Occupy Oakland: Officials shift into damage control
OAKLAND -- Oakland Mayor Jean Quan shifted into damage control Thursday, asking hospitalized protester Scott Olsen and other Occupy Oakland demonstrators to cooperate with police investigating Olsen's head injury.
Quan visited Olsen, a former Marine and Iraq War veteran, on Thursday morning at Highland Hospital. She shook his hand, and apologized for what happened to him. She also encouraged him and fellow demonstrators to speak with police, a hospital spokesman said. Olsen was knocked down -- apparently by a tear-gas canister or other police projectile -- Tuesday night as authorities tried to keep protesters away from Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, in front of Oakland City Hall.
The protest group had been dislodged from their tents on the plaza by police earlier in the day.
Oakland police have promised a thorough investigation of the incident, which left Olsen with a brain injury that has impeded his speech. Alameda County prosecutors and federal investigators also planned to look into the violent clash.
The city has tried this week to recover from the confrontation, which attracted an avalanche of criticism from pundits, politicians and protesters. Television host Keith Olbermann called for Quan's resignation, and White House press secretary Jay Carney called on U.S. cities to preserve "a long and noble tradition in the United States of free expression and free speech."
Protesters started rebuilding their tent city Thursday, with at least a dozen tents erected on the plaza lawn by the evening. Quan had planned to speak to a large crowd that had gathered in front of City Hall on Thursday night,
but she left without speaking because she would have had to wait in line, said her attorney, Dan Siegel.
She would have had to wait in line? I wonder what that implies.
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