Source: Jay Finneburgh, San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

Update, 10/28/2011: The Guardian reports that Scott Olsen is going to undergo brain surgery, and that’s he’s been awake, although unable to speak. Veterans for Peace has established a health fund for Olsen.

A former Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq was seriously injured in Tuesday night’s police crackdown on Occupy Wall Street protesters in Oakland, Calif.

Scott Olsen, 24, who was originally from Wisconsin according to the Guardian newspaper, is currently in critical but stable condition at Highland Hospital in Oakland. The Huffington Post reports that he’s been sedated and is on a respirator.

Observers say that he was hit in the head by a police projectile and fell to the ground. When protesters attempted to help Olsen, police reportedly threw a flash-bang grenade into the group. A graphic video shows an unresponsive Olsen being carried away by protesters.

The Guardian reports that Olsen served in the 3rd Battalion of the Marines. He was a member of anti-war group Veterans for Peace. He currently lives in Daly City, Calif.

Occupy protesters were rousted from a city park early Tuesday, spurring hundreds of supporters to flood the streets. Police from more than a dozen departments responded by making arrests and using chemical crowd control agents like tear gas. There were also numerous protester reports of police using rubber bullets.

Democratic Oakland Mayor Jean Quan responded to the Tuesday morning police actions on Facebook with a statement thanking “police, fire, public works and other employees who worked over the last week to peacefully close the encampment.” Quan cited the city’s desire to “maintain safe or sanitary conditions.” So far, more than 5,700 mostly critical comments have been left on her Facebook post, including many that reference Olsen.

Muskat at the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign march on Sept. 2.

Sometimes you go to the news. Other times, it’s vice-versa.

Editing video at a workspace near West 7th Street in St. Paul this afternoon, I noticed the flash of police lights out the window and grabbed my video camera to see what was going on. Peering through the screen, I saw at least eight St. Paul Police and Transit Police squads stopped on the street and officers surrounding a red car, guns drawn. Two women and a man were removed from the car, and the man I recognized from the largely peaceful march  a day earlier by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign at the Republican National Convention.

Bald with a moustache, the man was confronting a small group of young people who wore black bandannas across their faces. They were trying to start a “Fuck the police” chant, but he — Hal Muskat, a Veterans for Peace advocate from San Francisco — would have none of it. Emphasizing that the march was a peaceful event, he calmed the young people down, actually getting them to good-humoredly chant “Unfuck the police” instead.

Just two days ago, Muskat was on Democracy Now!, the radio and satellite TV program hosted by Amy Goodman, who herself was detained in St. Paul this week. On the Sept. 1 program, Muskat, who served in the Army from 1965 to 1970, told Goodman he’s not fond of John McCain, the star of this week’s GOP convention. “I don’t trust him. I don’t like him,” he said. “I don’t think he speaks for veterans. I think he speaks for a very small, very — too vocal minority of right-wing veterans that would just as soon McCain said, ‘Vietnam wasn’t fought right. We’re going back.’”

Lisa Fithian, in a squad car

With him today, en route to the airport where Muskat has an evening flight, was Texas native Lisa Fithian (the first speaker in this video shot days earlier) and New Yorker Laurie Arbeiter. The three were handcuffed and taken away in separate squad cars.

When I asked police what was going on, I was told it was a “routine traffic stop” (with drawn guns?), then was asked to turn off my camera (I didn’t). Police wouldn’t comment further.

Thirty minutes after being hauled off, the trio was returned to their car, which is owned by and licensed to Fithian, who says she’s part of the Pagan Cluster, a nonviolent group of people and groups who aim to “bring an earth-based spirituality to global justice and peace actions.” She was also involved with Cindy Sheehan’s “Camp Casey” antiwar protest outside the Bush ranch in the summer of 2005, and she was involved in direct actions during the WTO protests of 1999. She’s on the National Steering Committee of United for Peace and Justice.

Fithian says the officers were “very aggressive” and that, at first, they wouldn’t reveal why they’d been stopped. But finally, when she asked if she was being arrested, an officer told her, “‘Your car has been put on a stop-and-search list by the federal government,’” she said.

Laurie Arbeiter

Arbeiter says she’s affiliated with The Critical Voice, an organization that produced shirts in six languages that bore the mantra of the Student Resistance Movement, a group of university students who stood up to the Nazis in 1942. She wore the English-language version of the shirt, which had simple white type on black. “They decided enough is enough and they wouldn’t be silent,” she said.

Referring to onlookers who witnessed the detention, she continued, “Well, these people here need to understand that if [the police] can just pull up and take us away, they can come and get them. They can profile them according to whatever profile they they want to attach to criminality. And we’re seeing more and more that that attachment doesn’t stick, but they can detain people.”

Contacted about the detainments, St. Paul City Council member Dave Thune said individuals who feel they’ve been improperly treated by police, should carefully document their experiences in writing and, if possible, through photos. The Council is planning on having a post-RNC debriefing with St. Paul police to discuss such complaints.

Listen: Jeff Paterson, founder of Courage to Resist

When Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin took the stage at the Veterans for Peace rally in front of the State Capitol building today, where hundreds of activists gathered before marching towards the Xcel Energy Center, she started with the string of weekend raids on her mind: “This is not the Midwestern welcome we expected!”

Her audience cheered — among them a vet hoisting a desert-camo anti-war flag:

A cadre of protesters were clad in orange jumpsuits meant to evoke those worn by prisoners at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison. The held black hoods in their hands and stuck signs to their backs — on each sign was printed the name, age and story of a living, breathing Guantanamo detainee:

While the protesters gathered in a line, a dozen or so police on bikes gathered by the portable bathrooms for a huddle and two St. Paul police officers on a John Deere Gator XUV waited to serve as a sort of pace car for the portion of the march that was sanctioned:

The sun was brutal. “Hey!” yelled a man holding a corner of a Veterans for Peace banner at the front of the march to a friend, “You wouldn’t want to lend an Irish Polack a hat, would you?”

With most of the marchers ready to go, the Guantanamo protesters — a separate contingent — were still gathering themselves. Most were fumbling with their black hoods. “Yeah, you can see out of them,” said one prisoner to a concerned onlooker. “Lift your hood and unzip your suit when you need to!” yelled the group’s ringleader, who also cautioned the group: “At the end of the march, there will be a turning point. If you go left, you will be going in the direction of the civil disobedience group. It’s going to be confusing. Make a choice based on your own conscience — and treat everybody with respect, including the police.”

The orange-suited, black-hooded group lined up (“Three across! Head high!”) behind their banner, which read: TORTURE DESTROYS US ALL.

Once underway, the march was solemn with marchers carrying paper tombstones with the names of Iraqi and American victims of the war in Iraq. A man with a bullhorn read the names from a list. Another followed each recited name by shouting: “We will remember you!” Soon the marchers joined.

The march followed the John Deere police vehicle from the Capitol building to the “turning point” where bike-mounted police could be heard yelling to one another: “Remember: tactically spaced!” and marchers were addressed by a Veterans for Peace organizer with a bullhorn. “If you follow the Vets for Peace flag we will continue on with the march and you will not be arrested — or you will not be doing something that is supposed to get you arrested. If you go to the left, you will be committing civil disobedience.”

That announcement was followed by a brief negotiation with a St. Paul police officer. It was agreed: to the right; no problems. To the left; no guarantees.

The marchers who went to the left towards the Landmark Center at the intersection of 6th Street and Washington numbered two dozen, maybe more. A handful got ahead of the pack and headed for what looked like a holding pen: a meandering wall of cage material blocking access to the Xcel Energy Center. At first the marchers — now looking to be arrested — stopped and were a bit stumped. Then a man got on the ground and pushed himself through a foot-high gap between cage-wall and pavement. Mary Vaughn, a woman of fragile appearance with decades of line-crossing and jail-sitting behind her, was next.

It was a maneuver fraught with no small drama — at one point Vaughn seemed stuck. A moment later, she was up, placard in hand:

Dan Pearson of Chicago, who had just participated in a peace march from Chicago to St. Paul, followed Vaughn under the gate. “Thank you!” shouted one supporter. “One of you should climb over!” shouted another.

Vaughn, Pearson, and the others headed for another breach in the cage — where an entire panel of the wall was missing. Had they passed, they would have successfully marched their way into the innermost ring of the Xcel security zone. It wasn’t to be.

Police rushing to put the missing panel in place used it as a sort of shield — pushing the protesters back with grunts and grimaces. “Gentle!” yelled an onlooker. The protesters relented even as police came in from behind them.

While all of that commotion was going on, two women, one of them a nun with the Sisters of St. Joseph, walked through yet another overlooked gap in the barrier. Police still securing their riot gear ran to stop them but were too late. That looked like this:

The banter from the crowd was constant: “Hey officer, why don’t you ask these nice ladies where they stashed their buckets of urine?” came one remark — then a reply from another corner of the crowd: “C’mon guys, don’t antagonize the cops, they’re on overtime.”

A man in a neon yellow “Minnesota Peace Team” vest handed out apple slices to protesters and media — photo, video and print journalists crammed together and leaned over one another for footage and quotes.

All told there were nine arrests — then there was something of a low-intensity standoff. Those who had not squeezed under the fence had technically still elected to be arrested. But nobody was making a move. The police weren’t budging either.

Ten minutes passed before the police made a move, urging everybody away from the barrier under threat of arrest. What had been just a couple dozen cops were now at least 75 — now with helmets on and visors down — with an additional 15-plus State Troopers and a couple of Secret Service agents.

By this point law enforcement — some officers practicing cold stares, some joking, and others looking the slightest bit anxious — far outnumbered the 30 or so protesters remaining.

The cops won the staring contest. It wasn’t long before the few remaining protesters turned and walked back towards the Capitol building. The arrestees were being processed and on their way to Ramsey County Jail. There was silence for a while then a shout from a St. Paul police officer:

“FORMATION!”

“COLUMNS!”

“MOVE!”

Some marched away and some swaggered. One officer — a young woman — did a little dance. It was mostly tourists now and a thin man with bushy hair, a dress shirt, and a too-short necktie posed for a picture in front of what few cops were left, fist in the air and with a giggle.

All photos by Jeff Severns Guntzel.

]]> http://minnesotaindependent.com/6394/the-anatomy-of-a-march-veterans-for-peace-event-ends-in-arrests/feed 8 http://minnesotaindependent.com/1819/in-somber-gathering-vets-speak-out-for-peace http://minnesotaindependent.com/1819/in-somber-gathering-vets-speak-out-for-peace#comments Mon, 28 May 2007 16:48:52 +0000 Jeff Fecke http://www.minnesotaindependent.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/?p=1819 To the strains of a lone bagpiper, a group of veterans gathered near the Minnesota Vietnam Memorial on Monday morning to call for an end to the Iraq War.

The gathering, organized by Veterans for Peace, was a sober affair, marked by sharp denunciations of war in general, as well as criticism of the Democratic Congress.

After reading from Archibald MacLeish’s poem “The Young Dead Soldiers,” veteran Barry Riesch said simply, “The best way to honor them is to end illegal, unnecessary wars.”

Dave Rovics drew applause by stating, “It doesn’t look like Congress has what it takes to end the war, so it looks like the people will have to do it.”  He called on war opponents to strike starting Sept. 21 and the third Friday of each month thereafter.

Roy Wolff, a Korean War veteran, read from an address he’d given at an Eagan church, saying “I’m here to tell you what the Holy Spirit has been trying to tell us, perhaps whispering in our ears, that war is on the way out.”  He added, “God working through us will do it.”

Kathleen O’Donovan spoke out for her brother Bobby, a Vietnam veteran she described as “homeless and alcoholic.” 

“When we talk about honoring the dead, let’s not forget about the living,” she said.

Chante Wolf, who served in the Air Force during the first Gulf War, asked for a moment of silence for 27 soldiers who died in that war, “killed by a SCUD missile that some of us cheered.”

Visibly emotional, Wolf said, “It’s not a game, it was nothing for us to laugh about.  And I carry that guilt and that ignorance.”

Not everyone who spoke was a war opponent.  One veteran passing through took the opportunity to speak, saying, “I would like to honor the soldiers who gave their lives so that even people like you can say the bullshit and gibberish that you do.”

His statement was met with some laughter and respectful applause, and he left as the event continued.