Oakland: The aftermath of G20

Take a deep breath. Exhale.

Ok. G20 happened.

As the smoke (literally) clears from Pittsburgh's education neighborhood, Oakland, people - and by people, I pretty much mean students - have to look back at what happened to their campus (read: home).

Whether you were part of the action, following Twitter updates or just catching news and blog posts whenever you could get the chance, you know that something bad happened in Oakland. And the students are pissed.

About 150 arrests took place in Oakland between Thursday and Saturday - some protesters, but a lot of students.

Students we're trapped in their dorms and trapped out of their dorms, they were told they would be expelled if they stepped outside and told they would be arrested if they didn't disperse from their student union. It was a difficult - and scary - time for students who were just on their campus to catch a glimpse of a history.

Reports will continue to flow in over the next days and weeks that will determine what really happened. Did Pitt police try to stop riot police from entering the Cathedral of Learning? Was excessive force used on innocent student bystanders? Why were students trapped in stairwells with the presence of tear gas in the air? Why were students who were trying to disperse shot in their backside instead of their frontside, like would be expected if they were resisting police?

And one of the biggest ones out there is how did protesters manage to do $50,000 in damage with riot police outnumbering protesters and students nearly 2 to 1?

There's a lot of unanswered questions right now. And a good place for a lot of these questions can seen at 2 Political Junkies, a Pittsburgh politics blog.

For now, students who were arrested unfairly can only hope that their records are cleared and they don't have to deal with University judicial board reviews, which could and should happen. People who were not here, even alum of Pitt, can say what they want about students who didn't listen to police, but how far does a student have to go before they have dispersed? Students were gassed and arrested outside of their dorm rooms.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has a lot of questions to deal with. But when asked about how he can show the students at Pitt that the city still loves them, he only responded by saying "We still love you" - it was enough to get some eerie laughter from the crowd.

If you don't figure something out soon, Luke, don't expect the students to love you back.