After several confusing nights of trying to dodge police, actually see the rioters, and follow the protestors, it became clear that the real story wasn't the riots, it was the week-long occupation of (Berkeley) Southside by some 600 police, and how it felt to live in this occupation, being forced to show IDs when walking down your own street, or having to justify to some faceless out-of-town cop your decision to shop on Telegraph Avenue. At one stage some twenty or thirty police were on every block of Telegraph, just watching you walk or talk, or sometimes edgily harrassing random passers-by. The atmosphere was tense and bitter; this was our city, boarded up and invaded, and both the rioters (a very small minority of the People's Park brigade) and the police were either outsiders or generally unwelcome.