SWAT Team Called to Evict Squatters in Oakland

Allegedly pointed guns in people's faces

There were some tense moments Thursday morning as a SWAT team stormed an apartment building in Oakland to evict squatters who had been living there for months without paying rent.

The sweep took place on Vallecito Place across the street from Highland Hospital.

Squatters living in the building have been on KTVU's radar for a year. On Thursday, authorities took steps to legally remove them from the building immediately.

The eviction made for a rowdy morning near Highland Hospital.

On one side, a SWAT team armed to the teeth. On the other, about a dozen unidentified people who said they were unlawfully yanked out of the four-unit building.

Comments

[Steve Premo]

I'm very familiar with that situation, as I often stay at the house next door to the squat - the one through which the SWAT team swarmed(without so much as a by-your-leave) in order to reach the back of the squatter house. In defense of the squatters (or rather, their predecessors who initially occupied the building over a year ago), before the squatters moved in, the back yard was three feet deep in ivy and blackberry and impassible, a nuisance for the neighborhood. The occupiers cleaned up the ivy and blackberry and planted a garden. The owners should be grateful that someone was in there taking care of the place, because when the bank had possession, it was deteriorating rapidly.