Marine Veteran critically injured at Occupy Oakland

[dogmush]

KGB,  Possibly.  I can't see everything from that video.  I did watch it several times, and in slow motion and couldn't tell.  I do know from experience that pro-masks make it very difficult to see everything around you.  I won't claim to know exactly what happened, especially from the one video.  But the tone of both the video narrator and Seenterman's OP raise my BS flag.  Anytime someone feels the need to lead me to their conclusion so blatantly I have to wonder why.

Oakland PD does have a bit of a rep for being hands on. (remember the BART thing?)  But I didn't really see it in that video.  I saw protesters acting the fool, and cops standing a cordon line and some tear gas.  Beyond that it's all speculation.

Note to Self, however.  When the PD gives you an order of dispersal and 5 min, be somewhere else in 5 min.

Hope the guy get's better though.  Occupy stupid crap is a *expletive deleted*ty thing to get killed over.

ETA: While I watch yet another vid.  From a tactics standpoint, if you're standing a cordon line (Using bodies to block a route or area) you don't break it for downed bad guys.  If you do, then you lose line integrity and the ability to deny the route/area.  from a purely riot control standpoint the LEO's did the right thing by not going over.  Anyone got the radio logs to see if they called for a medic for the downed protester?

[Seenterman]

No, I read an inflammatory post, watched a video, and saw something that with just a smidge of perspective looked like a bad call in combat.

I rewatched the video a few times and here's my take on it.

Scott goes down between the :20 - :22 second mark.
The cop who tosses the CS grenade looks directly at Scott at the :30 mark while 2 - 3 people are near him.
The cop then steps back to blend it with the line of other officers.
The grenade is then tossed at the :34 second mark.

My take: The cop knew exactly what he was doing and knew he was wrong to do so which is why he backed up, to blend in with the sea of uniforms. Can't complain charge someone with police brutality if you can identify them. I hesitate to call that "combat" not a single one of the other 30 or so officers appeared scared or threatened. They where all just standing there watching, not a single one of them reacts in any offensive way. Why does this one cop feel the need to use a CS grenade?

[zxcvbob]

Why does this one cop feel the need to use a CS grenade?

Why does a dog lick himself?

[Seenterman]

Are you calling a CS "grenade" an explosive device, or are you talking about something else?

Are we really going to quibble about this?
Yes I'm calling the CS grenade an explosive device. I don't know why you put "quotes" around the word grenade because that's what their called. You can check the link CSD provided.

http://combinedsystems.com/csi_mil/TearBallMultiEffect.aspx

Bottle rockets are considered explosives and from the video whatever when off had a much bigger explosion that a bottle rocket, so yes explosive device.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Ok. Watched the slowmo vid.

Yes, the cops threw the whatever.

Which was a bad call IMHO.

However, Scott had some aid Before the crowd arrived. And a lot of that crowd looked like looky loos instead of actually offering aid.

So, my latest conjecture of a possibilty, which I should note is possibly the stupidest thing one could do and, yet, entirely plausable in a stress induced state, because lets face it, such causes stupidity.

Did the cop through the whatever to get rid of the crowd so that scott could actually reseave some aid?

Could he have though the crowd presented danger to the injured man?

Note that the whatever was thrown very carefully and thrown several feet beyond the injured man.

[Perd Hapley]

I'm "quibbling," because I thought we were talking about something more like a smoke "grenade," which, regardless what you call it, is not an explosive device. It just releases smoke. That is the sort of CS "grenades" that have been used on me, so that is what I'm familiar with.I was unaware that any grenade on the market mixed explosives with gas.

But like you said, we can't all be up to date with the latest stuff. Thanks for explaining.

I don't feel the need to quibble about my use of quotation marks. I thought perhaps you were confused by the term, and that is why you called it explosive.

[BlueStarLizzard]

I'm "quibbling," because I thought we were talking about something more like a smoke "grenade," which, regardless what you call it, is not an explosive device. It just releases smoke. That is the sort of CS "grenades" that have been used on me, so that is what I'm familiar with.I was unaware that any grenade on the market mixed explosives with gas.

But like you said, we can't all be up to date with the latest stuff. Thanks for explaining.

I don't feel the need to quibble about my use of quotation marks. I thought perhaps you were confused by the term, and that is why you called it explosive.

As an aside, did you notice the reporter on the aireal video say it was tear gas?

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

Coulda been worse. They could've used Fentanyl.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Coulda been worse. They could've used Fentanyl.

I wish they'd used Propafal.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

play stupid games
win tragic prizes

if he'd been hit from that range with a direct shot from a grenade launcher he'd be drt. i suspect something else got him. he was no further than 10 foot from the barricade assuming he dropped right away. bad choice of where to be

[dogmush]

CSD, the current theory is that the initial shot came not from the barrier right there, but from what is approx straight away from the camera.  so 50 yds or so.

So as not to be misconstrued. A CS canister to the face from 50yds  would HURT and likely cause a pretty bad injury.

[Stetson]

I don't agree with why they are protesting, but it's their right.  I think the police were out of line with their tactics here. 

<whine> "But we are the poe-leece!  We had to protect ourselves!" </whine>.  Those M-80s are are dangerous to armored folks, doncha know.

[BryanP]

I have to say I'm disappointed in the "He's part of a political movement I disagree with, therefore he deserves what happened to him" attitude I'm seeing from some.  He was exercising his first amendment rights, wasn't hurting anybody, and what appears to have happened is inexcusable.  Hell, I find his views less objectionable than those of Randy Weaver, Aryan Scumbag (tm), and what happened to him is just as inexcusable.  This guy deserves at least that much benefit of the doubt.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

CSD, the current theory is that the initial shot came not from the barrier right there, but from what is approx straight away from the camera.  so 50 yds or so.

So as not to be misconstrued. A CS canister to the face from 50yds  would HURT and likely cause a pretty bad injury.

gotcha  from 10 foot it woulda damn near ripped his head off. i've seen em punch holes n drywall

[Perd Hapley]

As an aside, did you notice the reporter on the aireal video say it was tear gas?

AKA Crowd Suppression (CS) gas.

[kgbsquirrel]

AKA Crowd Suppression (CS) gas.

2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile, discovered by Ben Corson and Roger Stoughton.

[Perd Hapley]

2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile, discovered by Ben Corson and Roger Stoughton.

Hrm. Wikipedia agrees with you, so you must be right. I'm not sure where I heard the other explanation from; probably from my Drill Sergeants.

[Angel Eyes]

Oakland PD does have a bit of a rep for being hands on. (remember the BART thing?) 

Minor nitpick: if you're referring to the Oscar Grant incident, that was BART Police, not Oakland P.D.

[Perd Hapley]

No quibbling!   

[kgbsquirrel]

Hrm. Wikipedia agrees with you, so you must be right. I'm not sure where I heard the other explanation from; probably from my Drill Sergeants.

There's also CR (dibenzoxazepine) and CN (phenacyl chloride) riot agents, one of which is also issued to military/paramilitary units. "Crowd Suppression" sounds likely to be a backronym. Without looking I would have been tempted to consider the group of them to be "C-agents," C being the designator for non-lethal riot control chemicals, similar to the G and V series of chemical weapon agents. But that train of thought is obstructed by the existence of CK (cyanogen chloride,) a lethal blood agent, and OC (oleoresin capsicum), neither of which conform to such a C-agent nomenclature.


Also, to Fistful, a smoke grenade would properly be called an incendiary device. The smoke is generated by the burning of a fuel/oxidizer/dye mixture and they have been known to cause burn injuries and/or start fires.


Now how's that for pedantic? New APS record maybe?

[S. Williamson]

*casually tosses a flashbangCSDgrenadewrappedindetcordandbacon into the thread-drift*  


 

[Seenterman]

I'm "quibbling," because I thought we were talking about something more like a smoke "grenade," which, regardless what you call it, is not an explosive device. It just releases smoke. That is the sort of CS "grenades" that have been used on me, so that is what I'm familiar with.I was unaware that any grenade on the market mixed explosives with gas.

But like you said, we can't all be up to date with the latest stuff. Thanks for explaining.

I don't feel the need to quibble about my use of quotation marks. I thought perhaps you were confused by the term, and that is why you called it explosive.

Yea sorry I think we misunderstood each other. I think you though that I was claiming that the CS canister was an explosive device; but I was referring to the device that was thrown into the crowd around Scott after he was injured.

And I though you where saying that the device that goes off @ :36 wasn't an explosive device.

But yea this is a bit confusing. He gets hit in the face with a CS canister @ :21 and then a CS grenade @ :35, which I previously referred to as a flash bang because I didn't know about explosive CS grenades either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZLyUK0t0vQ&feature=player_embedded

[roo_ster]

I gotta say, I lurvs me a good cop bashing, but if the cop in question hadn't seen the guy go down, by the time he flipped the grenade in there all *I* could see on the video was a large yelling crowd.  Th folks rendering aid did so with such gusto as to hide the folks kneeling and the injured guy.

Situational awareness and peripheral vision is often severely hindered by pro masks.  I could actually buy that he was watching the other way (where more pyro was going off) and looked over in time to see a large crowd yelling when he had been ordered to disperse crowds so he tossed some CS over.

Must be my inner CSD coming out.

Also, as other's have said, those are NOT flash bangs.

ETA:  $10 says the initial canister skipped.  I've skipped full on grenades by firing them at too low of an angle, the weapon launched canisters are pretty easy to have that happen with.  remember- Less Lethal, not Non Lethal.

Is it not part of a cop's job description to have a clue?  Would I be considered liable and negligent if i did the same thing, even if I were wearing a pro-mask?

Upon further research, it looks like there are combo FB/CS grenades...somewhat like those combo cold/allergy meds.  Why bring up OTC meds?  Well, have you ever bought one of them in the past for 2+ symptoms, gotten better, and then gotten a cold later with only one symptom?  Did you then take the meds, knowing the second drug was superfluous?  Same thing here, except the FB part was the WRONG ANSWER.  I can see FB/CS being just the ticket for a barricaded suspect.  Not for a crowd, though, where straight CS would be a better choice as both more effective (more CS, which is persistent) and less dangerous (FB explosion).  I can see some bean counter log weenie at the PD getting a chubby over buying just one sort of grenade.

So it's okay to huck ordnance without knowing your target or backstop around it, but only if you have a blue uniform?

Looks like.

Shooting a 37/40mm projectile of that mass & velocity at someone is deadly force.  Period.

Are you calling a CS "grenade" an explosive device, or are you talking about something else?

Were I caught with one in flagrante delicto, I bet ATF would charge me with such, so yes.

[makattak]

Everyone is assuming the police know there is an injured man down.

I've now watched that video multiple times. I would not be able to tell that is a person had I not had multiple voice-overs and circles of the clump of clothes.

Is it not also possible the officer saw a group of people seemingly charging back into an area without any CS gas and thought it best to toss the grenade to clear them without noticing the rather inconspicuous clump on the ground?

Why is malice automatically assumed?

[Stetson]

Everyone is assuming the police know there is an injured man down.

I've now watched that video multiple times. I would not be able to tell that is a person had I not had multiple voice-overs and circles of the clump of clothes.

Is it not also possible the officer saw a group of people seemingly charging back into an area without any CS gas and thought it best to toss the grenade to clear them without noticing the rather inconspicuous clump on the ground?

Why is malice automatically assumed?

Because it is the Oakland PD.  Their track record is not one of non-malice.