Beat News Service

San Francisco Police asked for the public’s help to identify the man who purposely ran down a former U.S. Marine and CalFire firefighter during a Thanksgiving morning fight in the city’s Richmond District.

Police said the suspect fought with the victim inside a Jack in the Box restaurant at the corner of Geary Blvd. and 11th Ave. in the city’s Richmond District at 2:45 a.m. but were separated by other patrons.

Edwin M. Lee will be elected Mayor of San Francisco after vote tallies released by the city’s Elections Department Wednesday afternoon showed the career bureaucrat gaining an insurmountable lead over second-choice candidate Supervisor John Avalos.

The Beat expects that Avalos will not receive enough of the remaining votes to overcome the deficit. Lee received 61 percent of the vote in the eleventh round of allocations in the city’s first ranked choice vote for Mayor. Avalos recieved 39 percent.

City merchants, maintenance crews and Occupy Oakland protesters picked up scrub brushes and dust pans to clean up what became a violent clash between anarchists and police Wednesday morning that led to 80 arrests.

Police from several Bay Area law enforcement agencies lobbed tear gas at the anarchists after they were pelted with rocks, bottles and a homemade shield, interim Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said Thursday. 

Thousands of protesters joined a general strike called by the Occupy Oakland movement Wednesday, with marches and rallies occurring in Downtown Oakland throughout the day, and an evening blockade of the Port of Oakland shutting down commerce at the freight terminal for the rest of the day.

Protesters who have taken over Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of Oakland City Hall are continuing a week-long occupation, settled into their tent city for a ninth day on Wednesday with no sign that they plan to end the demonstration against government, big banks and corporate America.

Three meals a day are served at a makeshift cafeteria, first aid is provided at a medical booth, and a “media center” has sprung up — providing access to the web for protesters. 

Apple fans gathered outside the company’s San Francisco flagship store at Stockton and Market Streets to pay tribute to the co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs, who died Wednesday after a long fight with pancreatic cancer. He was 56 years old.

Six miles from where President Obama pitched his plan for job growth Monday morning, three tech-savvy Republican members of Congress — nicknamed the “young guns” — pitched their own plan to stimulate economic growth during a live chat session at Facebook’s Palo Alto campus.

Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-California), Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) praised the social networking website’s growth before a packed room of employees and invited guests, but criticized Washington lawmakers for “still trying to catch up” to using Facebook as a constituent tool. 

President Obama will return to the Bay Area Sunday to headline two pricey fundraisers and host a Monday morning town hall meeting organized by the social networking website LinkedIn, as part of a West Coast swing to raise cash for his reelection campaign.