The Occupy Wall Street movement has recently come under attack nationwide, with police actions ranging from camp evictions to seemingly punitive pepper spraying of peaceful protesters. Police officers are losing their jobs over their brutal actions against OWS, with the now-infamous "Pepper-spray cop" incident resulting in the suspension of UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza.
Occupy Seattle has seen its fair share of action, with the now-viral image of Dorli Rainey, 84, becoming an iconic symbol of the oppression this movement has begun to face. There were other victims, however, at the pepper-spraying that took place on the evening of the 15th of November.
One of them is Jennifer Fox, 19, an Occupier who has been with the demonstration since it began operations at Westlake Park in downtown Seattle. Previously homeless, she now sleeps every night at the Occupation, grateful for a safe place to lay her head. She is not just here because Occupy Seattle provides her shelter, however. She has participated in every march since the beginning of the movement and identifies with its goals.
"We deserve to have a change and I felt like Occupy Seattle needed more people to participate."
What's remarkable about the attack on Fox that evening is that she is three months pregnant. She was the victim of several brutal attacks that evening on the part of police, to include being pepper sprayed twice and hit in the stomach with a cop's bike during the fray that occurred when police indiscriminately (and without provocation) sprayed protesters. She was rushed to the hospital as soon as the Occupation was able to summon an ambulance, but she says that police prevented her from leaving the scene even though she told them she was pregnant.
"I shouted 'I'm pregnant, I don't want to get hurt, please let me through!' They didn't cooperate."She has since visited the hospital once more and received heartbreaking news. On the 20th, Fox received news that she has miscarried, and alleges the miscarriage is due to the injuries she received during the police action on the 15th.
"It hurts. It's upsetting. I was ready to have a kid, because my family was going to support me in taking care of the child. Her name was going to be Miracle."Fox is receiving consultation with the Occupy Seattle legal team presently and will be deciding whether or not to seek legal action against the Seattle Police Department for the loss of her child. One thing, however, is certain: a tragedy of immeasurable depth has struck the Occupy Wall Street movement. If her allegation is confirmed, the inappropriate use of force against peaceful activists exercising their right to free speech has finally cost a protester something irreplaceable: an unborn baby.
So Wrong, Sad and illegal..we have the right to protest and assemble....WTF My name is Christi and I am PISSED 2!!!!!
ReplyDeleteFor Jennifer I hope U find Peace , Don't let the anger eat U up.....xoxoxoxoxo christi
ReplyDeleteThis makes me laugh, if you don't want to get hurt , why are you there?, Useing your unborn child as an excuse, pity party's the world is full of them, it's sad when a child dies but this child didn't even have a chance as an adult put it in danger, scarey what some people will put in the way.
ReplyDeleteVinyl you got a warped sense of humor you sick *rick
ReplyDelete@Vinyl are you kidding me? People SHOULDN'T have to be fear being hurt by those sworn to protect the peace. That is the point. I understand if the police needed to move in to settle down a violent mob, but that is not what has been happening. Shoving, hitting and pepper spraying peaceful protesters is not only a huge abuse of power, but wrong on so many levels. The fact that more legal action is not being taken against the cops in these incidences is just baffling. Maybe she lost her child as a result of this particular incident, maybe she didn't. But that does not make what happened any less wrong. And to say that a woman losing her unborn child is something that makes you laugh is a clear statement about the kind of person you are.
ReplyDelete@VinylTalking, Occupy Protest created a safe place for those people, many have infrastructure within their tent city with kitchen, first aid, media, library, security... so why not to be there? Ah of course it was violation of city bylaw to have tents in a public space so you can be beaten if some policeman will think you violated some bylaw right!?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I agree that if this is true, it is a horrible thing to lose an unborn baby.
ReplyDeleteHowever, on her part, I think it was real immature to become pregnant since she is homeless. Her parents will help take care of the baby? Why aren't they taking care of their daughter and giving HER a place to live/sleep?
Ashley, peoples lives are chaotic, especially if they are homeless. How do you know how she became pregnant? Or what the circumstances of her family are? How she got there is not important. Stop blaming her for being vulnerable and instead look at how she was treated by the police?
ReplyDeleteThis is upsetting. It doesn't matter who she is, or what her means are. A police officer pepper sprayed and harmed her body upon someone else's orders.
ReplyDeleteCampuses and cities need to make a better plan that allows Occupiers to exercise their RIGHT to demonstrate. If the Westborough Baptist assholes can picket a dead soldier's funeral without breaking any laws, why can't these people? I haven't heard of any of those losers getting manhandled.
@Ashley Tibbetts- I feel you're being very judgmental of someone whose situation you know *nothing* about. Who are you to tell someone that their housing status and income should dictate whether or not to have sex? And who are you to dictate who should and shouldn't be a mother? Should she have gotten an abortion? With what money? With what health insurance? Even if she had health insurance, it very likely wouldn't have covered the procedure.
ReplyDeleteLet's get something straight; it's not our place to judge this woman's life. But it is our responsibility to call out the fact that she was assaulted by an officer of the law without provocation, and that the assault may have led to the death of her child.
Where is the outrage of all the conservative "pro-lifers" now? Every unborn child has the right to life, right? Oh, unless the police kick her mother in the stomach. She probably had it coming then. It's her fault, not his.
I am disgusted by how little empathy most people seem to be capable of.
What's ridiculous is people calling this policeman a murderer without proof. Yes, she was hit in the stomach, if she was going to miscarry from this it would have been a lot sooner than 5 days. There is nothing to prove that caused the miscarriage. Yes, what he did was wrong, but until it's been proven it's just as disgusting to call someone a murderer. And are you people really saying that it's the right decision to bring a child into the world when you can't support yourself, can't feed yourself? If she couldn't afford the abortion how do you expect her to have paid medical care for an infant? and no, I am NOT saying she deserved this. I'm saying people need to calm down and actually think about the situation before snapping at people.
ReplyDeletemhw, she already was getting medical treatment for her child-she was going to a prenatal clinic. I expect she would have gotten medical the way millions of poor mothers do-through Medicare. Unfortunately many women don't qualify or apply for Medicaid until AFTER pregnancy so more effective (than condoms) birth control is often too expensive.
ReplyDeleteWhether it turns out the officers actions caused the miscarriage or not, he shouldn't have kicked anyone who posed no imminent threat to him in the stomach. His job is to protect people - not injure them.
mhw, do you think people are marching in the street because they have a choice? they are desperate. they have nowhere else to turn. many of us commenting on this unintended outcome of violence certainly understand the idea of innocence until proven guilty, but we can still be ok expressing outrage at the police actions that may have contributed to the fetus' death. maybe you should consider the causes of this situation for so many Americans today before you lay off so much blame on the victims of a massive economic ripoff for which virtually no has been held responsible. that is what is really ridiculous.
ReplyDelete@mhw, it is not uncommon for a miscarriage to occur several days after a trauma, especially early in the pregnancy. I agree, I have seen no direct proof yet that the actions of the police that day caused the death of her baby, but I'm going to say that there is a fairly high probability being that any sort of trauma to the body (such as being hit/kicked in the stomach and pepper spayed) often causes too much stress for the unborn child. Once again, I am appalled by all of the people judging the victim here, with some sort of self righteous attitude that she shouldn't have even been pregnant in the first place or even alluding to the fact that she somehow deserved this because she was there. People who are simply exercising their constitutional right to assemble and are not harming anyone or being violent do not deserve this kind of treatment from those who are sworn to protect the public. These people ARE the public, and the cops involved in these sorts of situations should at the least feel shameful for their actions, and at the most should be prosecuted.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the post on Jennifer Fox. Have been working on an article pointing to the challenges of being homeless rather than the question of if she was pregnant, if the police caused the loss of the child, and all the other speculation that is going on. I would very much enjoy your input:
ReplyDeletehttp://occupychristmas.org/2011/11/baby-miracle-and-the-first-two-occupy-related-deaths/
Why 'kick' in the stomach? What about not hitting women or anyone for that matter? That pepper sprayer did that with such nonchalance. How do you do that to someone grovelling on the ground? How? This was an expectant mother actively trying to improve the world her baby was coming in to. Regardless of social stature or economic means, she was going to be a mother. Now she is not.
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