Occupy Oakland shuts down port

O'DONNELL: All day today, thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters are on the country from New York City to Philadelphia to Oakland marched in solidarity all leading up to this moment tonight. You are looking at pictures from Oakland tonight. An estimated 10,000 protesters have forced management to shut down operations for the night shift. The gathering at the port is the culmination of a day of protests labeled general strike. Protesters say the port is a major point of entry for Chinese exports and employers at the ports' main office were sent home early today and city officials also forced downtown businesses to close early in anticipation of the protesters. So far, there is no word on arrests in Oakland . There was little police presence earlier in the day as 4500 occupy Oakland demonstrators marched on big corporations and banks in the area like this chase branch. Joining me now from the occupy Oakland headquarters, Amina Waheed , a journalism graduate student at UC Berkeley and reporter for the Oakland north news site. Thank you very much for joining me tonight. Hi. Good to be here Lawrence .

O'DONNELL: There is going to be a satellite delay. And it's going to feel like very, very long distance phone call here. We'll put up with it. What is the feeling in Oakland tonight? Is there -- is it a peaceful atmosphere? Is there a sense of more possible clashes with police ?

AMINA WAHEED, GRADUATE STUDENT, UC BERKELEY: It doesn't seem that way. I mean the most of the day was pretty peaceful. You know, there is very minimal police presence. I mean we barely saw any police out on the streets today. Maybe on the perimeter about six cops on motorcycles kind of just guarding and patrolling here and there. But really no police on the streets. Until now. There are paramedics going this way. I'm sorry.

O'DONNELL: Don't worry about it. We can hear you.

WAHEED: So it's very minimal police presence out here. Looks very peaceful. I know we have -- there were 5,000 people they saying that we were at the port earlier and they're joined by even more thousands that left from the plaza just at 7:30, a little about a half hour ago. So the numbers are large at the port right now.

O'DONNELL: There seems to be growing stress between the mayor and the police in Oakland . The police officers association released an open letter saying "we, too, are the 99 percent. As your police officers , we are confused. Aren't the mayor and her administration part of the establishment they are paying city employees to protest? Is it the city's intention to have employees on both sides of the skirmish line?" What is that all about?

WAHEED: You know we're still looking into that. That's definitely the tensions between the city council and the police , seeming to something on our radar as press based here in Oakland . You know one of our chief of police Anthony Bats resigned a few weeks ago and so there is lot of questions that are circulating what's going on really behind closed doors between city council and the police establishment going on right now. So that is something we're still looking into.

O'DONNELL: Amina Waheed , live from Oakland . Thank you very much for joining us tonight.

WAHEED: Thank you.