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Scott Olsen: 'Stay peaceful'

IndyBay caught up with Iraq veteran Scott Olsen, who suffered a head injury last month in the police raid on Occupy Oakland.
From a Facebook fan page for Scott Olsen
From a Facebook fan page for Scott Olsen

IndyBay caught up with Iraq veteran Scott Olsen, who suffered a head injury last month in the police raid on Occupy Oakland. IndyBay's Dave Id writes:

Scott says that his thinking is clear but that he struggles speak fluently. He currently awaits the results of an investigation into the incident being conducted by the Oakland Police Department, an investigation in which Scott himself has not yet been interviewed.

It's clear from Mr. Olsen's account in the video that he really got hurt, and that he's working hard to get better. It's also clear that he's resolute about the Occupy cause. He says:

Originally I started with Occupy SF, and I just thought that Occupy Oakland was doing things a little differently, a bit different. So I came over here to check it out. And I liked what was being done here, with the teach-ins and the community here. And I came back on October 25th. I saw a tweet or something that said, 'You guys need help, you guys need to support.' So I had nothing better to do, so I jumped to ride in and come over here.

You might expect a veteran of two tours in Iraq to run toward his friends when they need his help. You would not necessarily expect him to end up in this condition after a police raid involving so-called nonlethal force. Organizers say he was hit in the head with a tear gas canister fired by police. The San Jose paper says the official investigation into what happened is still ongoing. Mr. Olsen tells IndyBay that he hasn't yet been interviewed. "It's been over a month," he says. "How long does it take to see who fired this at me?"

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Asked if he has any message to send to Occupy Oakland, Mr. Olsen says it's to "stay peaceful" and open with each other.

The San Jose Mercury-News reports that Occupy Oakland plans to retake the city's Frank Ogawa Plaza today at noon for a seven-day vigil, part of a wave of restyled occupations around the country.

(IndyBay. H/t @fauxpinky)