UPDATE:5:24 AM, police moving into encampment; follow liveblog on Oakland Local.

At around 8 p.m. Sunday evening at Frank Ogawa Plaza, a woman lights candles on the makeshift altar in the northeast corner of the plaza next to Tully’s – the location where four days earlier, an occasional resident of the camp known as “Alex,” was murdered.

The camp seems strangely calm. Muffled voices can be heard from the plaza bowl, where a General Assembly is taking place. Scores of people mill about. Some are playing drums or smoking cigarettes. Others are drinking from gin and whiskey bottles. The odor of marijuana wafts everywhere.

There are plenty of signs and slogans in the time-honored tradition of political propaganda. One says “Power to the People” and has pictures of Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, and Oscar Grant. Another says “Open-Source Democracy.” At several locations around the plaza, there are signs reading, “More Will Rise Up” – a defiant response to multiple reports of a police raid on the camp early Monday morning expected to involve as many as 1,000 officers from OPD and other agencies.

Westward of the altar, two representatives of the National Lawyers’ Guild are manning a table. Asked by a reporter whether they’ve heard of a possible raid on the camp, they instead ask the reporter what he knows. Just then a middle-aged couple, a man and a woman, stroll by. “I really hope tonight is peaceful,” the woman tells the lawyers. She’s heard on the news, she said, that Occupy Portland and other Occupy camps are being raided by police, and violent clashes have ensued. There was “not one positive spin” in the broadcasts, she says.

The woman’s name is Heidi Rearslee. She shares her story: A longtime Oakland resident, she recently moved to San Francisco after her home was foreclosed upon and sold for less than market value in a courtroom auction. “I was trying to modify my mortgage. Next thing you know it was sold,” she sighs. She came down to the camp with her partner to “stand in solidarity,” with the Occupy movement.

Rearslee says she’s been inspired by the egalitarian process of the GA. “Our own voting isn’t as democratic.”

She’s been a frequent visitor, she says, dropping off clothes, blankets and other items for the campers. Once, she says, she was ticketed by the Oakland police after pulling over to donate to the camp. Upon learning of the incident, she says, the Occupiers collected $55 of the $75 ticket cost and gave it to her. “That’s pretty great,” she says.

A few yards away, two young African American males are boiling water on a propane stove. Their names are Cornel and X, they say. Their story? They just showed up and started cooking food for people: “The first day, we fed 60 people. The second day, we fed 200 people. The third day, we fed 500.”

Apparently, X is Alex’s relative. “The day my cousin got shot, we still continued” to serve food, he says with a measure of pride. Asked for clarification that he was related to the deceased, he either doesn’t hear a reporter’s question or pretends not to hear.

At around 9 p.m., two police officers walk the perimeter of the camp, possibly on the lookout for weapons and other signs of possible resistance. “Is there a raid tonight?,” one officer is asked. “Why would I answer that?,” he replies with a smile.

“It’s kinda weird to see them walk around camp,” says an activist who calls himself Adam Warlock. “They’re supposed to raid tonight. I heard that from multiple sources.” EMTs, he says, were told to have seven ambulances ready.

Max Allstadt, another activist and frequent O/O attendee, says he heard a similar account of an imminent shutdown of the camp from a source close to the City Council.

Moments later, Warlock tells the GA he thinks the raid could happen at 4 a.m.

“I think this camp is a symbol for the movement,” he adds. “It’s very important."

In the event of a raid, he says, “They’re gonna come with rubber bullets and shoot flash grenades. We’ll just take it right back. They can tear down the tents, but they can’t tear us down.”

A man names Michael Haile runs up, extending a flyer which describes the organization he’s set up, SockupyOakland.org.  In the past few days, he says, he’s handed out 240 pairs of socks to Occupiers, a sore need for campers in cold, wet weather. He’s collected $300 from strangers all over the world, he says.

Asked why he’s chosen to Sockupy, he says, “I want to keep the campers here.”

The GA concludes with a discussion of contingency plans in the event of a raid, but without approving a resolution on the "St. Paul principles," defined in the GA minutes posted on Facebook as "1.Respect for a diversity of tactics.  2. Separation of time or space depending on actions. Tactics are specific to immediate goals.  3. No denouncement of fellow activists or events to the media. We agree not to assist law enforcement; we are against surveillance, etc." 

Just before 10 p.m., a sound system is brought to the center of the plaza’s rotunda, and an “Occupycalypse” party begins, with a dubstep Michael Jackson mashup. About 130 tents remain, and there are maybe 200 people total in the camp. If Occupy Oakland is going down, they’re going out dancing and partying.