Meanwhile, Oakland Police spokeswoman Cynthia Perkins told CNN that the department is investigating how protester Scott Olsen, a former Marine and two-time Iraq war veteran, suffered a skull fracture in Tuesday evening's clashes.
A vigil was scheduled Wednesday for Olsen, 24, outside Oakland City Hall, organizers said.
Olsen, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, was in serious but stable condition Wednesday afternoon at Highland General Hospital in Oakland, said Dottie Guy, a member of the veterans group who told CNN by phone that she was visiting Olsen at the hospital.
He sustained a skull fracture after allegedly being shot in the head with a police projectile, according to the veterans group. Among a growing number of war vets participating in the Occupy movement, Olsen was marching from a downtown library toward City Hall in an effort to reclaim an encampment that had been cleared out by police, the veterans group said.
The violence between police and protesters escalated after demonstrators allegedly pelted officers with bottles, rocks and paint, authorities said. Police then fired tear gas into the downtown streets to disperse the crowd.
The violence I was afraid of in NYC in Zucotti Park about three weeks ago has finally happened in Oakland. Enter a new and very serious stage for the Occupy Together movement. The class war is now under way. Much more on Scott Olsen here at the Oakland Tribune. He survived two tours in Iraq only to get his skull cracked like a ripe melon by a tear gas canister to the side of the head...but Oakland PD. There isn't a god above or below capable of that level of abject hatred, only humanity could ever accomplish that particular feat of irony.
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