As city residents debate what really happened when a BART police officer removed a passenger from a train on Saturday night, Nov. 21 and he somehow went through a glass window in the state (and a video purportedly of the incident was posted on YouTube), SF Gate reports that BART rider Michael Joseph Gibson has retained Oakland attorney John Burris to represent him on criminal charges and on a civil suit he plans to lodge. Burris is the lawyer for the family of Oscar Grant. (Follw or mjoin the discussion on Oakland Local here).

Back in January, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums pledged to cut crime 10% in Oakland. Crime may be falling, but now, a new report says Oakland is #3 in  crimes in the US. So Blue Collar Republican points out all the cities tops in the nation for violent crime have mostly voted for Democrats--and we wonder what you all think about that?.

The Oakland Tribune reports that UC Berkeley will reconsider policies around protests and ask for an independent investigation of police actions that could bring about changes to the way officers handle protest crowds, but we suspect that won't deter demonstrators who sat in at University headquarters in downtown Oakland yesterday.

Are you getting ready for Turkey day yet? The Merc says the roads won't be too bad, but we don't believe them--do you?

And then there's this wonderful new video. Local music talent Raashan Ahmad has a new video, Soul Power, that was put together by Oakland photographer John Coyne with great images  of Oaktown. Luke calls it out too--and it rocks so much we're embedding it right here.