This time Oakland police beat an Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran, a man who is a part ownerof a local Brew Pub. The police who beat him badly lacerated his spleen and didn’t provide him medical attention for 18 hours. And he wasn’t even at the site of the Occupy Oakland camp.
He was held in a cell and not allowed medical care even as he was vomiting and suffering from diarrhea. He was in so much pain he couldn’t stand up and was forded to crawl from his holding cell to the bathroom. He’s scheduled for surgery at the same hospital where the other Iraq Vet, Scott Olsen, was taken after being shot in the head with a tear gas canister, Highland Hospital.
His name is Kayvan Sabehgi.
Here’s the link to the story at The Guardian:
Kayvan Sabehgi, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is in intensive care with a lacerated spleen. He says he was beaten by police close to the Occupy Oakland camp, but despite suffering agonising pain, did not reach hospital until 18 hours later.
Sabehgi told the Guardian from hospital he was walking alone along 14th Street in central Oakland – away from the main area of clashes – when he was injured. […]
“There was a group of police in front of me,” he told the Guardian from his hospital bed. “They told me to move, but I was like: ‘Move to where?’ There was nowhere to move.
“Then they 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.” […]
After he was booked at the jail he requested help. This is what they provided to him:
A nurse was called and recommended Sabehgi take a suppository, but he said he “didn’t want to take it”.
He was allowed to “crawl” to another cell to use the toilet, but said it was clogged.
“I was vomiting and had diarrhoea,” Sabehgi said. “I just lay there in pain for hours.”
The Oakland Police have yet to issue a statement.
Update [2011-11-4 20:35:49 by Steven D]: A new story from ABCincluding an interview with Kayvan Sabehgi’s sister:
Before he went into surgery, Sabeghi told his sister that he was walking to his home near Frank Ogawa Plaza when he was stopped by police, hit in the abdomen four times and then arrested and taken to jail where he could not receive medical treatment.
“I am absolutely furious,” [Sabeghi’s sister Shoole Sabeghi] said. “I’m absolutely furious at the way they treated my little brother. I’m so mad. They hurt him and then they refused to help him.”
Sabeghi underwent surgery at Highland for about two hours. […]
“At one point he asked for assistance and they told him to stop taking heroin,” Sabeghi said. “Another time they told him he was an alcholic and a diabetic, neither of which are true.”
According to this report Sabeghi is out of surgery and recovering in intensive care.
I was just thinking of posting this here. Thanks Steven. It is important to get the word out on the brutality of the Oakland Police Department.
FWIW, I live and work in Oakland. In fact, I work right across the street from Occupy Oakland and can see it out my window. The General Strike on Wednesday was a sight to behold. It was truly beautiful. Shame the OPD and the idiot Black Bloc had to go and screw things up.
Thanks for bringing it here.
There is a diary on the same subject on DK which I shared to FB with the following rant:
Oakland Police hellbent on beating the shit out of protestors. Trying to scare the general public into submission.
The American public has been like compliant sheep for so long, now, faced with actual ans sustained protest, TPTB need to terrorize the public back to the compliance required to continue the looting they so successfully have accomplished over the last few decades.
Isn’t the OPD still on the Justice Dept.’s shit list for being too vicious and corrupt?
Sounds like the Oakland Mayor has a lot in common with ex-Mayor Daley of Chicago.
Hmm I doubt it. The Oakland mayor eventually issued a statement of regret after the first incident, something Daley never did. Daley was always assumed to control the CPD but I don’t think that’s the case in Oakland. Sounds to me more like the situation moderately liberal Mayor Bradley faced with the hard to control hardliner LAPD Chief Gates.
Or if not Gates, the situation Gates’ successor Willie Williams faced — basically a long LAPD tradition of brutally mistreating the lefties and longhairs and minorities. OPD with its black non firebreathing chief (as I perceive him from a few media appearances) seems to have some of these same longstanding traditions to go with its paramilitary and confrontational Us vs the Civilians attitude.
Also, is she one of those “more and better” Democrats we are supposed to vote for?
This is the ‘freedom’ Sabeghi risked his life to defend.
Not his, but the cops’.
That’s criminal behavior. Period. Instead, there will be an “investigation” that will eventually make “recommendations,” taxpayers will pony up for the inevitable lawsuit settlement, and the officers involved will get a commendation for bravery from the police officers’ guild, in Oakland, sounds like it is controlled by unapologetic thugs.
Oh yeah, now SFGate posts a totally biased account saying he was part of the riot and, naturally, resisting arrest. They didn’t link to any other account or give any real facts.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/04/BAQ41LQVMQ.DTL&tsp=1
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Thanks for the links …
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Every season, the brewmaster should offer a specialty beer that calls out the OPD. I’m seeing the “Police Brutality Porter”, the “Pepper Spray Lager”, and maybe “Tear Gas in the Face Stout”.
he should release each with great fanfare, press releases, etc. Maybe name a batch after the cop that beat him up, just to keep the guy’s name out there.
nothing like a good shaming.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."