Bizarre development: Lone guy in black mask throws bricks at Occupy crowd

05.01.12 - 5:19 pm | Tim Redmond |

(9)

Riot police outside 888 Turk, where brick and pipes were flying. Guardian photo by Yael Chanoff

Yael Chanoff reports from the scene of the Occupy building takeover with a really strange development:.

Police had put up barricades in front of 888 Turk, and many of the protesters were out of the building, but some were still inside. Then, after the front door was completely sealed, a lone man, his face covered by a black bandana, appeared on the roof. He held a brick in each hand, and after a dramatic pause, hurled one of the bricks into the crowd below. It struck a protester in the face, causing a bloody injury. Paramedics are on the scene.

The brick-thrower kept up the barrage, hitting another protester in the leg, then moved to an adjacent building and began throwing pipes, hitting a police car.

Hundreds of police arrived on the scene; The brick thrower apparently vanished.

May Day

Comments

bricks

The name of the guy who threw the Brick is not secret. His first and last name have been reported in the mainstream media. His first name is Jesse. He has been hanging around the Occupy vigil recently, where he has been notourious for threatening other ocupiers. He is a veteran with mutiple head injuries from police assaults. This is a sad story, He is a person in need of mental health serivces. On one ocasion he actualy asked a member of Occupy to have him comited, so she did, but he was back out the next day.
When you are out in the streets with a little food and a little kindness, all sorts of people will stat hanging around, He needed help, and we gave him a little, but he needed a lot more. He should not have been involved with political actions of this sort, It probably triggered a flashback of his previouse altercations with police. I hope he gets help, gets well, stays well, and stays well away from Occupy in the future.

Posted by Guest edsnail on May. 01, 2012 @ 10:58 pm

Responsibility

It does beg the question that if the man was know to be unstable then why was he allowed to go to the roof by himself. Occupy was in control of the building at that point. How about self policing the roof maybe?

I don't doubt that a lot of the trouble we've had in the past 72 hours were done by bad elements exploiting the Occupy movement. But it also should remind Occupy that they don't have all the answers either. It's one thing to point out problems in our society, it is much more difficult to come up with an effective plan to change things. You'll find unexpected things like people throwing rocks and bricks.

Posted by Troll on May. 02, 2012 @ 8:39 am

BS, what a delightfully well

BS, what a delightfully well crafted story which absolves any personal or collaborative responsibility from Occupy.
Of course this poor man is damaged from police brutality, of course you all tried to get him help but were utterly unable.

pathetic

Posted by greg on May. 02, 2012 @ 6:22 am

Yes very bizarre

A day after the occupy types wonder through the Mission smashing the property of the 99% it's bizarre that they attract a guy throwing shit off the roof of a building.

Tim's and Yael's lack of any sense of right and wrong parades as a sense of right and wrong so awesome.

Posted by Matlock on May. 02, 2012 @ 8:21 am

Are we sure

it wasn't Tim?

Posted by Chromefields on May. 02, 2012 @ 10:07 am

Posted by Guest on May. 02, 2012 @ 5:42 pm

Why didn't the police just

Why didn't the police just shoot him?

Posted by Guest on May. 04, 2012 @ 5:46 pm

The cops would have been justified in using deadly force

on someone who posed an imminent danger to others, good point.

But I suspect they didn't want to hand Occupy a martyr. Had he been shot dead then Occupy, instead of claiming (yet again) that it was an interloper (or even an FBI provocateur) would instead have held him up as a peoples' hero brutally murdered by the cops.

So the cops judiciously held back and in fact the only person this Occupier hurt was another Occupier. Just like with the Oakland Occupy murder, in fact. The movement, having had its 15 minutes of fame, is now self-destructing.

Posted by Anonymous on May. 04, 2012 @ 6:07 pm

Very Bizzare

About as bizarre as not showering causes body odor...

Posted by Freddy on May. 10, 2012 @ 6:56 pm