OAKLAND, Kalifornia - January 8, 2009 - A march protesting the slaying of a young Oakland father at the Fruitvale BART station early New Year's Day became violent Wednesday evening as a group of rampaging marchers rioted through downtown.

By 10 p.m., police reported 14 people had been arrested, but footage shot by NewsChopper2 about an hour later revealed a mass arrest at 20th Street and Broadway near the Paramount Theatre that looked to net in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 suspects.

Several people gathered at the Fruitvale Bay Area Rapid Transit station Wednesday afternoon for a rally to protest the shooting death of Oscar Grant III at the hands of a transit agency police officer at the station early January 1.

For safety reasons, BART trains are bypassing the Fruitvale station while the protest continues. Organizers said the rally was planned to last until 8 p.m., but by 5:30 a substantial portion of the rally spontaneously started marching through the streets of Oakland towards downtown.

While the majority of the marchers were well behaved, just after 6:30 p.m. a splinter group of protesters started causing trouble at the intersection of 8th Street and Madison not far from the Lake Merritt BART station.

A fire was lit in a dumpster on wheels that was rolled into the middle of the street and swarmed a police car that was nearly tipped over as the angry protestors beat on the vehicle with sticks and rocked it violently back and forth.

Oakland police responded in riot gear, shooting tear gas and approaching the crowd with shields, helmets and batons drawn to force them to disperse. The Oakland Fire Department was quickly able to put out the dumpster fire without event.