Video footage of Occupy Oakland protest on 11-2-11 and beating of Kayvan Sabeghi by Oakland police officer.
An Army veteran who was beaten with a night stick by Oakland police during an Occupy protest and suffered a lacerated spleen, has filed a lawsuit against the Alameda County sheriff's office for allegedly denying him medical care and mocking him during 18 painful hours in a county jail.
Via:
Sabeghi, 33, of Oakland, a businessman who was an Army Ranger in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he had taken part in a nonviolent Occupy Oakland protest on Nov. 2, 2011, and was trying to walk home when he was stopped by police. One officer was videotaped repeatedly hitting him with a nightstick. He was arrested on suspicion of remaining at the scene of a riot but was never charged, his lawyers said.
At the Glenn Dyer Jail in downtown Oakland, the suit said, deputies initially refused to examine Sabeghi or take him to a doctor. One officer saw him lying on the floor throwing up and told him to stop using heroin, and another deputy recorded his sufferings on video to humiliate him, the suit said.
A medical staffer finally took his blood pressure and reported, inaccurately, that he was a diabetic and an alcoholic, the suit said. After friends posted bail, Sabeghi, who had briefly blacked out and was unable to walk, was taken to Highland General Hospital, where he underwent surgery and remained for five days.
Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a sheriff's spokesman, denies the allegations and said that Sabeghi received prompt assistance upon arrival, and that an ambulance was called when his condition worsened.
No word as yet on when the case may come to trial.
