Returning for the first time to Oscar Grant Plaza in Oakland, where the eviction of peaceful Occupy Oakland demonstrators on October 25th eventually resulted in his critical injury at the hands of a member of the Oakland Police Department's multi-agency task force, Scott Olsen gave his first interview this week since his recent release from the hospital. [Video posted at bottom of article.]

The 24-year old, two-tour Iraq vet and former U.S. Marine was struck by a projectile, believed to have been a CS gas canister fired by a law enforcement official, as he stood with other peaceful Occupy Oakland demonstrators just before police opened fire on them.

Contrary to a statement given by the OPD's Interim Chief Howard Jordan on the night of the confrontation with demonstrators in Oakland, so far no evidence has emerged to support Jordan's claim that police "had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks." In fact, a November 2nd analysis by The BRAD BLOG of video tape and eye-witness statements from that night suggests quite the opposite, that the police planned to fire on demonstrators before there was any sign of violence by protesters.

The action which resulted in Olsen's injury, as we reported, would be in apparent violation of both state law and a federal consent decree signed by the OPD after similar violence against anti-war protesters in 2003. Following our report, the OPD somewhat walked back Jordan's so far evidence-free remarks to the media following the assault.

In the video interview, Olsen displays a remarkable memory of the events of the night --- particularly given the bloodied, apparent state of shock he was seen in as he was carried off by fellow demonstrators shouting "Medic! Medic!" in video tapes of the incident.

As seen in the interview, he also now has trouble with his speech, thanks to the damage sustained to the left frontal lobe of his brain, according to David Id, who posted the interview on Monday at the East Bay Indy Media website.

Olsen tells Id that his condition has been improving. We'd say remarkably so, given the injury he sustained just over one month ago, which sent him to the hospital in critical condition with a fractured skull and a swelling brain in the early morning hours of October 26th.

His indomitable spirit, evidenced throughout the short interview in which he offers a message to police, politicians, and demonstrators alike, is remarkable as well, as he is seen smiling while responding to each of Id's questions, explaining what he recalls of that night in the moments both before and after he was shot...

It was a long night at the OccupyLA encampment outside of City Hall. The celebratory mood during the day had turned to tension at night, as the 12:01am Monday deadline loomed for what Los Angeles Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa had announced on Friday as the "date certain" when peaceful demonstrators would no longer be able to peacefully demonstrate in the overnight encampment on the lawn at City Hall.

57 days of free speech and peaceable assembly were fine, apparently, but 58 days would simply be a bridge too far. Or so Villaraigosa had made it sound during his presser that night, with LAPD Chief Charlie Beck by his side. They each took the opportunity then to praise the "Occupy LA movement for its peaceful efforts to change the national political and economic conversation."

But, as LAPD cops and the Mayor had been telling (often skeptical) demonstrators for the last several days: "We are not Oakland. We are not New York City." They had promised that there would not be a repeat of the horrific scenes which had gone viral on YouTube in other cities, where peaceful demonstrators were shot, beaten, "nudged," pepper sprayed, threatened and tear gassed during violent confrontations created by the police themselves, as they attempted to evict OWS encampments elsewhere.

One long-time demonstrator told us hours prior to the expected shut down last night, the LAPD had taken great pains to work with the L.A. protesters from the beginning of their encampment nearly two months ago. There has been a cooperative spirit with them from the beginning, she explained, noting that it seemed the LAPD was "still haunted" by the 2007 May Day Riots (which The BRAD BLOG covered live as it happened, and again when they finally reached a $13 million settlement in 2009 with the victims of their outrageous, inappropriate and unnecessary violence which included rubber bullet attacks on peaceful demonstrators and attacks against journalists attempting to cover it).

Last night's eviction never came, as protesters, media --- both corporate and citizen --- all took to the streets (and skies) around City Hall all night long. There was little show of force by the police, as they were mostly missing altogether through the night, with a few hundred, at best, appearing in the very early hours with helmets (but not full riot gear as seen elsewhere) largely to patrol intersections in an attempt to keep folks out of the street. Ironically, at about 3:30am, they spread the word that protesters should go back to City Hall Park, that they'd only be arrested if they were in the streets. There were just three such arrests total last night and the camp is still standing as of this morning.

The mixed messages from officials led one citizen journalist --- an OccupySF live video streamer who had come down from the Bay Area to cover the deadline here in L.A. --- to mention wryly as his camera rolled in the early hours: "The LAPD seem to want something from us, but it's unclear what their demands are"...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

A post on Tuesday on the hard right Republican website Free Republic suggests that opponents of the Occupy Wall Street movement may well be injecting themselves into the demonstrations' open consensus process in order to confound the objectives of the nascent movement.

"[We n]eed LA Freepers to show up to block this vote by the Occupy LA General Assembly," the poster identifying him/herself only as "joinedafterattack" wrote in apparent hopes of scuttling a discussion that night about a proposal being negotiated with the LA City Council to trade 10,000 square feet of office space and some farmland with demonstrators in exchange for their voluntary exodus from the lawn in front of City Hall.

The call by the rightwingers to take part in a General Assembly meeting at OccupyLA for the specific purpose of blocking a proposal (one that was rejected, in any case, by the majority of demonstrators that night) exposes the vulnerability of Occupy Wall Street's "consensus" decision-making and an internal contradiction between a movement which rails against rule by the 1% even as it permits the one to block the will of the many...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Last September The BRAD BLOG, unlike the corporate-owned media, offered detailed coverage of a U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights hearing on the spate of GOP voter suppression laws (PART 1 and PART 2).

Now, Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films has produced a powerful video that exposes the Koch-funded assault on your democracy, along with a petition that you can sign demanding that the Eric Holder-led Department of Justice live up to its name...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below...]

Our week guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show continues tonight and tomorrow!

As usual tonight, we'll be BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the uprising globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• REP. TED DEUTCH (D-FL-19), on his newly introduced "Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining the Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy (OCCUPIED) Amendment", which would overturn the Citizens United decision, by re-establishing the right of Congress and the states to regulate campaign finance laws, and to effectively outlaw the ability of for-profit corporations to contribute to campaign spending.
• JEANNIE DEAN, activist, Election Integrity champ and OccupyLA rep (watch her sing the gospel of OWS recently on Russian TV here) on the LA City Council's new offer to OccupyLA to "decamp" from City Hall to a 10,000 sq. foot office building and even their own farm.
• PLUS! Occupy Wall Street's first fatality?; Obama gets "Mic Checked"; Tonight's GOP debate (if it matters) and much more as the Occupy Wall Street uprising continues, along with your calls over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or at WhiteRose Society or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Well, this show was just loony toons! If you don't believe me, give it a listen! The audio archives are now posted below (along with the chat room archives)...

UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi "apologized" for last Friday's pepper spray incident during remarks to thousands of students who had gathered on the campus quad for a General Assembly this afternoon.

Here's Lee Fang's video of Katehi's teary remarks within the past hour, which began with, "I am here to apologize. I feel horrible for what happened on Friday"...

[Note: Fang, now reporting at The Second Alarm will join me on tonight's Mike Malloy Show, which I am guest hosting this week.]...

...What Katehi didn't do, once again, was either resign, as faculty and students alike have called for, or condemn the behavior of her police force for their outrageous behavior in pepper spraying nearly 20 students who had peacefully locked arms while staging an "Occupy" sit-in late last week.

Videos of the shocking incident showing UC Davis Police Department's Lt. John Pike casually torturing the students, went viral over the weekend, sparking outrage and calls for the immediate resignation of the UC Davis Chancellor. She has said she will not resign, telling ABC's Good Morning America this morning that she is "really feel confident at this point the university needs me."

She didn't mention, however, whether the university needs any holes in the head or not...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives from tonight's show below.]

We're back guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show every night through this Wednesday! Hope you can tune in! Promise it'll be some lively radio!

As usual, we're BradCasting this week LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the uprising globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• LEE FANG, until very recently of ThinkProgress and currently blogging at The Second Alarm on the latest from on the ground at UC Davis in the wake of last Friday's pepper spray torture and the Chancellor's remarkable "Walk of Shame".
• PLUS! Much more, as the Occupy Wall Street uprising continues, and everything else worth covering today, along with your calls over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or at WhiteRose Society or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: This violence by police against peaceful demonstrators across the country is making me angry. As it turns out, that's a good place to be while guest hosting the Malloy Show. Enjoy tonight's commercial-free audio archives below and see if you agree...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

The photo at right may well provide a pivotal moment in a new American revolution. It exposes a crack in the façade of the corporate security state that could grow to the point that rule by and for the 1% may some time soon internally collapse.

The real story lies not in the fact that retired Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis was arrested by the NYPD during an Occupy Wall Street confrontation. (Video of arrest posted below). It's the potential that Lewis' recognition of immense betrayal will spread throughout the rank and file of the security apparatus even as the clueless and increasingly desperate power elites seek to effectuate a coordinated crackdown on Occupy Wall Street encampments...

The Twilight Zone-like video above, shot and posted by Lee Fang, was taped this evening as UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi walked to her car while students lined the sidewalk and roadway, sitting and locking arms in complete silence. Their demonstration came on the heels of Katehi's support of the hyper-militarized UC Davis Police Department's outrageous and brutal use of pepper spray on dozens of compliant, peaceful Occupy demonstrators who were sitting in a circle, locking arms, on the campus quad yesterday.

We covered the shocking pepper spray incident, including the remarkable photographs and videos of the event, along with the calls for Katehi's resignation, earlier today here.

Fang's describes what happened leading to the haunting moment seen in the video above this way:

The blatant torture of peaceful demonstrators on the UC Davis campus yesterday was just the latest in a string of similarly appalling incidents of violence orchestrated by highly militarized "law enforcement" officials over the last several weeks across the nation in response to the growing Occupy Wall Street movement. We detailed a number of the most disturbing recent incidents, many of them caught on video tape and photographs, in this report yesterday.

UPDATE 11/20/11: Several quick updates following the events of last night depicted above, including explanations of how it came about (one of the pepper sprayed students organized it), interviews with some of the pepper sprayed students, an interview with a Baltimore cop who supports the use of force at UC Davis, and news that two of the UC Davis cops have now been placed on "Administrative Leave". Details follow below...

On Friday, Lt. John Pike [and a number of other officers --- see UPDATE below] of the UC Davis police force lead a group of lawless cops in lining up demonstrators who had been peaceably assembled on the University of California, Davis quad and then covered them with with pepper spray. His fellow cops did nothing to stop him, and actually stood by in support. [Complete appalling video posted at the end of this article.]

We're at a loss to describe this type of outrageous, unprovoked and unnecessary behavior as anything less than torture, to be frank.

Yesterday, we shared the photo of a cop at OccupyPortland similarly pepper spraying a young demonstrator directly in the face. And the day before, we detailed the story of 84-year old Dorli Rainey who met a similar fate at OccupySeattle.

Our report yesterday detailed a rapidly growing partial list of other atrocious incidents of blatant, lawless, unprovoked violence carried out by "law enforcement" officials across the nation since the Occupy Wall Street movement began two months ago. The incidents, almost all documented on video by citizen journalists, demonstrate the unrestrained, and almost always illegal, use of brutal force, aggression, violence and often torture by Big Government against peaceful American citizens exercising what were once known as their Constitutional rights --- the very behavior which supporters of the Tea Party once pretended to be concerned about.

As we averred in that article --- as supported by the included linked incidents --- and as we feel even more certain of today after viewing the video of the casually brutal and tortuous behavior of Pike and his band of UC Davis stormtrooper thugs who stood by in support (see full video below), the U.S. has not become merely a Police State in the ten years following 9/11, but a fully weaponized Military State.

Though video evidence of what happened was widely available on Friday, rather than condemning the outrageous violence by a member of her own Police force --- as she almost certainly would have had the situation been reversed and a student used pepper spray against peaceful cops --- UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi chose to issue a statement yesterday which seemed to excuse the police brutality as necessary "to protect the health and safety of our campus community"...

Our own Jeannie Dean --- longtime reader, supporter and commenter at The BRAD BLOG, years-long Election Integrity champion, and now OccupyLA rep --- brings the gospel of the Occupation to RT (formerly Russia Today)...

Says Jeannie to the whole wide world via RT: "We have already changed the narrative from deficit spending to jobs and to the economic disparities and the social injustice as we are seeing through our banking system, and the hijacking and corruption inherent in our banking and political system."

Way to sing it, JD! You do us proud! Great job! And keep making noise!

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below!]

We're back! We're guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show every weeknight tonight through next Wednesday!

As usual, we'll be BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the uprising globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• JOSH HARKINSON, of Mother Jones from Occupy Wall Street in NYC where he's been bringing us some remarkable live reporting on the scene, including this harrowing description of an NYPD cop threatening his life during the eviction at Zuccotti Park last Monday night/Tuesday morning.
• DENISE LOCKWOOD, of the Caledonia Patch, on the alleged plans by supporters of WI Gov. Scott Walker to sabotage the recently launched RECALL WALKER effort. We'll discuss her recent reports of a source who claims there are some 1,000 folks working on the effort to game the effort, and some of the journalistic questions surrounding her reporting.
• PLUS! Has Occupy Wall Street now revealed this nation to be a full blown Military State? We'll have plenty to say on that, along with your calls, more news on "Occupation Nation" and anything else you might want to use your public airwaves for at 877-520-1150 and with your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or at WhiteRose Society or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Great show tonight, I think. Nice to be back. Very lively, great guests, great callers...just fun (and infuriating) all around! Don't believe me? Listen to the commercial-free audio archives now posted below (along with chat room archives). Enjoy!...

The remarkable photo above [hat-tip Mother Jones' Mike Mechanic] was taken yesterday by Randy L. Rasmussen of The Oregonian who reports the incident occurred in Portland, where the "police officer deployed pepper spray at SW Yamhill, between the JP Morgan Chase bank and Pioneer Courthouse Square."

He says "The photo was taken from the southeast corner of the square, looking toward the intersection of 6th and Yamhill after a day of marching through downtown Portland, Ore., by Occupy Portland participants."

Rasmussen goes on to report that "Several people were arrested" during the march to the Wells Fargo downtown branch in recognition of "N17," standing for November 17th, the two-month "anniversary" of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

I'm guest hosting the Mike Malloy Show tonight, so haven't had time to confirm for certain, but I suspect one of those "arrested" was not the officer pepper spraying the apparently peaceful demonstrator in the face.

Add this incident to the growing body of apparently unprovoked police abuse of peaceful citizen demonstrators in the Occupy movement, including (but not limited to):

• Two-tour Iraq War vet Scott Olsen whose skull was fractured by a tear gas cannister fired allegedly by a law enforcement official with Oakland PD's multi-agency task force on October 25, despite no evidence of a threat from demonstrators;
• Iraq and Afghanistan vet Kayvan Sabehgi whose spleen was ruptured by Oakland cops who allegedly beat him up, even though he was not even demonstrating that same night;
• citizen journalist Scott Campbell who was shot with a bean-bag round by Oakland PD while simply rolling his camera on November 3;
• the Berkeley CA cops who slammed (I'm sorry, AP, "nudged") batons into the guts of peaceful student demonstrators on the UC Berkeley campus;
• the Dallas cop who pushed a peaceful demonstrator off a 4 foot ledge;
• the Mother Jones journalist Josh Harkinson (who will join us on tonight's Malloy Show) who reports that he was dragged behind a moving truck by an NYPD officer after midnight on Tuesday morning as riot cops were clearing Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan;
• and, of course, 84-year old Dorli Rainey who similarly received a face full of pepper spray from cops at an Occupy Seattle march on Tuesday.

This is not a Police State. It is a fully weaponized Military State, at this point. Just ask the folks at Occupy Tampa if it feels that way to them...

UPDATE 11/19/11: The outrage --- and, yes, torture --- of the fully-weaponized Military State continues, as peaceful student demonstrators are lined up and pepper sprayed by cops at UC Davis on Friday. Details/Video...

Well this is a fun one...on a day where we could use a momentary breather...

...but on a day when the OWS folks are taking anything but.

Today is the 2 month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, which has, at this hour, brought tens of thousands of demonstrators to downtown NYC tonight (and many more elsewhere at Occupations around the country.)

You can check out NY Fox5's helicopter video of the crazy huge crowds down in NYC right here.

A number of live video feeds from citizen journalists on the ground follow below, if you'd like to check out some of the live action as it happens in NYC and elsewhere tonight...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California and the National Lawyers Guild filed a 17-page complaint (Campbell vs. City of Oakland) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeking both compensatory damages and the issuance of a temporary restraining order that would enjoin the Oakland Police Department (OPD) and 17 outside law-enforcement agencies from trampling upon the constitutional rights of both bystanders and participants in Occupy Oakland.

The complaint calls for the OPD to cease their vicious, unprovoked and indiscriminate use of chemical agents, flash-bang grenades, nightsticks and direct-impact crowd control weapons --- all in violation of Crowd Control Policies adopted as part of a settlement of two previous federal cases entailing allegations of prior lawless actions by OPD.

The body of the complaint provides graphic details of police misconduct that is so pervasive that the legal filing might aptly be labeled, "an anatomy of an ongoing police riot" or "OPD's campaign of terror"...