Thursday, October 25, 2012, marked the one-year anniversary of the Oakland Police Department’s violent assault on the Occupy Oakland encampment and the ensuing protest in which Iraq veteran and anti-war activist Scott Olsen was shot at close range with a barely-less-than-lethal beanbag round. People attempting to administer aid to Scott were forced to flee when an officer fired a flashbang grenade into the group. Eventually Scott was carried away by his comrades and driven to Highland Hospital, where it was determined that he had a skull fracture and brain injury that kept him from being able to speak. Scott survived Iraq only to be critically wounded by a sociopath paid by the City of Oakland to protect and serve the interests of the one percent.

Tuesday night Scott Olsen stood on a street in Oakland as an American citizen, exercising his right as specified in the First Amendment to the Constitution that he pledged his life to uphold as a US Marine. And Tuesday night, as he lawfully exercised the Constitutional right he risked his life to defend in Marine uniform, someone wearing the uniform of the Oakland PD, or the “law” enforcement agencies Oakland summoned up to squash lawful protest, fired the round that felled Scott Olsen.