Second veteran hospitalized due to police crackdown on Occupy Oakland protests

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Only a week after Scott Olsen, a former Marine and veteran, was hospitalized with a fractured skull after being struck in the head with a police projectile at an Occupy Oakland protest, yet another veteran has been placed in intensive care thanks to a brutish police response.

A veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and a part-owner of a small business near Oakland, 32-year-old Kayvan Sabehgi is now in intensive care with a lacerated spleen after being beaten by police near the Occupy Oakland encampment.

According to the Guardian, Sabehgi was not able to reach a hospital until a whopping 18 hours later, despite the excruciating pain he was suffering through.

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Sabehgi described a brutal assault to the Guardian which occurred on Wednesday night when police utilized more tear gas and “non-lethal projectiles” (which are far from harmless as you can see here) after protesters allegedly attempted to shut down Oakland.

However, Sabehgi, who left the armed forces in 2007, was far from the main area in which the clashes occurred when he was attacked by police.

Sabehgi told the Guardian that he was walking alone on 14th Street in central Oakland when a line of police appeared in front of him and instructed him to move.

“They told me to move, but I was like: ‘Move to where?’ There was nowhere to move. Then they were lined up in front of me.

“I was talking to one of them, saying ‘Why are you doing this?’ when one moved forward and hit me in my arm and legs and back with his baton. Then three or four cops tackled me and arrested me”, Sabehgi told the Guardian from his bed in the hospital.

Then Sabehgi was handcuffed and put in a police van where he remained for three hours before being transported to jail, by which time he was in “unbelievable pain”.

Sabehgi says he had his arms folded and was being “totally peaceful” before beating brutally beaten and arrested. Oakland police were not available for comment to the Guardian, although this incident will be a difficult one to spin.

“My stomach was really hurting, and it got worse to the point where I couldn’t stand up. I was on my hands and knees and crawled over to the cell door to call for help”, Sabehgi said.

Sabehgi’s torturous experience just gets worse. He was given permission to “crawl” into another cell in order to use the toilet, which ended up being clogged.

“I was vomiting and had diarrhea […] I just lay there in pain for hours”, he said.

He was in so much pain that even after his bail was posted in the afternoon he was not able to leave his cell.

Eventually an ambulance was called and Sabehgi was taken to Highland hospital where Olsen was also taken after his encounter with the barbarous Oakland Police.

He was scheduled to have surgery Friday to repair his ruptured spleen to prevent internal bleeding via a clot or patch.

As of writing this he is likely either undergoing surgery, recovering, or about to go into surgery. I will be sure to update with details when they emerge.

Interestingly, the Guardian says that police used flashbang grenades, tear gas and “non-lethal rounds” (likely meaning beanbag rounds and rubber bullets) to disperse a group of demonstrators that occupied an abandoned building on 16th Street around 10:30 pm.

The police have routinely denied using flashbangs in their attacks on protesters, although the video of Scott Olsen immediately after he was struck in the skull says otherwise.

In the video it appears that an officer deliberately throws a flashbang directly next to the downed veteran in order to break up a crowd of activists who are attempting to help the clearly injured Olsen.

Video has also emerged of Oakland Police attempting to conceal their name and badge number, likely in order to prevent identification in the event that they attacked protesters or engaged in other questionable or illegal activities.

We ask a OPD officer why he had his name badge covered…. from BLK PXLS on Vimeo.