Author Topic: Iraq Vet Critically Hurt in Occupy Protest  (Read 2562 times)

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Kramer

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Iraq Vet Critically Hurt in Occupy Protest
« on: October 26, 2011, 11:54:05 PM »
OK Mikey let's see some consistency...

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Occupy-Oakland-Protester-Seriously-Hurt-Report-132644468.html

One of the most vivid images from Tuesday night's Occupy Oakland protest shows a man lying in the street bleeding from the head after a tear gas attack by police.

Occupy SF identified the man as 24-year-old Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran. Olsen has a fractured skull and is in critical condition at Highland Hospital in Oakland, according to a hospital spokesperson.

Wednesday afternoon, members of Occupy Oakland said Olsen was surrounded by his friends and fellow Iraq war veterans in the hospital.

In the end, other protesters picked him up and took him out of the area.

Huffington Post talked to Olsen's roommate who told them doctors put him under sedation because of swelling to his brain.

The release stated that Olsen is currently sedated at Highland Hospital in Oakland with a skull fracture awaiting examination by a neurosurgeon.

Abele Carpenter, 29, a friend of Olsen's who met him through his anti-war activism, said she visited Olsen in the hospital early Wednesday morning and has been in touch with his family.

Carpenter said the hospital has stopped allowing her to visit Olsen, who was stable but still in serious condition when she saw him last, and is waiting for his family to arrive from Wisconsin.

Carpenter said she first met Olsen over the summer through her work with the Civilian-Soldier Alliance after he moved to the Bay Area in July.

She said Olsen is "really passionate about his work speaking out against unjust wars, and for rights for veterans and service members."

Carpenter said that a few weeks ago, she and Olsen did outreach together for active duty sailors during Fleet Week, and that Olsen was involved in trying to stop the redeployment of traumatized service members.

"He has a real breadth to his politics and social justice commitment," Carpenter said. She said Olsen had been camping at Occupy SF consistently for at least a week.

Joshua Shepherd, a six-year Navy veteran and an activist with Veterans for Peace, attended the vigil, and said he also visited Olsen in the hospital.

"It's unconscionable that you go overseas to protect our country, but you get injured by police officers who are supposed to be protecting us," Shepherd said.

Jason Matherne, an activist and friend of Olsen's, called for protesters to remain non-violent in the face of the escalating protests in Oakland.

"If you agree with Scott about ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and support him, do it peacefully and with civil disobedience," Matherne said.

Another friend at the vigil said a fund is being set up to assist with Olsen's medical expenses and his family's travel expenses from Wisconsin at www.ivaw.org.

Olsen was reportedly a part of San Francisco's Occupy movement, but crossed the Bay to support the effort in Oakland Tuesday night.

A "peaceful" vigil was scheduled for Olsen outside Oakland City Hall at 3 p.m. Wednesday.

Occupy Oakland demonstrators also called for a 6 p.m. protest on Wednesday at 14th and Broadway.

When they get there they will find that the city has put up a chain-link fence around Frank Ogawa Plaza, where the Occupy encampment was dismantled Tuesday morning by police.

The protesters vowed to retake the plaza. That effort is what sparked the violence, including several deployments of tear gas Tuesday night.

Olsen reportedly completed two tours of a duty in Iraq and he is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.


OK Mikey let's see some consistency...


Michael Tee

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Re: Iraq Vet Critically Hurt in Occupy Protest
« Reply #1 on: October 27, 2011, 12:14:43 AM »
I don't understand what you mean by "let's see some consistency" but I'll tell you my reaction to the story and you tell me if it's consistent or not.  (Consistent with what, I'd like to know, but who gives a shit - - here it is, consistent or not)

I think it's outrageous that the fucking cops fractured a man's skull clearing the square.  I'm sure the guy could have been moved without fracturing his skull.

So:consistent or not?  You tell me.

Kramer

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Re: Iraq Vet Critically Hurt in Occupy Protest
« Reply #2 on: October 27, 2011, 12:26:25 AM »
I don't understand what you mean by "let's see some consistency" but I'll tell you my reaction to the story and you tell me if it's consistent or not.  (Consistent with what, I'd like to know, but who gives a shit - - here it is, consistent or not)

I think it's outrageous that the fucking cops fractured a man's skull clearing the square.  I'm sure the guy could have been moved without fracturing his skull.

So:consistent or not?  You tell me.

Consistency would be that he deserved it.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Iraq Vet Critically Hurt in Occupy Protest
« Reply #3 on: October 27, 2011, 01:19:19 AM »
No one deserves having their skull fractured.

If a judge sentenced a person to a skull fracture, it would be appealed and ruled to be cruel and unusual punishment. A taser would have been as effective, and surely there are even more effective and less injurious ways.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Michael Tee

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Re: Iraq Vet Critically Hurt in Occupy Protest
« Reply #4 on: October 27, 2011, 03:31:31 AM »
<<Consistency would be that he deserved it.>>

Deserved a fractured skull for daring to protest against the capture of the US government by special monied interests?  Craziest fucking thing I've heard all day or at least since your claim to be OK with US boys being maimed and killed in battle, but not US women. 

If another demonstrator had then cracked the same cop over the head and fractured his skull, the cop might have deserved it on the eye-for-an-eye theory of Biblical justice, but WTF did the innocent demonstrator do to deserve it?