I had seen some names leaked on various blogs of the alleged officer that may have shot Scott Olsen in Oakland. I kept looking for the documentation of it and there was none. Most likely, it was based on things like height and location. Probably the much bigger factor was that this officer was shot on camera with his name very clearly showing. Among the many many offices present in videos, this guy had somehow been implicated. I set aside to see if I could do my own research and corroborate the findings. If I couldn't, I hoped I would find some sort of information that would lead to more answers.
ANALYSIS:
The first thing I decided to do was to become familiar with the setting based on watching multiple videos (linked later). Below is a general overview of important elements within a satellite picture of the location.
I actually downloaded the videos I used and was able to blow them up and watch them frame by frame, backwards and forwards, repeatedly, looking for any clues that may help.
The first video is a previous edit, but I used it because it pieces together a couple different sequences and perspectives: DO NOT PAY ATTENTION TO THE COMMENTARY AND EDITORIAL, I only used it for the raw footage.
The video (I will call it Video 1) has gotten a lot of play because it points out a specific police officer (or some law enforcement) who appears to be holding a shotgun (or something similar), backs off, and throws a flash bang grenade into a crowd that comes to the aid of Scott Olsen after he has fallen.
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| The video fingers the highlighted officer as the offender |
I will refer to this specific camera angle as "Camera A" in the future. It is absolutely clear that the grenade was thrown from the police side of the barricade, and it is almost certain that the highlighted officer was the one that threw it. What the video does not show, unfortunately, is why Scott Olsen had fallen. The impact that brought down Olsen is obscured by a moving crowd. Within a few of the frames however, it is possible to spot Olsen falling to the ground.
Let's look at the (almost certain) grenade tosser a little closer, a couple of frames earlier.
Here, if you look close enough, you can see that he is pointing some sort of long barrel gun into the crowd. I will just call it a shotgun for the sake of brevity. The second thing I want to point out is his bare right hand. It may only appear to be a faint blob, but upon viewing many times frame by frame, I am certain that that blob is his hand, and that it is bare (or a beige colored glove?)
Go back to Video 1 posted above and watch closely between 1:36 and 1:38. As he lowers his shotgun, he lowers his hand with it.
Also, it is important to note that the officers here are all wearing gas masks. Remember that.
There is a second video (Video 2) which was of good service. I will not be linking to it however, since it clearly shows the name of the accused officer (I will alternately refer to him as Officer B___). I'm sure you can find it if you look hard enough, I just don't want to help in the effort. I don't want to contribute to staining someone's reputation without absolute proof of wrong doing.
Either way, the video also has some good information in it, and I will use it to highlight some points. The accused officer is pictured below on the right.
The first thing that you may notice is that he appears to be very tall. That stands out immediately. He looks at least a foot taller than the office to his right. In some of the reasoning behind implicating him, I have heard that his height made him easier to identify.
From the video, we can verify that at some point before (and very likely later during the incident), he was behind the northwest barricade.
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| It's just an image, don't click play |
Second, notice his height, but let's look at it from a different angle.
The picture above is going to look very confusing with all of those lines, but let me explain. I used the angle of the lines made by the railing (almost certainly parallel in reality) to find the vanishing point of the angle.
Some reading on vanishing points and perspective if you are unfamiliar: Wikipedia Link
Now, if the officers are lined up parallel to the railing (which they almost certainly are), then the line that connects the vanishing point to the top of Officer B___'s head will be parallel to the ground and give us a means by which to compare the heights of the officers, despite the angle. The vertical line is to mark the point where the railing no longer follows a straight line. The officers lined up next to this farther section of the railing cannot be compared, but they may be too distant to matter in this case.
The point I am trying to prove in particular is that Officer B___ is clearly taller than the officers to his left. The right side does not matter as much. Just keep in mind that he does appear taller than the officers lined up semi-immediately to his left.
Also, note that none of the officers are wearing gas masks in this video. Video 2 takes place sometime before Video 1, but it is impossible to know by how much. There was enough time for them all to sport gas masks, so the make up and order of the line of officers could have changed. I bring this up to emphasize that Video 2 did not take place immediately before Video 1.
The third thing to note is that Officer B___ is wearing black gloves.
Now, if he had enough time to put on a gas mask, he would have had enough time to get a shotgun. Or he may have one holstered somewhere, but it is not apparent in the video.
In fact, during all of Video 2 you notice that none of the officers on the front line have shotguns, or anything that looks like a shotgun.
Now, go back to Video 1, and you will notice that aside from the circled officer, none of the other officers in the front line appear to be holding a shotgun either. You see nightsticks and shields.
So, no where else can we find an officer with a shotgun on the front line, except for the circled officer. Let's take a look again at Video 2.
1 "shotgun" spotted.
2 more "shotguns" spotted.
In fact as you look through Video 2 (which I didn't link you to, sorry), and in other videos, you see that the "guns" are in the back. Not on the front line. The officers on the front line seem to be there more or less as a barrier.
The officers in the back seem to be a different breed altogether. Their uniforms are markedly different.
Let's return to one more look at Video 1 to make my final point about Officer B___.
You may not have noticed the first time I put up this image, but look all the way on the right of this picture. There is a markedly tall man.
Now, you can't really do the vanishing point thing here because the angle is not tight. The vanishing point would be somewhere really far off your monitor to the left. I could have done it, but at that distance, your sensitivity to error becomes very high, and it isn't worth it. Since the angle is closer to being perpendicular, you can trust your eye. To me, the officer on the far right looks taller than the circled officer. Both appear to be standing upright, IN THIS FRAME.
Since I argued that Officer B___ had no one to the left of him that was taller, it would lead us to believe that he can't be the circled man. Now, there is a chance that the orders changed in such a way as to rearrange that, but I would argue against that by saying that people who are taller than Officer B___ are not common. The possibility that the circled man is Officer B___ is unlikely.
So who shot Scott Olsen?
Let me take this minute to introduce Video 3, overhead news helicopter footage (in the same orientation as the top image).
Back to the above question:
To investigate that I want to tackle two parameters:
1) Where was the impact on Olsen's body?
2) Which way was he facing at the moment of impact?
With those two, we can at least determine where the shot came from.
Number 1 is easier to answer than number 2.
It appears from images that impact may have occurred near his left temple. There is a collection of blood particularly there.
A second clue that corroborates this is the stories of his neurological problems that have arisen, particularly his difficulty speaking. Guardian article
The speech center they are almost certainly referring to is Broca's Area
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| See the highlighted blue |
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| See the tongue (coronal section) |
So I will infer that the impact was made to his left side (inferior frontal lobe, not actually temporal, even if it appears near the temple).
Now to determine where the object that hit him came from, we have to try to figure out which direction he was facing.
Through the different videos that show him before things got out of hand, he is seen in different places, facing different directions, so that does not particularly help.
Looking through the videos, there is no clear picture of him during or right before impact.
There are some clues however, that we can build from.
First is the apparent orientation of his body after he had already fallen.
Olsen appears to be oriented with his head towards the "Camera A". His backpack to our right suggests that he is lying on its side. But how was he standing?
Our second clue comes from a short piece of Video 1. It is visible for only a few frames around 1:18, but I was able to spot Olsen's falling body. It is really hidden in there in the gaps between people running. It would be really difficult to get it in the Youtube video, but you can try. If you really want to give it a shot, I would say download the video (using a Chrome/Firefox extension) and view it through a video software that allows you to go frame by frame. I use Avidemux, which is a free software. You can click the right and left arrows to go forward and back by one frame.
EDIT: Just decided to include the fall with a slideshow. Look for the falling body between the man in black and the lady in orange.
If the slideshow opens a new window when you click, you can close it and come back here.
With that said, the important thing to note from those few frames is that Olsen's body falls towards the camera, and it appears to fall limp (only by the force of gravity), he doesn't appear to stumble or stagger. It just looks like a collapsing object under only the force of gravity. Secondly, my best guess is that he is falling face first, mostly because his torso appears black as he is falling (The color of his shirt, exposed only on the front).
The next point I want to make is that just because he is on his side on the floor does not mean he was standing that way and fell to the side. It is very possible that his backpack (which at least looks heavy) twisted to one side after he had fallen, and twisted his body to rest on its side.
From here I think there are three possible directions he could have been facing on impact. I will use the direction of Camera A as reference. See the image all the way at the top if you need to set your orientation straight.
1) Looking generally left (as seen by Camera A)
Supported by the fact that that is the direction he is facing on the ground.
1A) If a projectile had caused the impact to his head, it would have come from the direction of Camera A. Rather oddly, he would have then fallen in the direction of the impact. This seems counter-intuitive. It is not entirely impossible though. If he was falling limp, then he was falling because of lost consciousness, not because of momentum from the impact. Even then, it would be strange to fall directly to one side if knocked unconscious. Also, it would mean that the projectile came from an area where for the most part, protesters were fleeing at that time. It is not impossible that a protester picked up a rock or something and threw it at him, but it seems that there is no reason to believe that that was the case. There is no other piece of evidence that supports this. I would rate this as non-reliable alternative.
1B) His skull fracture was not due to an impact from a projectile, but rather by impact with the ground. I think the doctors will have a better time with this one. It would be impossible for us to tell if this is the case. However, 1B is supported by some video evidence. Particularly that Olsen began to fall almost immediately after two successive explosions in the opposite direction from Camera A. If he was blown back by the explosions, it would have carried him towards the camera. The two explosions can be found at 1:18 in Video 1 (very easy to spot), and 0:44 in Video 3. They occur pretty quickly one after the other (look for the big ones). These two explosions can be used to sync up the two videos as well. 1B is disputed by the fact that he appears to fall limply and not due to momentum from impact. This is a possible alternative.
2) Looking generally right (as seen by Camera A)
This is supported by the observation that the impact would have come from the opposite side of his fall. This theory as well suggests that he was blown back by impact, which does not seem to be the case. I may be wrong in my interpretation of the video however. It is only for a brief window, but I was convinced of what I saw.
Still it would mean that the projectile came from an area concentrated mostly of protesters (see postscript), or from a tight angle shot from the far left (south) end of the police line. I find it hard to imagine that an officer would take that shot, considering the possible risk to other officers. This is a somewhat-reliable alternative.
3) Looking generally towards Camera A
Supported by my interpretation of the video, that he falls limply face first towards the camera. It would imply that a projectile struck him coming from the area of the police line.
A closer range impact of a projectile would also fit better with the idea that something hit him hard enough and directly enough to fracture his skull and knock him unconscious.
My unexpert opinion is that he was most likely hit by something with high energy. Higher energy than something thrown by hand. More likely something gunpowder propelled. I am not sure if a fall from standing height would provide enough energy enough to fracture a skull, but that all depends on what part of the skull as well. I would also be more likely to believe that a closer range projectile (shorter time for initial energy to dissipate) would be more likely to cause that sort of damage. I am not really an expert though.
The last thing I want to present is the footage of Olsen's fall in Video 3. It starts at around 44 seconds in the left lower area. Again, it happened right after the two consecutive explosions we talked about before. I was able to use the elements from Video 1 to sync up time and space with Video 3. I cut out the frames of interest below. Unfortunately, it is very hard to interpret, and even harder to try to find what hit him. There is a black smoke cloud that moves over the area at the worst possible time, making it even harder to get something out of these images.
If the slideshow opens a new window when you click, you can close it and come back here.
I did take my best guess as to where the projectile may have come from. There is a small flash that may be muzzle fire just at the right moment. I have circled the person who I suspect.
Please note that the footage I used (for Video 3) was at 3 frames/second, so there is about a 333 millisecond gap between each frame. Also note that the slideshow jumps from slide 5 to 15. The black smoke makes it impossible to see anything in frames 6 - 14. But looking closely at frames 1 - 5, you can see that his body is already moving towards the direction of his fall. My guess is that his fall is already initiated before frame 5.
Remember again that Video 3 is in the same orientation as the map posted all the way at the beginning. The diagonal line you see cutting from the lower left corner to the upper middle edge is the barrier that separates the police line. Ignore the horizontal line near the bottom. It was too much trouble to get rid of it and doesn't interfere. It is not from the footage. It is from the software I used to play the video.
No projectile is seen. In other parts of the same video, tear gas canisters are clearly identifiable. I would assume it would be visible in these frames as well. There is also no flash bang after the impact, suggesting that it was not a flash bang grenade either. My understanding is that neither of these (tear gas canister or flash bang grenade) are fired with a long barrel gun. A more likely scenario is that Olsen was hit with a rubber bullet or with a lead shot bean bag.
There is also the previous scenario that he was blown back and unconscious by one of the 2 consecutive explosions (or an unapparent projectile) . It is highly unlikely that the explosions would have fractured his skull from that distance. However, it may be possible that he fractured his skull when he hit the ground (as discussed in the scenario where Olsen would be facing left as seen by Camera A)
The circled individual in my frame-by-frame above seems to be in the same area as the circled individual in Video 1. Based on the location and other circumstances, it is likely that the two circled individuals are the same person.
This is the best interpretation that the evidence allows, although it is not absolutely conclusive.
CONCLUSION:
Most Likely Scenario:
The best interpretation is that the office circled and implicated in Video 1 (the one that tossed the grenade into the crowd that was helping Scott Olsen) is the same one that shot Olsen. However, it is very unlikely that the circled officer is the tall Officer B___ that has been implicated in some sources on the internet. Nor is it the two officers to his left and right, whose names have also been published as possible suspects.
It is unlikely that the circled officer in Video 1 is present in Video 2, unless he is one of the officers in the back. Throughout Video 2, there are officers visible farther in the back with long barrel guns. My interpretation is that one of these officers (likely from a different department or unit) moved to the front line at some point after projectiles were in the air. For whatever reason, he then fired some sort of projectile at Olsen's head. The projectile is not apparent at all in any of the footage. Suggesting that it was either a rubber bullet or a lead shot bean bag, or possibly some other projectile that A) would not be visible from the video and B) is shot out of a long barrel gun.
Second Most Likely:
Olsen was knocked over by the second of 2 explosions that occurred near him. The impact of his head hitting the ground caused his skull fracture.
POST SCRIPT:
I debated with myself on whether to include this or not. I finally decided that for the sake of the integrity of everything else I talked about, I have to at least mention this as well. I want to appear to have no agenda other than finding the truth. I imagine if anyone looks at the footage extensively and tries to analyze what they see, they will come to similar conclusions as I have, and they will wonder why I didn't mention the following.
From going through all the videos, I am almost certain that there were fireworks being fired into police line from where the protesters were. Even worse, they seem to be deliberately aimed in the direction of the police officers. And even worse than that, it is very likely (although not absolutely certain) that the fireworks preceded the tear gas canisters and the flash bang grenades. You need to think critically about the things you see in the air, and not automatically assume that they are something fired by the police. With a bit of closer inspection, I came to the conclusions I just made.
Of course, I do not discount at all the possibility of agents provocateurs. It is a very real possibility. In fact there are already some videos of OWS in Oakland specifically that identify police officers posing as protesters. Youtube Link
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