victim coming to rest 10 to 15 yards farther down the lane," according to a Santa Rosa Press Democrat reporter on the scene.
Police say a 3-year-old boy is in critical condition this morning after being run over by a car as the driver backed out of his residence Sunday afternoon.
According to police reports, a neighbor yelled at the driver to stop his car because the child was stuck underneath the vehicle.
The hospital bills for Mark McGovern, the 22-year-old Gaelic football player who suffered a major brain injury, have reached more than $1 million -- and his family needs help. The McGoverns are planning a benefit for their son on Sept. 6, to collect as much money as possible for the Irish athlete.
McGovern was critically injured during a match on Treasure Island in an off-the-ball fracas. He was in a coma for five weeks before waking up earlier this month. He has been showing improvement ever since.
His family created a website where people can donate and learn more about upcoming fundraisers and events for his rehabilitation.
According to the website:
The notorious hacker group, Anonymous, breached BART's website yesterday, releasing personal information of thousands of Bay Area commuters. On top of that, the group is now warning that it will disrupt transit service tonight during the evening commute.
So yeah, find a different way to work today.
The group broke into myBART.org, releasing names, numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and logins for thousands of BART riders. However the transit agency is still not certain exactly how many customers have been affected. However, a Twitter account linked to the group claims it hit more than 120,000 users. The site was up and running again Sunday night.
The security breach was in response to BART's ballsy move to cut cell-phone service, hoping to disrupt scheduled protests on Thursday evening.
