Second vet injured by cops at Occupy Oakland
A second American Military veteran is now hospitalized in Oakland, California following an alleged attack by police during this week’s General Strike on Wednesday.
Kayvan Sabehgi, 32, has been admitted to the intensive care unit of Highland Hospital for a lacerated spleen that he says he incurred by police officers earlier this week as he peacefully walked in Oakland away from where thousands were marching in conjunction with the Occupy movement. A week earlier fellow US vet Scott Olson was also checked-into Highland Hospital after he suffered a projectile skull after being hit by a police-fired projectile.While demonstrators quickly took Olsen to safety, Sabehgi was not so lucky. He tells The Guardian that it took him 18 hours to get medical assistance. In the interim, he was stuck in an Oakland, California jail cell in excruciating pain."My stomach was really hurting, and it got worse to the point where I couldn't stand up,” Sabehgi tells The Guardian. "I was on my hands and knees and crawled over the cell door to call for help.""I was vomiting and had diarrhea," Sabehgi says. "I just lay there in pain for hours."The veteran claims that he was walking along 14 Street in Oakland on Wednesday when he was confronted by cops. "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,” he says.Sabeghi adds that he was in police custody in a departmental van for three hours before he was taken to jail. He complained about his pain but was not released to physicians until his bail was posted mid-afternoon the next day. At that point it took an ambulance to move Sabeghi to the hospital.Following last week’s assault on Scott Olsen, people involved in Occupy-style demonstrations across the world held up signs and led chants in honor of the wounded vet, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan for the US Marines. Sabeghi left the Army in 2007 after serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan and has been a part-owner of a bar in nearby El Cerrito, California.
