Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran and “Occupy” activist, was seriously injured when he was reportedly struck in the head with a tear gas canister fired by police trying to disperse a mob of protesters. Olsen has become the latest rallying cry for the movement, which is working to “shut down the city” in his name next week:
“We mean nobody goes to work, nobody goes to school, we shut the city down,” organizer Cat Brooks said. “The only thing they seem to care about is money and they don’t understand that it’s our money they need. We don’t need them, they need us.” …
Brooks said a general strike was a “natural progression” following a crackdown by the city of Oakland early on Tuesday morning in which protesters were evicted from a plaza near City Hall and 85 people were arrested.
Olsen’s injury sounds like a tragic accident, but causing citywide disruptions isn’t likely to inspire much sympathy for the cause. City residents were already tired of the protesters, and now police are apparently letting them run wild out of fear of repeating the Olsen incident:
Protesters sought to re-take that plaza on Tuesday night and were repeatedly driven back by police using stun grenades and tear gas. It was during one of those clashes that protesters say Olsen was struck in the head by a tear gas canister fired by police.…
More than 1,000 protesters moved onto the streets of Oakland again on Wednesday night as police largely kept their distance.
Fortunately, it sounds like Olsen is improving. He’s still in the hospital, but Fox News is reporting his condition has been upgraded to “fair.”
"they don’t understand that it’s our money they need"… n nHow much money do a bunch of unemployed and under-employed folks have?
So he went to Iraq to maintain the American Financial Military Complex? How exactly does that work? He was challenging it here and "they" got to him right? I guess he was too dangerous.
It was a tragic accident: n n"Protesters sought to re-take that plaza on Tuesday night and were repeatedly driven back by police using stun grenades and tear gas." n nIt was a consequence of their actions. n nBut, the media now has a posterboy it can avidly attempt to sell to Middle America. n
All Olsen had to do was comply with lawful orders from the police and he would not have gotten hurt. He should have known this if he was in fact in combat in Iraq. Instead he took his chances and is suffering the consequences of his own acts.
There's no 'there' there in Oakland, or so I understand. Shut the city down and never reopen.