Emails between Oakland officials reveal tensions during Occupy ordeal

Recently obtained emails from the City of Oakland and Oakland police reveal that tensions were extremely high in the handling of the Occupy encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza.

Ktvu obtained more than 1,000 internal emails between Oakland City Hall and police through a public records request that show just how stressful of a situation it was for leaders.

When police clashed with Occupy protesters in the streets of Oakland on Oct. 25 it put the city in the national spotlight.

In one message written Oct. 13, a sergeant said he'd been confronted by protesters camping at Frank Ogawa Plaza and that one implied they would remove officers by force if they entered the camp without permission.

Five days later, Deputy Chief Jeffrey Israel told Chief Howard Jordan,"We can either wait for a riot, or order them to cease their night time occupation."

Soon after, images of the protest began making national and international news.

A Washington, D.C., crisis manager recommended that Oakland apologize, but the  mayor's team disagreed and re-crafted the message instead.

At almost the same time Jordan received an email from the mother of an Oakland officer detailing how her daughter was bombarded with bottles of feces and urine during a confrontation with protesters.

In the days leading up to the Nov. 2 march on the Port of Oakland, city leaders warned about the drain on police resources.

When Jordan received an update that crime was actually down 19 percent in the last week of October, he wrote an email to one of Mayor Jean Quan's advisers.

"Not sure how you want to share this good news," he wrote. "It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland."

Police and the city said Occupy has had an ongoing impact on their ability to respond to crime.

In all of the emails there was not a single one written by Quan.

Her office told KTVU she prefers face-to-face communication.