A.M. Splash: Police Move Against Occupy Protesters in SF, Oakland; UC Davis Police Chief Placed on Leave Over Pepper-Spray Incident

San Francisco and Oakland authorities moved to take greater control of the Occupy protests Sunday, raiding an offshoot of the San Francisco encampment and clearing a new camp in a vacant lot in Oakland.

The UC Davis campus police chief was placed on administrative leave today as the school's chancellor called for the Yolo County district attorney to review the use of force in the pepper spraying of protesting students.

Chanting "Ain't no power like the power of the people!" "OSJ; not going away!" and "This is what democracy looks like!" a small but hearty band of Occupy San Jose protesters shouted for a second night in front of City Manager Debra Figone's home in the Rose Garden. Fewer than a dozen waved signs and yelled recriminations against Figone, whom they blame for refusing to give them a permit to camp at City Hall.

Jury selection is set to begin today in a federal civil rights case brought by a man who said he was roughed up by former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle about seven weeks before Mehserle fatally shot unarmed train rider Oscar Grant on New Year's Day 2009.

...The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is looking at factors often ignored when assessing whether it is financially worthwhile to pay millions to widen highways and expand trains. Road fatalities and injuries, emissions reductions, the cost of owning and operating a car and even the health effects of physical inactivity are being considered in the Project Performance Assessment study now under way.

As federal funding for high-speed rail disappears, San Francisco continues to build a $400 million underground train station that could wind up being connected to nothing.

Occupy Santa Rosa will picket Santa Rosa's downtown mall on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that's traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year. It's part of Occupy's anti-corporate message, members said Sunday. The “Buy Nothing Day” demonstration will be followed by a community festival at City Hall with music, crafts and a free gift exchange.

Berkeley, the leftist city whose University of California campus erupted in protest this week as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, has the widest gap between rich and poor in the Bay Area, according to recently released data from the Census Bureau.

...The San Francisco Food Bank, which merged with the Marin Food Bank in January, expects to provide 3,000 Marin families with about 9,000 pounds of food during Thanksgiving and the week leading up to the holiday.