Elevation 66 Co-owner Seriously Injured By Police, News Report Says

Kayvan Sabeghi, one of the three main parnters who started the popular brewpub in El Cerrito, suffered a lacerated spleen and other injuries in a beating by police on duty for the Occupy Oakland protests Wednesday night, according to the UK Guardian newspaper and one of Sabeghi's partners.

The Guardian said that Sabeghi, a 32-year-old veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was placed in intensive care. The paper quoted him saying he did not reach the hospital until 18 hours after being arrested despite being in agonizing pain while in jail.

Brian Kelly, another partner at Elevation 66, told Patch this afternoon (Friday) that he had talked to Sabeghi Thursday.

"He was walking down 14th (14th Street in Oakland) away from the protest," Kelly said. "He walking to his house. He got beaten by police. He's got a lacerated spleen, maybe a couple of broken ribs too."

Sabeghi's beating follows the high-profile critical injury of another protestor at an Occupy Oakland clash on Oct. 25. A U.S. Marine veteran of Iraq, Scott Olsen, 24, suffered a skull fracture from a projectile "thrown or shot by law enforcement officers," according to the New York Times. Olsen's wounding "provided a powerful central rallying point" in the ongoing protests, the Times said.

Sabeghi told police he wanted to pass so that he could reach his home but that police refused, Kelly said. Sabeghi asked why he couldn't be allowed to return home and was attacked by police with batons, Kelly said. Kelly said he got his information from Sabeghi and another source that he didn't identify.

Sabeghi was arrested at 1:30 a.m. Thursday morning and booked on resisting or obstructing police, according to arrest data from the Alameda County Sheriff's department. Oakland police this afternoon told Patch they are looking into the matter.

The San Francisco Chronicle tonight reported that Sabeghi told a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War that he was beaten by Oakland police or Alameda County Sheriff's deputies. The paper quoted Oakland police and sheriff's officials saying they are investigating the allegations.

An attempt to reach Sabeghi at the Alameda County Medical Center (Highland Hospital) was referred to a hospital spokesman who said he was still gathering information and could not yet speak about Sabeghi's condition.

The Guardian said he was due to undergo surgery this afternoon.

"He sounded pretty beaten up," Kelly said. "He was gasping for air."

Several thousand protestors converged at the Port of Oakland and downtown in Oakland during the day Wednesday for a "general strike" related to the Occupy Oakland movement and encampment at City Hall. The protests continued into the late evening as masked protestors smashed windows and set fires and police fired tear gas and flash-bang grenades and made dozens of arrests, according to a San Francisco Chronicle story headlined, "Occupy strike descends into chaos."

Kelly said Sabeghi was at the protests but not participating in the violence. "He was there," Kelly said, "but he wasn't one of the ones throwing rocks through windows."

Sabeghi told the Guardian he was put in a police van for three hours before being taken to jail, where he arrived in "unbelievable pain." It got so bad that he couldn't stand but had to move around on his hands and knees, according to the account he gave the paper.

"I was vomiting and had diarrhoea," Sabeghi was quoted as saying. "I just lay there in pain for hours."

The paper said Sabehgi's bail was posted in the mid-afternoon Thursday but that he said couldn't leave his cell because of the pain. He stayed on the floor of the closed cell until 6 p.m., when an ambulance was called to pick him up, the paper said.

Sabeghi, Kelly and David Goodstal formerly worked together at in Berkeley before joining together to launch Elevation 66, which opened Sept. 1 this year.