In the “new” Oakland, we see “cool” new nightclubs across the street from encampments. The hip new people hang out in front of the club and stand in line to get inside. The “hip” people seem not to care about the homeless people facing them — and whom they helped displace.

Aiming pepper spray at a crowd exposes people to a chemical implicated in at least 25 deaths in California alone. Pepper spray causes temporary blindness and panic in a crowd. Pepper spray is by nature indiscriminate. No police officer can tell who has cardiac or pulmonary issues.

The mayor has no understanding of the awful defeat the loss of People’s Park would be. No comprehension of the cost in lives and the sacrifices people have made for the Park’s ideals. So many still find it a refuge in a country needing a political and spiritual overhaul.