I suppose there is some expectation among some that I would respond to this, and I try not to disappoint.

First off, just as we all should be innocent until proven guilty, so should be the Oakland police.  Just because of past action of some of the Oakland police force, the officers involved in this incident should not be immediately characterized as thugs.  At the moment all we have is his account of the incident, and people generally don't recount incidents that cast themselves as the bad guy or at the very least partially culpable. 

Once we start making assumptions about guilt before all the evidence is in, is when we start making accusations like:

It seems like the cops are attempting to start something larger in order to do a massive crackdown on protestors using violence.

The one thing that strikes me "funny," is that he didn't see any where to move on 14th Street when the police asked him to.  As someone who live in Oakland and worked in downtown Oakland I can say that 14th is pretty massive as streets go.  If he had said "my option was to step into traffic" I might be less suspicious.  But my guess is that there weren't many cars driving on the street at the moment.

So my assumption is that the police asked him to move.  In some way he resisted that.  It is possible that the police over-reacted and abused him in their attempt to subdue someone who they felt was not compliant with their order to get out of the way.  Let me repeat that for everyone: It is possible that the police over-reacted and abused him in their attempt to subdue someone who they felt was not compliant with their order to get out of the way.

It is also possible that the individual refused to follow orders during what was obviously a tense time and when the police moved in to arrest him he physically resisted that arrest (maybe out of principle). 

In the interest of transparency I would say that I had a very similar experience during the WTO broo-haha in Seattle.  A friend and I were coming done a downtown street and suddenly there were six riot police in full riot gear walking straight at us.  They said in effect "get the fuck out of the way" and the two of us quickly stepped onto Fourth Street as the passed by. 

So let me just say again for the record, it is possible some police decided to take their frustrations out on this one individual.  It is very possible.  But it is not a fact.