Occupy Wall Street organizers, such as they are, can thank police overreaction as much as anything for keeping the nationwide protests going.
There is a question as to how long the protests can be sustained with colder weather arriving in northern latitudes and snow predicted this weekend in some areas, but the movement got a timely boost this week when Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran who served two wound-free tours in Iraq was hit in the head with a projectile — possibly a tear gas canister — thrown or shot by Oakland police officers on Tuesday night as they dispersed 3,000 protesters from a downtown plaza. About 100 protesters were arrested.
Olsen suffered a fractured skill. He has regained consciousness but is unable to speak. The irony of the situation — a soldier who faced enemy fire only to be attacked at home — has not been lost on protesters and Olsen quickly became a rallying point.
“I think people would have been outraged even had this been a civilian,” said Jose Vasquez, the executive director of the group that organized the Oakland protest, “but the fact that he survived two tours of duty and then to have this happen to him, people are really upset about that.”
Olsen, who worked in computer systems at a Bay Area technology company, caught up with the Occupy Wall Street movement in San Francisco where he slept on the street in solidarity with the campers there and then headed to Oakland.
The Oakland police have promised an investigation, and Mayor Jean Quan has said in response to Olsen’s injury that Oakland is a “very progressive city” that supports the goals of Occupy Wall Street.
The incident occurred as several cities seemed to reaching the breaking point over the around-the-clock protests.
Atlanta and Denver have cracked down on protesters, the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island is seeking a court order to evicted them, while San Francisco, among other cities, is considering doing so.
Larger cities, including New York, Philadelphia and Boston, are taking a more tolerant view.