OAKLAND, Calif. ? Citing a strain on limited crime-fighting resources, police officers pleaded with Occupy Oakland protesters Friday to leave their encampment at the City Hall plaza where a man was shot and killed the night before.
The shooting occurred the same day a 35-year-old military veteran apparently shot himself to death in a tent at a Burlington, Vt., Occupy encampment.
Those incidents and tensions at other camps have put pressure on leaders around the country to take decisive action to bring the protests under control.
"Tonight's incident underscores the reason why the encampment must end," Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said Thursday. "The risks are too great. We need to return resources to addressing violence throughout the city."
The Oakland Police Officer's Association, which represents rank-and-file police, issued an open letter to protesters saying the camp is pulling officers away from crime-plagued neighborhoods.
"With last night's homicide, in broad daylight, in the middle of rush hour, Frank Ogawa Plaza is no longer safe," the letter said. "Please leave peacefully, with your heads held high, so we can get police officers back to work fighting crime in Oakland neighborhoods."
The Oakland killing has further strained relations between the anti-Wall Street protesters and local officials, many of whom have called on the demonstrators to leave.
A preliminary investigation into the gunfire suggests it resulted from a fight between two groups of men at or near the encampment, police Chief Howard Jordan said. Investigators do not yet know if the men in the fight were associated with Occupy Oakland, he said.
Protesters said there was no connection between the shooting and the camp.
The coroner's office said it was using fingerprints to identify the victim and that a positive identification was not likely to be released before Monday
Protesters have been girding for another police raid as several City Council members have said the camp needs to go. After police cleared the camp last month, Quan reversed course and allowed protesters to return and restore the Oakland camp.
The mayor's reversal strained relationships with city police and other San Francisco Bay area law enforcement agencies. More than a dozen agencies joined Oakland police in the Oct. 25 raid on the camp under a mutual aid policy in which each agency covers its own costs.
Alameda County Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. J.D. Nelson said Friday that Oakland will have to pick up the entire tab if it asks for deputies to assist another raid,
Mutual aid was designed for law enforcement agencies to assist each other in unplanned emergency situations, Nelson said.
"When government officials allowed those campers to go back in, well now you know what you're getting. It's not an unplanned event," he said.
In Vermont, police said a preliminary investigation shows the man fatally shot himself in the head in a tent in City Hall Park. The name of the Chittenden County man was being withheld because not all of his family has been notified.
The shooting raised questions about whether the protest would be allowed to continue, said Burlington police Deputy Chief Andi Higbee.
"Our responsibility is to keep the public safe. When there is a discharge of a firearm in a public place like this it's good cause to be concerned, greatly concerned," Higbee said.
Tensions are also running high at the 300-tent encampment in Portland, Ore., which has become a hub for the city's homeless people and addicts.
Mayor Sam Adams ordered the camp shut down, saying the tipping point came this week with the arrest of a camper on suspicion of setting off a Molotov cocktail outside an office building, as well as two non-fatal drug overdoses at the camp.
"I cannot wait for someone to die," he said. "I cannot wait for someone to use the camp as camouflage to inflict bodily harm on others."
Many at the camp said they would resist any effort to remove them.
"There will be a variety of tactics used," said organizer Adriane DeJerk, 26. "No social movement has ever been successful while being completely peaceful."
At the University of California, Berkeley, about four miles up Telegraph Avenue from the Oakland encampment, a measure of calm had returned after student protesters voted not to try to erect tents for now. An effort to establish a camp earlier this week ended in confrontations with police, with many students beaten.
A group of protesters who met on Thursday evening in the campus's Sproul Plaza voted in favor of a strike in which they are encouraging students and faculty to walk out of class Tuesday to protest cuts to higher education.
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Associated Press writers Dave Gram in Burlington, Vt., Nigel Duara in Portland, Ore., and Sudhin Thanawala and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco contributed to this report.
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