Oakland relatively quiet and peaceful hours after Mehserle verdict

The streets are devoid of mayhem and violence. So far, everything is peaceful and the demonstration(s) are fairly benign.

Oakland, in sort of a comic way, may be far more placid than, say, Cleveland, (where a millionaire native son bolted his beloved town and is headed for Miami.)

Save for poor KRON and its hysterical rookie yokel reporters trying to rev up mini-hysteria at 14th and Broadway, and a few radio and Internet kanoodles looking for any form of disturbances, ("Hey, what are you gonna do tonight?---'you think it's going to be peaceful?"), the TV and radio coverage has been good and yes, again, restrained.

KPIX/CBS 5 went so far as to go to network news at 5: 30 because absolutely nothing was going on. Good props to Channel 5 and news dir. Dan Rosenheim for reading the room and seeing quite clearly that THE STORY was cleary the VERDICT and that ensuing violence and rioting was nowhere to be seen, at least as late Thursday evening.

On the radio side, props also to KGO and KCBS. Solid reporting, well done street-by-street scene-setters and a thorough run-down of the day's events.

As darkness comes, we await any developments and if so, we'll be back to comment.