Film documents 1967 beating
Protester, OPD officers relive confrontation
Issue date: 10/5/06 Last update: 8/30/07 at 1:15 PM PST
Section: Features
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These words and a subsequent Associated Press photo were the impetus for the George Paul Csicsery film, "The Thursday Club".
In the days following the week-long protests in downtown Oakland-- intent on shutting down the military induction center at the Leamington Hotel on 14th and Harrison - George Paul Csicsery's face ended up on front pages of newspapers around the globe. The AP photo of him and other students being confronted by the Oakland Police and National Guard troops became symbolic of the vast culture war being waged around the country during those tumultuous years.
Decades later, with the aid of a retired police captain in Oakland, the director was taken to the Clambucket restaurant in West Oakland where a little known group of retired OPD officers had begun gathering each week to tell old stories, enjoy a meal, and keep up the friendships which were born decades earlier in a very different time in Oakland.
Hoping that he would get the opportunity to meet the officer wielding a baton above him in the picture, Csicsery introduced himself and explained why he had come, and inquired about what it felt like to be on the opposite side of the "thin blue line" as the Bay Area was making headlines for its vibrant and sometimes disorderly counterculture.
Through countless stories and old photos from varied sources, including the officers' family members and some of the former protesters, Csicsery introduces the audience to the culture of a bygone era and a department that few have had the fortune of learning about.
As many as 15 different officers, most in their seventies and eighties, who served during the historic battles with students, the Black Panthers, and the general public are featured in candid and in some cases emotional interviews about their experiences and what they each took away from their time working in Oakland. Not one willing to trade the experience in Oakland for anything.
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