KEITH OLBERMANN: This story was disturbing but it was hard to visualize. An Iraq vet at Occupy Oakland talking to a line of cops, posing no threat, when they suddenly start shouting at him to move. When he doesn't move fast enough, they beat him so profoundly he winds up hospitalized with a ruptured spleen.
In our fourth story -- it was hard to visualize because there were only still images of the assault until today. The video -- 16 days old -- only emerged today on the site of The Guardian with a story written by Adam Gabbatt, who joins us in just a moment. Kayvan Sabehgi standing alone, speaking to cops. The voice you'll hear at the end, yelling "stop," is that of cameraman Neil Rivas.
(Excerpt from video clip) POLICE OFFICER: Move! Move! Move! Get out of here! Did you hear me? Get out of here! Get down on the ground! Get down of the ground!
(Excerpt from video clip) NEIL RIVAS: Hey! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Let him go!
OLBERMANN: Also filming that night? Local TV station KTVU, showing Sabeghi right after that beating.
(Excerpt from video clip) SABEGHI: I'm an Iraq war vet. I had two tours in Iraq. I had two tours in Iraq. One tour in Afghanistan.
OLBERMANN: Sabeghi was one of at least two veterans injured in Oakland. The other was Scott Olsen, who -- of course -- suffered a fractured skull a week before, when he was hit by a tear-gas canister and is now improving in the hospital.
There is now a new still image awaiting similar video. That is 20-year-old Elizabeth Nichols getting a full blast of pepper spray yesterday at Occupy Portland in an extraordinary photo taken Randy L. Rasmussen of the Oregonian Newspaper. A protest spokesman says she vomited, had to get her eyes washed out -- of course -- but was otherwise okay.
Back to Oakland. Let's bring in Adam Gabbatt of The Guardian, covering Occupy from coast to coast, who was with us last night about New York and now about this in Oakland. Thank you kindly.
ADAM GABBATT: Thank you.
OLBERMANN: How is Kayvan Sabehgi?
GABBATT: Kayvan is out of hospital. He had a -- it was an operation -- or a procedure, more correctly -- to repair the damage to his spleen, and he was looking forward to returning to work, I've seen him report. But Kayvan -- like a lot of people involved in these protests, he is not in it for himself or for the fame -- so he doesn't want too much media attention, in terms of speaking himself. So, when I tried to get through to him today, I could don't so, but it's good to know he is recovering and apparently has gone back to work.
OLBERMANN: The violence that we saw here, and obviously -- is it fair to say he put himself in position for something that to happen, but did not expect the, sort of, level of brutality that resulted?
GABBATT: I think that's fair to say. I spoke to him in his hospital bed, the morning after this had happened, and he told me he just wanted to get home. He had been involved in the protest. Things were actually kicking off in quite a big way near there. He was walking away from that, trying to get home. This is two blocks from the main scene, and I think he was frustrated and tired, and he was just saying to the police, "I would like to actually just pass through." They were ordering him back. He didn't know where he could go. So, you just see him speaking there. But clearly, he doesn't do anything to provoke that kind of attack.
OLBERMANN: No. Nobody could really, just using -- just having no arms whatsoever or other weapons of any kind. The other thing it doesn't show -- because, obviously the man was filming it -- there were threats of violence against the cameraman, as well?
GABBATT: Neil Rivas is the man that shared it with The Guardian, and he said he was the only journalist there at the scene. We saw the KTVU footage, but that was after Kayvan was arrested. So, he was just filming as it happened, and -- when Kayvan was taken down to the floor -- both Kayvan and Neil have said further blows were dispensed as he was on the floor. Neil actually had a gun pointed at him, whether it was a non-lethal weapon I'm not entirely sure, I don't think he was sure either.
OLBERMANN: It doesn't matter when it's pointed at you, does it?
GABBATT: Exactly, when it's pointed at you from a distance of a few meters. And he said he could see the officer's finger on the trigger and he shouted at him to get away. And then you can hear -- in some clips of the video -- Neil shouting, "I'm filming this, I'm filming this," and -- luckily -- he wasn't fired on.
OLBERMANN: It's hard to say about legal definitions, but -- I mean, intuitively, what we saw here looks like, after -- at least maybe nowhere past the shoving of Sebehgi out of the way -- after that point, it seems a commonplace layman's opinion would be, "That's unjustifiable force." Is there any indication -- I mean, obviously, if it's in the city of Oakland, you are going to have to take number on this -- but is there an indication that the city of Oakland is investigating this?
GABBATT: The city of Oakland police force is investigating it -- they're looking into the incident. Although they have been quite hard to get hold of for a number of weeks. Actually, when I first started reporting about Scott Olsen it was the same. But a spokeswomen did say they are investigating the incident. I since -- as soon as I got the footage I've shared it with her, and said, "Will the police be using this footage as part of the investigation and can you name the police officer?" I haven't gotten a reply to that yet, so we will see. But an investigation is technically underway by police.
OLBERMANN: Do you have any sense -- this precedes Occupy Oakland, the problems with the police being out of control in that city -- is there any sense of any success in getting them back under control?
GABBATT: I'm not sure. I think it's gonna take a lot more than a, kind of, simple investigation into this. You wonder whether -- does this actually need a proper external body to come in and examine what's being going on there? And one of the things that's caused the confusion is so many different police agencies are involved there.
OLBERMANN: Right.
GABBATT: I think estimates are about 17 --
OLBERMANN: Yep.
GABBATT: So, how do you know which agencies there -- and clearly, there should be some system that says, "These guys did this. These guys did this." -- but at the moment, no one really seems to know that, which is clearly a failing in itself.
OLBERMANN: Goodness. Adam Gabbitt of The Guardian, with us again tonight with another extraordinary story. Great thanks for coming in.
GABBATT: Thank you very much.
