On the night of January 28th, 2012, Oakland police kettled (aka surrounded) Occupy Oakland protesters and mass arrested 300-400 of them without any legal basis to do so. Sitting in transports for hours in too-tight cuffs and without food or water, they were eventually transported to Santa Rita jail where many were held for days in disgusting conditions. People like Allie123 were denied needed prescription medications. Women who have been arrested for misdemeanors in other Occupy Oakland protests have been given pregnancy tests along with being groped and otherwise demeaned.

And the list by no means stops there.

It is therefore with a sense of Vu Deja that I’m reading the latest press release from the National Lawyer’s Guild, announcing a class action suit against the Oakland Police for events that happened more than a year earlier, related to protests arising from the slaying of Oscar Grant.

United State District Court Judge Thelton Henderson granted the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification in a lawsuit brought by the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) against the Oakland Police (OPD) on behalf of 150 people arrested at a November 5, 2010, demonstration.

What happened back in 2010 to stimulate this sense of Deja Vu Vu Deja?

Find out in the rest of the essay at Daily Kos.