Injured vet spent day at work, nights at protest

Iraq War vet­eran Scott Olsen, 24, lays on the ground bleed­ing from a head wound after being struck by a by a pro­jec­tile dur­ing an Occupy Wall Street protest in Oak­land, Calif. Olsen suf­fered a frac­tured skull while march­ing with other pro­test­ers. (AP Photo/Jay Finneburgh)

JASON DEAREN, TERRY COLLINS

Asso­ci­ated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The Iraq War vet­eran injured in clashes between police and anti-Wall Street pro­test­ers felt so strongly about eco­nomic inequal­ity that he wanted to do some­thing to change it, his room­mate said Thursday.

Scott Olsen, 24, joined the protests as he worked his day job as a net­work engi­neer and left his apart­ment each night to sleep along­side pro­test­ers in San Fran­cisco and Oak­land, Calif., Keith Shan­non said.

Olsen appar­ently suf­fered a frac­tured skull Tues­day dur­ing the clashes.

It’s not known exactly what type of object struck Olsen or where or from whom it came from. The group Iraq Vet­er­ans Against the War said offi­cers were respon­si­ble for his injury.

Oak­land police Chief Howard Jor­dan said offi­cials will inves­ti­gate whether offi­cers used exces­sive force.

Olsen has become a ral­ly­ing cry, with demon­stra­tors in New York City march­ing in sup­port of their coun­ter­parts in Oak­land and a move­ment web­site declar­ing: “We are all Scott Olsen.”

In Las Vegas, a few dozen pro­test­ers held a vigil for Olsen, car­ry­ing glow sticks and pro­ject­ing a photo of him on a wall. A hand­ful of police offi­cers attended, and pro­test­ers invited them back for a potluck Thurs­day night.

“We renewed our vow of non-violence,” orga­nizer Sebring Frehner said.

Another round of vig­ils was being orga­nized Thursday.

Else­where, offi­cials took steps to close some of the camps.

In Nashville, Tenn., they imposed a cur­few, say­ing con­di­tions at a camp at the state Capi­tol com­plex were wors­en­ing. In Prov­i­dence, R.I., offi­cials noti­fied pro­test­ers that they were vio­lat­ing mul­ti­ple city laws by camp­ing overnight at a park.

Olsen, who is orig­i­nally from Onalaska, Wis., served two tours of duty in Iraq, makes a good liv­ing at a San Fran­cisco soft­ware com­pany and had a hill­side apart­ment in a sub­urb that over­looks San Fran­cisco Bay.

And yet, Shan­non said, Olsen felt strongly about the wealth dis­par­ity between the rich and every­one else.

“He felt you shouldn’t wait until some­thing is affect­ing you to get out and do some­thing about it,” said Shan­non, who served in Iraq with Olsen.

Shan­non said his room­mate felt the anti-Wall Street move­ment had a chance to cre­ate real change.

So each night, he would go out to the tent camps that have sprung up over the past month in cities as the move­ment spread to protest eco­nomic inequal­ity and what they see as cor­po­rate greed.

Shan­non said Olsen usu­ally called with his whereabouts.

On Tues­day night, Olsen had planned to be in San Fran­cisco, but changed course after his veteran’s group decided to go to Oak­land to sup­port the pro­test­ers there after police cleared an encamp­ment out­side city hall.

“I think it was a last minute thing,” he said. “He didn’t think about it.”

Joshua Shep­herd, 27, a Navy vet­eran who was stand­ing nearby when Olsen got struck, said he didn’t know what hit him. “It was like a war zone,” he said.

Then there was a scram­ble and he couldn’t clearly see the rush of folks who went to Olsen’s aid.

A video posted on YouTube showed Olsen being car­ried by other pro­test­ers through the tear gas, his face blood­ied. Peo­ple shout at him: “What’s your name? What’s your name?” Olsen, how­ever, just stares back.

Shep­herd said it’s a cruel irony that Olsen is fight­ing for his life in the coun­try that he fought to protect.

“He was over there pro­tect­ing the rights and free­doms of Amer­ica and he comes home, exer­cises his “free­doms” and, it’s here, where he’s nearly fatally wounded,” Shep­herd said.

A hos­pi­tal spokesman said Olsen was upgraded to fair con­di­tion and moved into an inten­sive care unit on Thurs­day. His uncle said his par­ents were fly­ing in from Wis­con­sin to be with him.

“His mother, this is obvi­ously a heart­breaker to her,” George Nygaard, a Marine vet­eran, said from Wis­con­sin. “I don’t think she under­stands why he was doing this.”

Peo­ple at OPSWAT, the San Fran­cisco secu­rity soft­ware com­pany where Olsen works, were dev­as­tated after learn­ing of his injuries. They described him as a hum­ble, quiet guy who worked hard over long hours.

“He’s been a big piece of what we do here and our growth strat­egy, so obvi­ously it’s pretty dev­as­tat­ing for us that he’s in the shape he’s in,” said Jeff Garon, the company’s direc­tor of marketing.

Olsen had been help­ing to develop secu­rity appli­ca­tions for U.S. defense agen­cies, build­ing on exper­tise gained while on active duty in Iraq, Garon said.

Olsen was awarded seven medals while serv­ing in the U.S. Marine Corps, which he left as a lance cor­po­ral in Novem­ber 2009 after serv­ing for four years. One of them was the Navy-Marine Corps Achieve­ment Medal.

Olsen moved to the Bay Area in July, and quickly found friends in the vet­er­ans against the war group.

The lanky man with a dry sense of humor and sar­cas­tic wit did not show a lot of inter­est in pol­i­tics as a teen — he has two tat­toos for the group “Insane Clown Posse” on his upper arms, Shan­non said.

His tours of duty in Iraq made him more seri­ous, Shan­non said.

“He wasn’t active in pol­i­tics before he went in the mil­i­tary, but he became active once he was out … the expe­ri­ence in the mil­i­tary def­i­nitely shaped him,” Shan­non said.

Posted by AP News on Oct 27 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.