but we follow this closure, southbound 880 at 7th street. it is still closed but there is more volume coming in off of the eastbound bay bridge out of san francisco and then coming up to the same level on the oakland side. there is more traffic there approaching the merger, the split. don't take that to 880. take it toward the maze and eastbound 5 20i8. and that is over in the east bay. the golden gate bridge continues with the jam. sergio showed us the activity, but still even though we saw a number of squad cars, we still have the back-up and the full closure for 101. no act as far as traffic volume goes. here is the san francisco side. there is the north bay side and that is coming from marin and toward the tunnel that comes out of the rainbow tunnel or the

robin williams tunnel. that is the heart of where all of the activity goes across all lanes of the golden gate bridge. because they had to watch out for all of the activity, and then you know the lanes are restricted there. we saw that hook and ladder truck, they couldn't turn around. they had to back up and that might have been the vehicle that i saw making its way back into san francisco. they've made some arrests and then you have to clear all of the vehicles that are jammed up from the span itself. and then the folks jammed out of marin county. so that is over on this side of the bay. because they can't close on the golden gate bridge and a lot of folks have chosen to go up, or had to go up over through san rafael, up 101 and across 580 which is the bridge from san rafael to the bridge. in past, down the east shore freeway, that adds to the

congestion. even though the metering lights were turned off, traffic was jammed up here and on the nimitz we have the back-up getting into the area and that red stretch here, that is getting away from the bay bridge on southbound 880 going toward the maze. now we wore worried that that would put a lot of pressure on san mateo bridge. instead of the boy bridge. and even the dumbarton bridge. and even though we did see a lot of traffic on the nimitz and traffic back toward castro valley, folks were coming down away from the bay bridge and going back up 580 because that is the most direct route. so this afternoon it is looking great, or this noon it is looking great. tri-valley not a problem. we'll continue to adjust. we're watching. there is progress but not a full clearing. i'm looking at a couple of feeds that we have around and we're looking at some movement on this golden gate bridge as well. i don't know if if -- if we

could get back to it. and there is a lot of activity. you do see a few people starting to move again. right back to you. well, breaking news for you, if you're just joining us now, protesters taking over the golden gate bridge. and busy east bay freeways. we're live with coverage of the shutdown for you this morning. i'm marcus washington. >> and i'm janelle wang and i'm sitting in for laura garcia covering the major freeway shut down and bridge closures since about 7:00 this morning, you have been on the air as we've been talking about the golden gate bridge is shut down in both directions and also in two parts of 880, the southbound direction in west oakland before 7th street. this is as you get off the bay bridge. and selena jones is standing by where they have been sitting peacefully for a few hours right now. and do you see any change or any movement with law enforcement moving in at all?

>> reporter: you know, janelle, as you mentioned, they have been holding this line here for hours, just within the past couple of minutes we have seen some change with buses being brought in from chp presumably in case anyone needs to be arrested. however, we not seen any other movement aside from this in terms of law enforcement making any moves to inch closer to protesters, to try to disburse them. but this is the first movement that we've seen actually all morning in terms of maybe some preparation of what is to come. the protesters again have been holding this line. you see that they have been facing off with law enforcement for hours now. we have seen them standing, we've seen them sitting. and even laying down in the roads. they have been standing peacefully. there have been no sort of conflict that we've seen. they're very different from what we've seen across the bay area.

we haven't seen anyone in -- linked to each other or unable to kind of separate themselves as we have seen over in different locations of the bay area. and then if we pan down towards the freeway, where we see this traffic, my photographer is going to give you a better look here, you just see the back-up for miles and miles and miles. we talked to drivers over there who have been stuck and all of this traffic for hours. they said, you know, there is no options for them. some of them have been there so long that they said they need a bathroom break and hungry on the way to work and some have mentioned they're losing money because they cannot get to work today. others have mentioned concerns about how long this is going to last and the fact that they haven't seen law enforcement really take any action to disperse this crowd in the hours they've been stuck in traffic and others have said that they

understand where the protest is happening. they agree with the protests but are not sure how effective this is in terms of disrupting everybody's day. one mentioned, we're just people trying to get to our jobs. we're not politicians so why are we caught in the mix of all of this. and so, there has been some frustration with drivers. i have heard that there have been conversations between drivers and protesters. but still everything has remained calm. there was a caltrans vehicle, a couple of hours ago, that tries to get through that barrier. that is when we saw protesters circle around and that car and to make sure that they did not drive any further. but in the hours that we have been here, we have not seen protesters move or inch any closer on to the freeway. so again, we are on southbound 880 between 7th street. the next exit to be broadway

headed towards alameda. in the time that we've been here, protesters have not inched any closer so law enforcement has kept this line steady so they could go further on to the freeway. in talking to the protesters, we asked them, you know, how long do you anticipate that this will last and they said as long as it takes. and so now that we are seeing the vans come in, we're waiting to see what chp's next move may be. that typically means they're going to make some sort of announcement here shortly. so far there has been no announcements. another thing that we have already seen as drivers have been stuck for hours now, is drivers actually turning around and going on the side to get out of all of this traffic mess. but as you could imagine, some of these vehicles, we've seen a lot of tractor-trailers and they can't fit and a lot of people are stuck here waiting to see what is next.

we've been monitoring the situation all morning and we'll continue to do so. and back to you for now. >> thank you. and we've just received a news release there is going to be another rally happening right now at u.n. plaza at market street in san francisco. this is kind of like a day of action. these independent but coordinated demonstrations happening on tax day, april 15th, with the call to the biden administration to stop using taxpayer money to support israel's war against hamas. but this has been happening apparently in cities across the globe. many demonstrations right here in the bay area. >> and one of those locations here, the golden gate bridge, something that people identify with san francisco. and that is one of the places where we're seeing some of the protesters this morning. we did talk to chp earlier today and in this location where they have arrested at least 15 people as of when we spoke to that chp officer. we also saw in this bridge, earlier today, some of those

drivers there, we saw some of the drivers there turning around, doing their own thing. but we want to talk about what is going on here. as you're seeing, this is one of the tow trucks pulling one of the cars from the area. sergio quintana is in the area for you. and this is something that i know a lot of people stuck in traffic have been waiting to see. >> yeah, what we're seeing here is a physical removal of some of the vehicles that were also part of this demonstration on the golden gate bridge. what you're seeing there is the second vehicle that we have seen towed today by a tow truck. we did see that the golden gate patrol sent one of the tow trucks out there to begin this process. so again, the second one that we've seen. we've seen a lot more of police and fire asset that's were on the bridge starting to come off the bridge. we've seen several police officers, we've seen the california highway patrol with their utility vehicle as well. this is video of the first

vehicle that we mentioned, a car, a toyota sedan being pulled away from the demonstration. we understand from the organizers or from people who are participating in this demonstration on the bay bridge, that is part of the coordinated efforts. there were a few cars parked on bridge and demonstrators that were part of the chain together to delay their removal by the law enforcement officers who came out to respond to this. now, i just had a conversation with a local in the area who was telling me about the difficulty that some of the people that he works with are trying to figure out as the golden gate bridge was shut down. he works with logistics, with trucks trying to get things back and forth across the bay area. he was saying that they had to direct all of the trucks that they had coming over the golden gate bridge to the east bay, hopefully to try to cross the bay bridge. but that whole situation turned into logistical issue as well.

so they've been trying to figure out ways of getting around. you could imagine on a sunny day at the golden gate bridge, there are also a lot of people coming here for leisure. i've had conversations with people who have visiting from italy, from australia, from spain, who are here trying to figure out when they're going to be able to cross the golden gate bridge because they're on vacation, obviously, and they're just kind of watching and waiting to kind of see when the pedestrian part of the bridge is going to open up as well. we don't have an estimation. even though we're seeing that there are more assets coming off the golden gate bridge, it remains closed as do the pedestrian lanes of the golden gate bridge. so we don't have an estimation just yet. but as soon as we hear anything further, about when the golden gate bridge will reopen, obviously we'll tell you about it. you could see there are more vehicles that are coming off of the golden gate bridge right now. there is also some of the smaller vehicles that we've been seeing, some of the golden gate bridge patrol vehicles.

this is a tow truck. this is the third car now being pulled off of the golden gate bridge as part of the demonstration. and fourth. third and fourth. so there is at least some progress in this effort to try to clear traffic on the golden gate bridge. obviously, this is southbound side. this is where the demonstration originally started. and so that is obviously where they're trying to clear all of the vehicles that are parked of this demonstration. we'll continue to watch as progress is being made here on the golden gate bridge to open it up for traffic in both directions. and as soon as we have any further updates, we'll pass them along. reporting live at the golden gate bridge i'm sergio quintana, nbc bay area. >> we're getting some updates from chp that are telling people who have been waiting there for hours, crank up their cars because things are starting to move. now we do have a better advantage point, above ground. with you we are able to see a lot of the cars. there is different movement, more movement that we have been

able to see all morning. so certainly we might see some traction there on the golden gate bridge. right now you're looking at bob redell. he's there along 880 and you've about through throughout the morning and certainly we're seeing more movement there as well. i'm thinking last time we spoke to you, there are two lanes now open there on the northbound lanes? >> reporter: correct. so southbound 880 right now, brake lights, it has been closed so if you look over to your left, you have the two lanes northbound 880 just south of 5th avenue and the embarcadero exit. they're now reopened. all lanes of northbound 880 were shut down starting around 6:30 this morning. you could see why, where the chp officers were there were protesters who put their arms in an oil drum and had those oil drums several of them strewn across the lane. it is taken chp a number of

hours to remove the people from those drums. so you could see one of the protesters as soon as this truck moves out of the way, sitting on ground there with a blue headset and the scarf and you have the officers with a tarp. they are surrounding the oil drum and what they're using is a blade, a diamond saw, a jackhammer, an electric chisel and a hammer to cut through that metal and to chisel through the concrete so they could get to the people's arms that are -- we're not sure if they're encased in the concrete, but they have been secure and the only way to get them out is to cut through the barrel and remove the concrete. the protesters did say they put 280 pounds of concrete in each barrel and they were successful in shutting down the road and making it very difficult to remove them because this is been going on for let me see here, almost six hours and there are still two protesters left with two barrels.

so chp is working on removal of the protests and they're trying to -- >> stay with us bob. we wanted to let people know that traffic is moving now on the golden gate bridge. as you could see right now, this is a live view as we see the first movement that we've seen on the golden gate bridge in some four hours. many of those commuters have been sitting in their cars waiting for this moment. but chp were able to make arrests there, many of the demonstrators there blocking the roadway with vehicles as well as chained to some of the cars. but again, golden gate bridge now movement this morning. the first we've seen in some five hours now. >> right. this is great news. this is the southbound lanes where the protesters first arrived around just after 7:00 this morning. the chp just reopening all lanes after arresting at least a dozen demonstrators on this day of action, april 15th, along the golden gate bridge. the northbound lanes were closed

because of emergency vehicles attending to the situation. so we don't see movement there. but as chopper does a wide view around the entire bridge. we could assume they're going to reopen the northbound lanes as well. but right now this is good news. the southbound lanes reopening across the golden gate bridge. this demonstration, if you're just joining us, starting around 7:30 this morning where 60 bay area residents shut down the golden gate bridge to demand an end to the us support of israel's genocide and palestine. that is the quote and news release coming from a organization that organized this demonstration today. they basically parked their cars in front of all lanes and then chained themselves to those cars so it took some time to free all of those demonstrators at the golden gate bridge. this is one of several demonstrations happening in the bay area today. and one of many happening around the world as it is a global call to stop supporting israel's war against hamas.

but as you could see, just north of the golden gate bridge, this is right at i think alexander area, they are still holding cars back. trying to get on to the golden gate bridge. so we're not sure what is happening but they're relieving all of the cars that were stuck on the golden gate bridge first. that have been stuck there since 7:30 this morning. but we do see some movement now clearing those cars first and as you could see the chp leading the way for other cars on southbound 101 across the golden gate bridge into san francisco. traffic is now moving. >> now on the other side of the bridge, that is where we find sergio quintana. he's seen the cars come through and it is been a dead zone over in that area for some hours now. and sergio, i know you're able to see some of the cars that we've seen move through from the chopper this morning. >> reporter: yeah, you're not seeing me now because you're looking at the plaza where all of the cars are now going through, the toll plaza coming

off the golden gate bridge. they just started going through that plaza about a minute ago or so. and probably at around the same time, i'm going to show you here, the pedestrian side, that gate is open as well. all of the people have been waiting to walk across the golden gate bridge. they just started walking across the bridge as well. so basically traffic on the southbound lanes, vehicle traffic on the southbound lanes is now open. pedestrian traffic is now open as well and so this is -- and i'm now kind of looking to see what kind of movement is going northbound. we just saw chp helicopter buzz past us. so i'm going to check to see if they're going to start reopening the traffic northbound. not just yet. they have traffic stopped at the toll plaza northbound as well. and so they have not started letting cars come through that point just yet. but at the moment, it did look as if cars are coming through at

a pretty good clip southbound back into the city. that has started just within the last couple of minutes or so. you could see, it is basically kind of traffic as normal coming across the bridge at the moment. however, i have not seen whether they have opened up traffic northbound. so we're going to continue to watch to see what kind of progress is being made at this point. this is a issue going on for four hours so the people on that bridge who were stuck behind the demonstration itself, were themselves trying to figure out whether they were going to get something to eat or how they would were going to get back into the city. no doubt some relief for them as they're able to drive into the city and they are able to go on about their day. i did notice you guys talking about this and we were told about this earlier, there is a demonstration staged at u.n. plaza in san francisco by the people who organized these

protesters. they say that that is what they're going to be able to explain, exactly why they're doing what they're doing here. i mentioned a little bit earlier, the kind of international contingent of people waiting to cross the bridge. i just saw some guys that i talked with from spain who are now happily taking their bikes and riding their bikes across the pedestrian bridge. they've been waiting for about an hour and they were able to finally cross the bridge and continue on to their ride across the golden gate bridge into marin. progress happening on the golden gate bridge at the moment. reporting live in san francisco, i'm sergio quintana, nbc bay area. >> and you'll see another batch of cars making their way across the golden gate bridge escorted by chp as they have been waiting hours there after demonstrations shut down both lanes of traffic there on the golden gate bridge. right now we're looking at video of chp officers making way across the golden gate bridge.

these are people who were stuck more so on the sausalito side of the bridge and making their way through. this is been a long morning. >> and the northbound lanes have not reopened to traffic but they have allowed pedestrians and cyclists to cross the northbound lanes. so no word from chp. we're following their twitter to see when the northbound lanes will be open. but the lanes are clear. all emergency vehicles off the northbound lanes so it should be momentally on this veryectic morning for so many commuters around the bay area. let's get a check of the traffic situation with two other protesters on 880 with mike inouye. >> good morning, or good afternoon, i guess. we're looking at span. a higher camera view. sergio was talking about the people stuck on the bridge itself. there is a little break and another group that we saw coming down. look at all of the cars build up from the robin williams tunnel

making their way snacking back and forth. they just reopened it. they're telling me they just reopened the northbound side and if we could get a look out there. but northbound 101, the golden gate bridge, we just got word that the first vehicles are traveling across. there is sky ranger showing us that travel. that is own over on the right side going north from san francisco into marin. both directions appear to have vehicles moving and they must have reopened the northbound side because it doesn't appear to be much escort going on. you see the full travel toward the nbc logo and that is where the chp are. the first to cross the bridge escorting the rest of the folk coming from marin county after they clear the incidents on the span southbound 101. protests on the bridge and heading down toward -- there you go, what was previously for hours an empty toll plaza. if we could go back to maps, i'll talk about the other two closures we have going on. now that the golden gate bridge has cleared, these sensors will

light up. southbound does show slowing. and we have back-up coming out of san francisco golden gate park was a problem but now things must be easier. now across the bay bridge out of san francisco, we have this big back-up on southbound 880. because at 7th, we continue to follow this protest with folks on the on-ramp which moves over on to southbound 880 itself. so southbound 880 getting away from the bay bridge is jammed up and then not moving and folks are taking their way through the maze. that continues, although they shows us progress as vans arrived and there is a possibility of folks being cleared from the area. i'm sure there are some information being given by chp to let them know what might happen if they don't start to clear and disperse the area. northbound 880, the slowing does

indicate a distraction. that is northbound 880 around the 5th embarcadero. the first protest just before 7:00 this morning sh we saw the big back-up. it is still going on. northbound 880, use 580 as your alternate. but i have good news. coliseum camera, this was backed up all morning. we had about four or five or six miles of balkup heading north on 880. to lanes are open past bob redell when he followed the original protest that continues with people still blocking a few lanes with the protests and those cement barrels. back to you. >> thanks you, mike into as we look here, all lanes back open on the golden gate bridge. this is after protesters blocked those lanes for several hours this morning. the northbound section just opened just minutes ago. we saw the southbound lanes just a few minutes before that. but again, this is a long morning for a lot of commuters

who have been blocked there, stuck in traffic. we spoke to one of those commuters that she was on her way in to the city this morning and she was just stopped there and some feet behind the protester this is morning. another area where selena jones is now. and this is 880 in oakland near 7th street. and so it looks like the protesters are on the move again? >> reporter: yeah, marcus, so i want to show you exactly what we're looking at right now. chp just moments ago made an announcement this is an unlawful assembly and they said if they do not clear the area, or resist arrest, that reasonable force will be used. and so those announcements were just made moments ago. now you see protesters getting closer to law enforcement here. for the last couple of hours 245i6 been holding the line. and so this is some movement here. we could see at the far end law

enforcement coming into the crowd right now. and it looks like there is some conflict right here happening as we speak. again, this is all happening within the moments that we've been here. i'm going to walk a little bit closer to where all of this is happening so we could get a better view as my photographer tries to come closer as well. again, law enforcement coming closer in to where the crowd has been situated for hours now. >> and i know you could see better than we are able to see at this point. but earlier we were talking about these demonstrators had not chained themselves together but it looks like, from what we were able to see, that maybe they were chaining themselves together. could you tell us what you could see? >> reporter: i don't see any physical chains, marcus. we do see people linking arms. >> linking arms. >> reporter: as we speak. so right now, as you take a

look, they have their arms linked and law enforcement protesters standing off. this is the closest that they've been to each other. the whole time that they have shut down 880. southbound. as you could see, every single lane of the southbound of 880 is blocks right now. we see one person being taken into custody right now. moments ago they made an announcement that this is an unlawful assembly and to disperse. they gave them routes telling them to go back toward the 7th street on-ramp. and now we see law enforcement continue to come closer in. so they are linking arms right now. they are refusing to leave. and we talked to protesters earlier today, who said when they started to see more law enforcement presence, that they would continue to stand their ground and that they were willing to be arrested. so we know that they believe

that -- and you could see some movement right now. through now the second person taken into custody that we've seen. people are continuing to link arms again. law enforcement said if they did not -- if they did not leave and if they resisted arrest, that reasonable force could be used. so that is what we're see right now. someone getting zip tied as we speak. and we could see over here in this crowd, more law enforcement coming in. as protesters continue to link arms. we're hearing them chant, too, marcus as well. >> this is one of the areas we've been watching the three locations throughout the morning. there where you were as well as 880 and the golden gate bridge. this is the first time that we're seeing arrests or movement from officers in this particular location. we did see it there on the golden gate bridge. we did see it farther down south. on 880 from where you are.

but this is the first time we're seeing movement from officers approaching those protesters and making some arrests from what we're seeing there. >> exactly. exactly. and so this is the first movement we've seen all day here in this location. from law enforcement. they have been just standing facing off with protesters for hours. before this movement came in. so within the last 30 minutes, it looks like they have received more reinforcement as well so maybe that was part of the reason that they were waiting to try to disperse this crowd. but after several, several hours, law enforcement now finally coming in. we've seen some bikes, there are a lot of protesters had bikes here too and so we've seen some law enforcement you know move bikes out of way. there were signs and several different scenes in the roadway, that also would have inhibits people to drive.

i've seen law enforcement now move those out of way. as well, if you could hear the protesters are chanting free palestine as they continue to link arms and there is several different -- i don't know if you could make it out, because there are so many groups, din groups and as law enforcement continues to get closer to the protesters, it is hard to make out. you could see all of those signs there. if we go to the crowd, several different groups are linking arms. it is not just one group. there are several different groups so law enforcement is kind of trying to get in to several different groups to disperse these protesters. and if you see kind of traj of all of this, clp is moving them to the off-ramp of 7th street where they came from and originally blocked the area.

so, the area that we're in right now is kind of the center divider here on the freeway and so they're moving them back down the on-ramp towards 7th street. as they move them. this is the same group that i believe we saw this morning coming down 7th street this morning. it was posted looking at that poster, it is supposed to be around 8:36 this morning so many propertiers have been out there since 7:30 this morning or even before that.

off southbound 880 and they've kind of had a wall, a line blocking the freeway to the protesters don't run back on to the freeway. but obviously safety is the number one concern of the chp as they try to get the highway back open. but you could see, this large

group of about 200 people, as nbc bay area sky ranger is over the scene. just on the on-ramp to 880, for the demonstration is still going on. some arrests, some people detains already, but a wall of chp officers blocking these demonstrators from getting on to the freeway again. but it looks like they have reopened at least one or two lanes. one lane of southbound 880. this is in west oakland. just getting off the bay bridge. >> this is that 7th street -- and the thing about it, selena was telling us, many of them said they are willing to get arrested. they will not move and stay there as long as they're able to. and i understand that officers likely know that that might be the case as you see, they are detaining some of those protesters out there. but they have successfully moved the demonstration from the roadway there. they're just on that ramp of 7th street. this is 880 southbound. 7th street entry as you see

right there. officers do have that area blocked off as well. but you see they have concentrated and they're moving more down 7th street. an this is where we saw them make their way up on to the roadway, about 7:30 this morning as we've been covering this since about 7:30 this morning and you could see there many of the protesters have started to lock arms together. they are creating their own type of link. and officers there keep them concentrate inned area. but right now they are not moving. but as she was telling us, officers have alerted the demonstrators that this is an unlawful assembly and they will be making arrests as we have seen. >> earlier today, the group said this is a series -- part of a series of economic, they call them economic block aids happening specific today on april 15th, tax day, and in

dozens of cities around the world. they say they targeted 880 because it is an economic artery through which capital and labe flows every single day an it is one the primary corridors in the bay area so they purposely disrupted this area, 880, one of the main arteries of the bay area. but it is a day of action for demonstrations across world and across the country. several here in the bay area calling on the biden administration to stop funding israel's war against hamas. and actually, the president -- president biden is hosting iraq's prime minister at the white house to talk about the tension in the middle east. there is growing concern of what is happening in gaza. also at this hour, there is a rally at u.n. plaza, it is happening at this time purposely picking u.n. plaza and then a parade at 12:30 which just got underway to the irs office.

they're calling it a family friendly parade. with drums and posters and they're going to be marching. there is going to be children at this demonstration as well. that is what they're saying. but it is also part of this larger demonstration, all independent demonstrations but happening in coordination this morning here in the bay area. >> we're going to continue to follow this, because this is been something thats had disrupted a lot of commute this morning. but the thing about it, i think a lot of the officers said, they wanted to relieve a lot of the traffic held up by those protesters. they were able to clear the golden gate bridge within the hour. they were able to do that. then we're seeing here, that stretch of 880 southbound, this is near 7th street. they're able to open partial lanes and also the 880 at 5th street south of where we're looking at right now where they still have more demonstrators

there, because that is a bigger effort to move them. because many of them protesters were barricaded or locked into cement barrels. there are these barrels with cement in them as well as they're chained to that. and so certainly a big effort there. back to where we're looking right now. this is southbound 880 at 7th street. selena has been monitoring that area. and like we've been saying they've been able to concentrate the protesters in one area. we've seen them take a few people away. detab a few people with the zip bands on. so what is going on now. it seems like it is more quiet? >> reporter: it is. and this happened with all in a matter of seconds. we've been waiting for hours but once chp moved in, this happened quite quickly, the protesters are now centered in what is the on-ramp coming from 7th street and so there is a face-off between law enforcement and

protesters. around the last person that we saw get detained was a couple of minutes ago, but since that has happened there has not been as active movement as before. as b. this is the first time we have seen traffic move through this portion of the freeway since around 7:30 this morning. chp is still trying to clear more lanes. there's only one lane that has reopened on 880 southbound. again, we're at the seventh street onramp here. this is where the focus is at this point. they're really trying to inch them towards the beginning of the onramp so they can get them off the freeway entirely. if you can take a look, there's no actual change, but all the protestors have linked their

arms together. we have seen multiple people get detained and chp made several announcements before coming in that this was an unlawful assembly and that people would get detained or arrested if are they refused to leave. so that's what we're seeing right now. you can see zip ties are ready from chp officers. again, kind of holding the line at this point. we've talked to several protestors just moments before all of this movement started. i asked them, i said are you willing to get arrested. they said their mission remains the same. they're willing to get arrested. they believe that this is the most, the best way that they can really deliver their message is doing these large protests. so they understand that this was the risk of getting arrested and so we've seen that happen. there has been no really movement in the last couple of minutes of just police getting

closer to these protestors and so we're really trying to see what their next move is as they continue to link arms. protestors have within the past couple of minutes, raised their voice, gotten louder. their chants have gotten a little bit stronger as more movement has happened. but now you can see there's a little bit of a lull. both law enforcement and protestors holding a line right here. >> we can see there's probably about 25 chp officers. they're outnumbered right now with a number of demonstrators on this onramp. waiting for next steps from the chp on how to remove these demonstrators from southbound 880 from seventh street in west oakland. if you're just joining us, there have been several demonstrations on this day of action. started just after 7:00 this morning. one where belina jones is. another down the street on northbound 880 and fifth and embarcadero then the golden gate

bridge, which in the last 20 minutes, all lanes have reopened. >> and getting around has been certainly a challenge but mike has been helping us navigate through all of this this morning. and mike, so we have seen golden gate bridge open and partial lanes at 880, at seventh as well as at fifth. so how are things looking now? >> you just saw the live picture from sky ranger. belina talked about how the freeway opened. for those familiar with the area traveling on the nimitz, you see over on the east side of the freeway train tracks, sometimes oil tanks there and you see all the activity. you can see that's why there's so much slowing. even though 880 opened, it's only one lane. you see officers standing by.

anytime folks are standing by on the freeway, officers involved, folks are slowing to see what's going on. so that's not going to recover until they completely clear all of the activity from the seventh street on. we saw there was a lot of very vocal crowds there and it didn't sound like that was going to clear in just a couple of minutes. something else going on, maybe more work that has to be done as far as that goes. we have slowing now as traffic builds out of san francisco. for the first time in a long time, there's a traffic build heading south on 880. they hear about the opening so folks try to take that one lane. i would still suggest you go down to the maze and take 580 if you're heading toward the nimitz, hayward or castro valley, of course you would take 580. 880 on, but only one lane southbound. northbound, the original closure, continues with a slow drive. speed sensors haven't reawakened, but things are moving much better.

still, i'm looking at north and southbound. the southbound side is the indicator of how much activity is going on around the nimitz, where bob was showing us those folks with their arms through the cement filled barrels and they had to be cleared. still not fully cleared and we're looking at slowing on the southbound direction because of a distraction. northbound side still has activity and some lane closures going on. again, use 580 as your alternate to get through the area and we'll continue to track that. those two areas are the only ones between the coliseum and bay bridge. if you're not taking the nimitz, you're okay for the rest of the southbound. one more ripple out from the morning's commute. we had the golden gate bridge closed for quite some time. it has reopened but a lot of folks shifted their traffic to the east bay and are taking the long way around. they have to continue on until

they reach their destination so there's a lot of traffic between berkeley and the berkeley curve. it will hopefully go smoothly toward the afternoon commute. back to you. >> we've got good news. this is a live picture from nbc bay area sky ranger of the other section on northbound where the original demonstration happened. you can see everything has been moved to the right two lanes. they have two lanes open on northbound 880. this is where those demonstrators had themselves chained into these tubes. these, with concrete. >> with the barrels of concrete inside. >> it was taking about 30 minutes to cut them out of that and free them per demonstrator. it looks like at this time, all of those demonstrators have been freed. we see one couple detained and being questioned but the chp says getting them out of those barrels safely took time, but it was their main priority.

>> we were told there were seven demonstrators that were chained in some sort to those barrels and they had to get each of them out. this is the first time we're seeing them not in the roadway. janel was mentioning, you can see on the sideline, those who were chained to those barrels. they're loading one of them now on to the back of that truck. so that's what they were dealing with. bob was telling us from what he heard as those barrels had about 280 pounds of concrete. you can just imagine how tough that was the break through all of that and now loading those on to the back of those trucks there. but on the side there, that is where they have some of those protestors there now. making arrests and detaining them there. but you do see, which is something that a lot of those commuters are happy. two of those lanes are open. that has been for some time now and until they clear this whole area, of course, they have to figure that out and also we're seeing now, we did see emt crews out there just monitoring those

who have been out there. they have been chained up to those apparatuses if you will, for some four, five hours now. so just monitoring them before they detain them and then of course we are figuring they will be making arrests. >> you can see paramedics attending to her. she's, seems like been out there since about 7:30 this morning. 5:00 this morning. you saw the back of the truck, how much debris and equipment they had to remove. again, as marcus was mentioning, seven demonstrators, not only just putting their arms through these concrete filled barrels, but they were chained inside and they had to use all this heavy equipment and electrical saws. bob said he saw a jackhammer. trying to safely dismantle them from each of these big barrels, concrete filled barriers. but you can see the back of the white pick up truck where a lt of the stuff has been moved on to. two lanes of 880 have been reopened.

north of the coliseum exit. belina jones is still on southbound 880 just north of there. this is in west oakland at seventh street where they have nobody was chained together. they had arms linking together. but chp has moved all those demonstrators on to the onramp and off southbound 880. so several lanes open there but for the last 30 minutes, everybody's kind of at a standstill. they've moved the demonstrators off. not much further movement since we last spoke, right? >> reporter: right. you can see just a little movement. they're inching closer to the onramp. they are on the onramp but we're trying to chp is trying to move them towards the entrance of the onramp. so we've seen maybe them move a couple of inches here and there. i just overheard chp said in some cases they're moving on

their own as chp moves in closer. they move a little bit further back. and so it looks like they're slowly inching them off this onramp. you can see now we're seeing more movement as chp again comes in. you can see these protesters continue to link arms. that first row there linked arms. and you can see those behind them are also linking arms. so there are several different groups of people who have now linked arms. again, it looks like they're moving. we will move a little bit closer to them as they head toward the entrance of the onramp. this is what chp and drivers quite frankly have been waiting for for hours, right. now that there is one lane reopened on 880. al all the other lanes are still blocked. it looks like someone is getting detained towards the guardrail. we see some movement here. this is really how it's been going, right?

it looks peaceful and there's been no conflict and then all of a sudden, we'll see there get a little more conflict as they continue to protest and you know, these protestors know that this was a reality that they could be arrested and they said that they are willing to face arrest to continue to have their message be heard. and so they said that they plan on standing firm on their protest. and that's what we have seen. in other cases, we haven't seen how difficult it was to move protestors in other locations around 880 where bob was earlier this morning. but this is the most movement that we've seen in hours and so we are continuing to see chp move in. protestors and some debri are not moving. we've seen a couple of people

get apprehended right now. i'm trying to keep an eye behind me. you can see they're making progress inch by inch, right. this is their tactic right now, to get them off the onramp. there are several barriers in place once we get further down on the onramp because they have put up barriers as well throughout the course of where cars would travel to get on to those freeways. so chp will have to address that as they continue to move down the way. we know all the way at the entrance of this onramp, there are also several dozen protesters that are there as well that are currently blocking the on ramp, too. so that's something chp will have to address as they continue to move the protesters off the onramp. >> it looks as though there are more officers there. and maybe it's just from my vantage point here, but you're out there. are we seeing more officers show up over time? >> reporter: we are. we are.

we definitely are. i would say the last 30 minutes to an hour, we've seen more police presence here. we saw vans come in a little under an hour ago. so that was the first kind of notice that hey, more officers are here. they're gearing up, getting ready to disperse this crowd. so we have seen this over the course of the last hour, 45 minutes or so. i see one protester just threw a bottle towards chp officers. >> i saw that. >> reporter: so we're seeing some conflict happen as well as they continue to get pushed down towards the entrance of this onramp. but it looks like really chp has taken this from the standpoint of inching them every couple of minutes down this onramp to eventually make it to the entrance, right? the hope is to get them off the onramp entirely. not sure how long this will take because it's quite a lengthy onramp, too. this is not a short distance.

they'll have to, you know, every couple of minutes, keep inching towards them. so we'll continue to monitor those again. it doesn't look like we have seen any other people get arrested as of right now. but we know that is something that both chp says they're willing to do again. an unlawful assembly they announced about 30 minutes ago. so that's when we really started to see this action. again, only one lane that i can see reopened on 880 right now. so traffic is still slow going but the good news is drivers can pass through. so i'm sure chp is waiting to clear some of those other lanes until they can make sure that these protesters will not get back on to the freeway, right. they said safety is one of their number one priorities, too. and so that's why we have seen kind of this slow approach as they try to get all the people off this onramp.

>> slow and methodical. past 45 minutes, they were blocking the entire southbound lanes of 880 and now they've moved and are inching their way down the onramp. the southbound onramp at fifth street. nbc bay area sky ranger, this is an ariel view of what is happening where belinas. you can see all the chp officers and the protestors, about 200 of them, slowly making their way down this onramp, but the goal is to reopen all lanes of southbound 880. and traffic is moving across the bay area. finally. after hours. but maybe hopefully many people have stayed away including the workarounds and arteries. >> you saw the live pictures there. the big rigs going by and you could clearly see all the activity. if you saw that on the side of the road, you would slow down as well. that's why. first of all, chp is keeping track of a couple of lanes of buffer there. as you're coming down 880

southbound toward the seventh street onramp, they're pushing folks back away from the freeway. you see these change. just lit from up i told you they'd activate. showing a little slowing at the scene and on the seventh street onramp, they're pushing back all the pedestrians, protestors that are there. folks traveling away from the bay bridge are slowed to one lane. it is still restricted to just one lane, which is why we have so much slowing and the distraction and that will not be cleared until they've moved those protestors completely off the scene, i believe, so that will be a while. making sure everybody's safe. that's all right. getting away from the bay bridge. you can still go through the the main. now the other section where there's slowing is around fifth embarcadero. both directions of the nimitz slowing. even though the lanes have been cleared and the protestors, we talked about activity still there, there was a lot of

cement, some barrels. some deconstruction that was going on. they had to move people and probably the debris that was brought over there as well as a result and other related protest materials. since that's still likely going on at least in one lane northbound 880, we're still seeing lane restrictions and the slowing in the southbound direction. that's continuing and that will be a slower drive but everything between the coliseum and say -- that's where the stretch is that's the slowest. everything else in the east bay, this portion is okay. and 580 remains fine as it has been pretty much all morning even though it was slower. 580 over here, both in the east shore, both directions a lot more slowing, a lot more traffic going back and forth to this bridge here because it had to relieve the pressure when the golden gate bridge was closed but that reopened as well. we've had a lot of progress in

the last few minutes. 880 restricted but just to one lane. northbound 880 has traffic flow, but clean up activity going on at fifth and embarcadero. and that ripple because all the freeways interact and cause folks to shift around. these will start recovering each one, one by one, we've seen them start to clear. back to you. >> thanks, mike. as you see right now, we want to take you back. this is live look from sky ranger. this is the protest that is happening on southbound 880. this is near seventh street. and this is where you can see right now those officers there creating this barricade line there and they are pushing those protesters back down the onramp of seventh street. now, those protestors actually made their way on to 880 from the same ramp around 7:30 this morning and as you can see now, they are pushing them back farther and farther away from the lanes of 880.

now, this has been going on for quite some time. we have seen those officers there move the protestors. we have seen them at one point lying down there in the middle of the street. belina jones has been there covering it all for us throughout the morning and as i said, we're seeing them now push farther away from where you are. >> reporter: exactly. exactly. so they're making some progress here and it looks to be moving a little bit faster than when this all started. we've seen several people get taken into custody. we've seen a couple of conflicts between law enforcement and protestors and those initial stages. now that they've moved them, things are going faster. so this is, it was slow and methodical and now it's slower but they're inching them closer to the entrance of the onramp. this is quite lengthy and so this is going to take some time to get them all the way down to the entrance of the onramp and

to disperse all of these protestors. when we first started this, there were around 200 protestors. there are also protestors at the end of the onramp and there's several different barricades for lack of a better word, of articles and pieces like boxes and things to make people not be able to drive through this area. so chp will have to handle that as well as they continue to inch them closer to the entrance of this onramp. we're continuing to see traffic move through, finally, on 880. they've opened up one lane of 880 as they continue to make sure protestors are completely off that onramp before fully reopening everything. they say safety is their first priority. but you know, it looks from right now, as we stand, that this is going peacefully.

there were times where we saw some conflicts between the protestors and law enforcement. we saw one protester throw a bottle towards chp officer recently. when we were last chatting with you, but this looks like it's going faster. than it was going earlier. so, we have not seen in the past couple of minutes anyone get arrested like we had been seeing. when we started all of this. several protestors were being taken into custody. they are continuing to link their arms as they inch backwards. they're continuing to make their chants. they're continuing to send their message, but it looks like that they're listening and that they're continuing to kind of back down this freeway. so they have, it looks, they're not even halfway off the onramp so they still have a little bit to go so we're continue to monitor that. but for now, it looks like chp is getting a successful turnout

in terms of trying to get these protestors off this onramp. >> now that's just one of the locations that we have been covering for you non-stop now for more than four hours. this is the location we also had the situation that is now clear on the golden gate bridge and 880 near fifth street. that is now cleared. this is a look from earlier today as they opened those lanes there. >> a difficult day for commuters, but a day of action for demonstrators, protesting for demonstrators, protesting the war i'm craig melvin. and this is dateline daytime on nbc. he's just my first love. narrator: the guy who disappeared. except in her case, he really disappeared. woman: he's going to call me on a couple days. he never called. narrator: his family, in agony.