SF May Day Occupier hurls bricks and iron bars at police, injures bystander—live video
The May Day protests by OccupySF came to a violent conclusion when one of the Occupiers went berserk and started attacking police with bricks, chunks of concrete and then later iron bars, throwing them from the roof of an “occupied” building at the cops below.
Horrifyingly, his aim was off, so instead of hitting the police, he hit a random bystander, who began to bleed profusely. One inch to the right or left, and that brick could have easily killed the victim.
We have three videos of the incident.
KPIX Channel 5 by chance recorded the exact moment of the assault:
Next, someone in the crowd captured the victim getting hit by the Occupier’s projectile:
And finally, KTVU captured exclusive video of either the same Occupier, or possibly another one (they were all dressed in black and wearing masks, so it was hard to tell), hurling even more dangerous iron bars at police from a nearby rooftop:
This kind of criminal behavior is simply outrageous. Considering what can happen to the human skull when hit by a brick or an iron bar thrown from a rooftop, this assault could easily be classified as attempted murder.
Luckily, the police captured the perpertrator (the first one, at least). Needless to say, an Occupy spokesman immediately distanced the movement from the assailant’s actions, even though:
- He was part of the Occupy protests
- He was one of group of Occupiers who stormed and took over the building from which he throw the objects
- He was dressed like the other Occupiers
- He was targeting the police squad who were following the Occupy protest.
If he wasn’t one of the Occupiers, then he was doing a very good job of imitating one.
The building where this assault occurred (888 Turk), by the way, is the exact same building that OccupySF had seized during their previous “direct action,” as documented at the Fund47 blog. They briefly occupied it again on May Day.
(Hat tip: John, at City Square blog.)
Freedom of speech is an important and sacred right. Attempted murder is not. Violence is not.
Arrest, try, convict and incarcerate these vicious animals.
Throwing bricks somehow helps convince anyone to support the OWS Agenda? Doubtful.
Anyone standing around at this ‘event’, that isn’t law enforcement on duty, is evidently putting themselves at considerable risk for no gain.
Double-Tap
Yes. I don’t understand why people are being allowed to commit assault with a deadly weapon with no penalty.
After witnessing the first person struck, cops on the scene should have shot him when he picked up the next brick.
Was the guy hit an occupier? also, the lonhaired guy in the wool hat who said the occupiers are not violent; so what does he think is breaking and entering??(Into the uninhabited building)Or screaming abuse and throwing molotov cocktails at the police and making inflammatory anti-semitic posters? these people are infantile, retartded and dangerous!!
He was probably an Occupier or at least a sympathizer, because he foolishly refused to go to the hospital afterward, as part of his anti-authoritarian posturing. Considering that the brick knocked him to the ground and briefly unconscious, he might have a concussion or internal bleeding, whether or not that was apparent immediately afterward, and he definitely should have had it checked out.
…radio this morn, one protester said a person arrested by police had mental issues — caused by previous arrests wherein the person had suffered police brutality. Yeah, that can happen (only in Ess Eff). Here’s to the Mayor and Chief for showing Oaktown’s hapless mayor and chief how to clear ‘em out. Let them occupy, let their guard down, swarm!
Actually, I noticed that the fella who was hit did a pretty professional fall, and did a good job of hiding the area he was hit on. Not saying it was some kind of weird put-up job, maybe to try to embarrass the police into some kind of action they could edit into brutality… and I am not saying it is not. It is well-documented that Occupy, even in their first, unrehearsed season, specifically had scripted run-ins with police in an attempt to force them into doing something that could be distorted into the police being authoritarian, even going so far as to block access to hospital emergency rooms…
Pity the police weren’t into a little rubber bullet target practice that day. They guy on the roof would have been better than a paper target any day.
These people are idiots and are going to start hurting a lot of people. The worse thing about it is that people like the guy on that roof have no fear of getting caught and feel that they can get away with this sort of thing. THAT is when law and order breaks down. There should be MORE arrests when you have outbursts like this, not less. If you let it go on, it will only get worse. Demonstrations are one thing, brick throwing is another.
That brick throwing act of violence should have resulted in a LIVE FIRE retaking of the building.
That brick chucking Commie was way more violent than Randy Weaver or David Koresh ever was…oh, yeah, and those “protesters” arent on their OWN frigging property either.
Just goes to show how different the response to “law breaking” is according to you politics.
Because there’s no leadership or coherent program in the Occupy movement it is not possible to say what or who represents them. Occupy is what anyone claims it is and there’s nobody who can say it isn’t. They injure people, they destroy property, create piles of filth and garbage, commit rape and robbery and make war on the 99%… and when someone asks they say: “That’s not what our movement is about! We’re just innocent, peaceful hippies and those guys don’t represent us.” Sorry, Charlie, those thugs do represent you and you can’t distance yourself from them.
On the Adbusters website the other day, in the comments, I saw a typical entry: “If we see a car with unfriendly bumper stickers we should occupy it.” The meaning is clear. He does not mean that they’re supposed to go inside the car and have a natural healing workshop–he means to vandalize the car. This is the tenor of the comments there and of the Occupy movement in general. The Occupy movement is comprised of lumpenproletariat, street criminals, mentally ill and poorlyeducated, disaffected students who get a thrill out of violence and destruction. The medium is the message and they mean to get it across by intimidation and force. They are fascists at heart.
Wow, to listen to the left, it’s just like a Tea Party event.
These people are just crazy. It’s like the Obama inauguration party on steroids.
I peeked at Daily Kos and found some commentary on the events in SF and Oakland, where a bottle was thrown by one protester and hit another in the head, knocking her to the ground. Also, an ATM was smashed and buildings were spray-painted and windows were broken.
The consensus is that these acts are “not helpful.” One Occupying Kossack lamented that it’s a sad day when he likes the OPD better than Occupy Oakland.
Oh and hey, where was Nancy Pelosi on this fine May Day? Anything from Obama in the past few months? No?
over at democraticunderground the consensus seems to be that the ones causing the damage are really police in disguise trying to make the occupiers look bad. I’m thinking, “bless your hearts! you don’t need the police for that!” LOL
Left/libtards…
If violent intimidation is the tactic these folks cannot even hope to be effective. Did Cleveland Ohio shut down today? It was hardly a news item.
Occupy is facing the same old problem. Without control we loose. If we are control we are just the new boss.
After the Occupier threw the first brick into the crowd, and picked up another menacingly, why didn’t the police open fire?
There is no question police knew the potential for this kind of attack, and the need for a response with deadly force. If the threat warranted sharpshooters, they should have been on standby. Didn’t the media talk about exactly the same concern when Occupy broke into the same building in March?
this is all part of the plan. the race baiters have purposely fanned the fire, and the hotter it gets, the worse it is going to get. another incident will just bring them out again, and again. when all he!! breaks loose, and it will probably just erupt all at once, o-barry will use this violence by his people as an excuse to declare martial law, and cancel the elections, which was the plan all along. average Americans had better wake up. being in denial isn’t really swimming in a river in egypt.
problem: sometimes fires are unpredictable and can’t be put out, and have to burn themselves out. then again, who’s to say where it will end, or just who will be still alive and in charge when it is over? battles/wars within this country have always been a bloody mess, and the winners unpredictable.
You’re probably right. I bet Al Sharpton is waiting in the wings, biding his time until the first Black “occupier” is killed or badly hurt by a white cop or white protester.
Somebody should have busted a cap on that fool.
Geeze. Just more evidence that the next time I go on foot to cover one of these events I should really consider grabbing some sort of helmet. Being able to blend into the background is nice, but it’s not worth a concussion.
I’ve never understood the narrative that protesters chucking things is just innocent posturing against the ‘man’. ‘oh, it’s the only way they can get their message across, the poor dears!’ baloney. Rocks, bricks – hell, -fists- can be deadly. I hope the guy is ok, and that we see more of the movement shaming their own out of violence.
At the news report in the first video, when the caster opened with ‘anarchists infiltrating the movement’
For pete’s sake. They’ve been there -all along-. You can see snippets of anarchist and black bloc flags from the events across the country in October and September. We had news reports of occupiers being upset at the anarchists mucking up their internal governance since mid October.
I suppose the media just enjoys being surprised by everything that’s not surprising.
You must be mistaken.
That has to be a Tea Partier – I heard Chris Matthews warn us all aobut the underlying violence of the right wing Tea Party Movement.
That hack Matthews is such a genius!
Maybe “Occupy Wall Street” can hit HIM in the head with the “Brick” of “Social Justice” delivered from twenty or thirty floors up.
Then all of that “genius” can flow freely out into the streets where the common people can appreciate it…
…as they try to avoid stepping in it.
Heh. Janet Napolitano warned us too. /spit
Throwing a brick is assault with a deadly weapon. Everyone one of those cops standing around had a clear shot at the assailant BEFORE he threw the first brick. He damned sure shouldn’t have been allowed to hurl a second. WTF? Why wasn’t he stopped by deadly force if necessary?
Remember the helpless police chief in Seattle who had to issue an “emergency order” just so police officers could take weapons like steel pipes away from the lowlifes.
In a sane society, these vermin would be firehosed and jailed en masse. Then their leaders would be required to pay for the damages.
But these OWS termites have tacit approval from the Pelosi/Reid/Obama regime and they know it. Cops are afraid to step over the invisible line.
The failure of the Communist Party to incite any successful shutdowns on May 1st is a good omen for rooting them out of Washington in November. ABO2012
FakeDrudge.com’d as “SAN FRAN: Concealed Carry Holder Shoots and Kills Brick Throwing Hooligan as Police Stand By… “
Looks like a ragtag group of miscreants some community organizer grouped together. Like protesting illegal immigrants it looks like they have their free passes and get out of jail free cards. 7000+ occupy people arrested so far and 0 tea party supporters arrested, yet pelosi and her boss compare the two groups as equal – mind-boggling coming from people who are supposed to be “leaders”.
An imaginary scenario: In the impossibly near future, a group of occupiers or maybe a young an irrepressible scrum of black teens (men) will target the wrong group of cops or the prototypical, armed and dangerous other. And thus their will be hell to pay. The media will get too salivating and when the uncharacteristic response comes forth from the public or a particular community. Meaning unsympathetic and maybe retaliatory, then the media and the political class will assume the deer in the headlights stare. This yanking on the proverbial chain of the law enforcement with verbal taunts and non-responsive tactics to physical assaults, its got to stop. Hello! Mayors, Governors, Police Chiefs, when did bricks become the equivalent of someone spitting in a cops face, which is terrible in an of itself.
I wonder if there’s anyway of knowing: 1) If bricks were already on the roof and the assault was spontaneous; 2) If the bricks and other objects were brought up for a premeditated attack.
Um, those are deadly weapons? How was he not shot by police?
Lucky for everyone this guy wasn’t a Tea Partier! He might have waved a miniature American flag instead. Thank God all he did was peacefully throw bricks at people’s heads.
This is amazing. A person on a roof top with his face covered, hurls bricks and steel rods at a crowd on the ground (which contains actual Police) and nothing is done to stop the brick and steel rod throwing. California law reveals that the roof top brick/steel rod thrower is comitting 245(a)(1) (assault with a deadly weapon) of the California penal code. Deadly force was warranted to stop the masked brick thrower or at the very least, an Arwen round (non-lethal nylon projectile) fired at him to stop the threat immediately after the first brick was thown on the crowd. Yet he is simply being watched from below. Now, I know why the Oakland Police (as are most metropolitan police agencies) are in an apathetic mode but the public is supposed to be protected here and they are not. Property is supposed to be protected as well but it’s clear that anarchists and Occupiers are allowed to run roughshod over the city. The citizenry isn’t sufficiently upset with these developments and have not demanded better. Congratulations.
OWS IS AWESOME!
Now if I can only find it with my microscope.
If you want evidence on how badly this movement has shrunk from last fall go to the OWS page at HUffPo and you’ll see a relative scarcity of comments compared to several months ago where 10,000+ comments on OWS articles weren’t unusual.
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As I predicted years ago with the failure and collapse of Obama’s radical left agenda Alinsky’s bloodless revolution through the institutions (called Obamunsim) would give way to a resurgence of violent bloody Weather Underground Leninism. However, it’s happening a bit sooner than I supposed.
Differant strokes for differant folks. I was a medic on my departments Civil Disturbance Team for a long series of IMF protests years ago. We used very little force during the protests, because the protesters were a lot of bark and no bite. But this may be because, in addition to my trauma kit, I cared a fire extingisher. It was in case somebody tried to throw a molotov cocktail at us, I could stop them from being on fire in order to treat their gunshot wound. The protest liason guys were very frank when they shared this capability with the protest leaders after “affinity groups” made it known how bad ass they were.
Because there’s no leadership or coherent program in the Occupy movement it is not possible to say what or who represents them. Occupy is what anyone claims it is and there’s nobody who can say it isn’t.
It’s not hard to define it. In a nutshell, the Occupy movement is a nice hospitable ocean in which the violent minority fish happily swim. It reaps the benefit of all the publicity and intimidation wreaked by its pet fish, and should be held responsible for all the personal and property damage cause by its activities.
No wonder that SEIU and their leftist allies keep the useful Occupist idiots topped up with walking-around money – the services the rioters provide the Cause are worth far more than the meager handouts.
They call themselves “Anarchists,” because they can’t spell “communist”.
(Besides, they wouldn’t know Karl Marx from Groucho…!)
They keep trying to claim that the Occupy movement is non-violent, and yet they attract swarms of addicts and mental cases who are violent. You’d think somebody in that movement would get a clue that maybe their “street protests” are the problem, but I suppose that takes the ability to reason and think clearly.
The definition of a weapon is ANY object that can be used to inflict serious injury or death – and that includes bricks and iron bars. This person could easily have killed someone, therefore the cops could have legally shot him, and should have.
The cops were probably afraid to take armed action because they could lose their jobs in the anti-police environment of San Francisco.
I worked for the San Francisco Police Commission in the early 80s. The Commission consisted of hostile, anti-police people appointed by the then Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who wanted the minority votes. Both the Commission and the Office of Citizen Complaints displayed a hostile, antagonistic attitude toward officers, except when the cop was female and/or black – then it was a different story entirely.
Don’t blame the cops when they hesitate to take full legal action, even in situations where a citizen might be killed. They probably don’t want to lose their jobs at the command of the do-gooder politicians.