Protesters near Telegraph and 19th Street in downtown Oakland.

Originally published at Oakland Local. Several hours after a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin, more than a 100 protesters marched through downtown Oakland, chanting and carrying signs that read “We Are All Trayvon Martin” and “F*** The Police.”

Despite a small group of protesters who smashed windows, spray painted graffiti and set small fires, there were relatively few physical interactions between police and protesters. According to an Oakland Police Department spokesperson, there were no arrests or injuries following the protest.

As protesters began marching down Broadway around 10:30 p.m., police dispatchers urged officers to rush to 7th Street to set up a police line. About 15 officers were stretched across Broadway by the time protesters arrived. The group turned around and over the next two hours marched a winding route through downtown that took them past the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse before returning to Broadway around 1 a.m.

Oakland police closely monitored the march via helicopter; over police dispatch radio officers tried to identify the individuals who were breaking windows and tagging anti-police graffiti. Police cars followed the march, usually several blocks behind. As the marchers returned to Broadway a little before 1 a.m., trash cans were dragged into intersections and set on fire, a scuffle between several protesters broke out and vandalism increased.

Police cruisers began aggressively driving through intersections and blocking access to side streets causing the protesters to split up into smaller groups on different blocks. The march soon dissipated.

Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History

Scott Selby, Greg Campbell

On February 15, 2003, a group of thieves broke into an allegedly airtight vault in the international diamond capital of Antwerp, Belgium and made off with over $108 million dollars worth of diamonds and other valuables. They did so without tripping an alarm or injuring a single guard in the process.

Although the crime was perfect, the getaway was not. The police zeroed in on a band of professional thieves fronted by Leonardo Notarbartolo, a dapper Italian who had rented an office in the Diamond Center and clandestinely cased its vault for over two years. The who of the crime had been answered, but the how remained largely a mystery.

Enter Scott Andrew Selby, a Harvard Law grad and diamond expert, and Greg Campbell, author of Blood Diamonds, who undertook a global goose chase to uncover the true story behind the daring heist. Tracking the threads of the story throughout Europe from Belgium to Italy, in seedy cafes and sleek diamond offices, the authors sorted through an array of conflicting details, divergent opinions and incongruous theories to put together the puzzle of what actually happened that Valentines Day weekend.

This real-life Ocean’s Eleven, a combination of diamond history, journalistic reportage, and riveting true-crime story, provides a thrilling in-depth study detailing the better-than-fiction heist of the century. Amazon

Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts

Julian Rubinstein

Elmore Leonard meets Franz Kafka in the wild, improbably true story of the legendary outlaw of Budapest. Attila Ambrus was a gentleman thief, a sort of Cary Grant–if only Grant came from Transylvania, was a terrible professional hockey goalkeeper, and preferred women in leopard-skin hot pants. During the 1990s, while playing for the biggest hockey team in Budapest, Ambrus took up bank robbery to make ends meet. Arrayed against him was perhaps the most incompetent team of crime investigators the Eastern Bloc had ever seen: a robbery chief who had learned how to be a detective by watching dubbed Columbo episodes; a forensics man who wore top hat and tails on the job; and a driver so inept he was known only by a Hungarian word that translates to Mound of Ass-Head.

BALLAD OF THE WHISKEY ROBBER is the completely bizarre and hysterical story of the crime spree that made a nobody into a somebody, and told a forlorn nation that sometimes the brightest stars come from the blackest holes. Like The Professor and the Madman and The Orchid Thief, Julian Rubinsteins bizarre crime story is so odd and so wicked that it is completely irresistible. Amazon

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession

Allison Hoover Bartlett

Unrepentant book thief John Charles Gilkey has stolen a fortune in rare books from around the country. Yet unlike most thieves who steal for profit, Gilkey steals for love-the love of books. Perhaps equally obsessive is Ken Sanders, the self-appointed “bibliodick” who’s driven to catch him. Following this eccentric cat-and-mouse chase with a mixture of suspense, insight and humor, Allison Hoover Bartlett plunges the reader deep into a rich world of fanatical book lust and considers what it is that makes some people stop at nothing to posses the titles they love. Amazon

Honor Thy Father

Gay Talese

On New York’s Park Avenue on a rainy Tuesday night in October 1964, the famous Mafia chieftain Joseph Bonanno was kidnapped by two mobsters and reported by the police as dead on the following morning. More than a year later, Bonanno mysteriously reappeared, setting off a bloody mob feud that came to be known as the “Banana War.”

In this monumental work—packed with intimate details and brilliant reporting—bestselling author Gay Talese first brought to the American consciousness a world and a life previously known to only a few. No other book has done more to acquaint readers with the secrets, structure, wars, power plays, family lives, and fascinating, frightening personalities of the Mafia. Amazon

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