SuicideGirls is utterly shocked and appalled by the brutality used by police against protesters at #OccupyOakland last night. Authorities used the charge of “unlawful assembly” as a weak excuse to wage all out war against US citizens, who were doing nothing more than exercising their democratic right – and, at this point, responsibility – to protest against the wholesale looting and pillaging of our economy and the vandalism of our democracy as perpetrated by members of the 1%. Watching the livestream and video footage of police pitted against peaceful protester on the streets of Oakland, one has to wonder who they are there to protect and serve.
Here, friend of SG JackalAnon, who is still suffering from the after effects of the tear gas used, gives us his own first person account of what went down:
I saw use of tear gas three times, the sound canon, bean bags, uncountable amount of flashbangs and rubber bullets being used. I saw 1 kid passed out, a few people bleeding, puking and everyone screaming and crying. I was affected by tear gas [which] was [used] at least 3 times. Eyes / skin burning, couldn’t breath due to coughing. And got hit by a bean bag (wish I would’ve kept it). Cops where in full riot gear with shield and gas mask…
Moving moments was when a protester threw $$$ at the police line yelling “will you protect us now?” After the first attack of tear gas we chanted “we’re still here” though our unbelievably burning crying. I was never close enough to see any badge numbers, and although I didn’t see it I herd of quite a few times of people getting hit with the baton.
Tonight started off as a protest, but was turned into a full out war for no reason. The crowd I was with was always peaceful. We yelled, protested, yes, but that is fully in our rights. We are the people to protect, not the people to be denied our rights as citizens of the United States. Our forefathers and our military personal fought hard for these rights, and for what? For us to be suppressed? I think not… it’s our turn to not ask, beg, or vote our rights back, but to take them as they are ours. — @JackalAnon
Among those who were injured at the hands of the police (see video) was Veteran For Peace member Scott Olsen, who sustained a fractured skull.
Today, Veterans for Peace, released the following statement:
Veteran For Peace member, Scott Olsen, a Marine Corps veteran twice deployed to Iraq, is in hospital now in stable but serious condition with a fractured skull, struck by a police projectile fired into a crowd in downtown Oakland, California in the early morning hours of today. Other people were injured in the assault and many were arrested after Oakland police in riot gear were ordered to evict people encamped in the ongoing “Occupy Oakland” movement. Olsen is also a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
VFP members are involved with dozens of these local “occupy movement” encampments and we support them fully. In Boston, for example, our members, wearing VFP shirts and carrying VFP flags, stood between a line of police and the encampment, urging police to “join the 99%” and not evict the protesters. In that case, several of our members were banged and bruised when the police decided instead to carry out their eviction orders.
In Oakland, last night, a similar thing happened, according to VFP Chapter 69 member and Navy veteran, Joshua Sheperd, who said he went to downtown Oakland “to see if, as a VFP member, I could help still the anger…to be between the police and the protesters…it seemed unconscionable to me that the police use the cover of darkness like that to do what they were doing.” Fortunately, he was not injured in the police assault that left Olsen with a fractured skull
As with virtually every example of the occupy movement across the country, those encamped were conducting themselves peacefully beforehand, protesting current economic, social and environmental conditions in the U.S. brought about by decades of corporate control, a criminal financial industry and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are driving the U.S. global empire into bankruptcy. These “occupy movement” participants are telling us something we need very desperately to hear. They should be listened to, not arrested and brutalized.
Police in the majority of cities are acting with restraint and humanity towards the encampments, but Veterans For Peace will not be deterred by police who choose to use brutal tactics. In fact, as happens with repression everywhere, more people join the cause. We do believe that the rank and file police officers are part of the 99%, the overwhelming majority of Americans who are suffering at the hands of an intolerable system. Layoffs and cutbacks in city after city prove that we must join together to demand justice for all.
We send our very best to Scott Olsen and his family and wish him a speedy recovery to health.
We shall not be moved.
@OccupyOakland will reconvene tonight. They have announced via Twitter that they will hold a General Assembly at 6 PM in the vicinity of Oscar Grant Plaza / 14th & Broadway. If a GA is not possible in that area, a second location, the Library on 14th & Madison, has been designated as the fallback meeting place.
#OWS #ThisIsWhatDemocracyLooksLike #TheWholeWorldIsWatching
*Update*
Al Jazeera is reporting that an already injured activist has been severely mistreated in jail:
One activist told Al Jazeera that her boyfriend was beaten by police and hospitalised before being jailed and beaten again. Asking only to go by ‘Anne’, she asked that her partner not be named for safety reasons.
When he was first arrested around 6pm on Tuesday, she said: “The police thought that he was Latino and started calling him Poncho and making racial slurs and sexual gestures. He said the fire department people and paramedics were doing this along with the cops.”
Once hospitalised, the man filed a police brutality report, after which the officer recording the complaint told him he would “go to jail for assault or battery of a police officer and resisting arrest,” Anne said. He was then moved from the hospital to the local county jail.
“I talked to him twice now since he’s been in Santa Rita [County Jail] and he said they were basically torturing him there. They beat him in front of a bunch of people including a nurse, and then they took him to another room and they put his head in a toilet, put his hands in a toilet, threw him against a wall.” The allegations could not be independently verified.
Besides his being in a crowd of protesters, Anne said that her partner’s arrest was completely unprovoked.
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