Oakland agrees to pay Occupy protesters in brutality cases

The Oakland City Council has agreed to pay more than $693,000 to settle two lawsuits filed by Occupy Oakland protesters who alleged they were the victims of police brutality.

The payouts, for the videotaped beatings of two apparently peaceful protesters, come less than six months after the city approved $2 million in settlements to resolve lawsuits accusing police of mistreating protesters at Occupy and BART demonstrations.

The city authorized paying Army veteran Kayvan Sabeghi $645,000 on Tuesday to resolve a lawsuit he filed against the city in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleging that he was clubbed by Oakland police during an Occupy protest on Nov. 2, 2011.

Sabeghi, a businessman who was an Army Ranger in Iran and Afghanistan, said he had taken part in a nonviolent protest and was trying to walk home when he was stopped by police. One officer, Frank Uu, was videotaped repeatedly hitting him with a nightstick. Sabeghi was arrested on suspicion of remaining at the scene of a riot but was never charged, his lawyers said.

Uu has since left the force. In court documents, attorneys acknowledged that city officials "do not dispute that Officer Uu used excessive force on plaintiff in violation of the Fourth Amendment."

Sabeghi underwent surgery for a lacerated spleen. He has a pending lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court in which he accuses sheriff's deputies of denying him medical care while in jail. The sheriff's office has denied the allegations.

In a second case, the council agreed to pay $48,500 to settle a lawsuit filed by Robert Ovetz, a college instructor and activist from Marin County, who said he was thrown to the ground and struck twice by a police baton during an Occupy protest in Oakland on Jan. 28, 2012.

Video footage of that incident does not show what happened before Ovetz was pulled from a crowd of demonstrators outside the YMCA on Broadway. But it does show that Ovetz was not resisting when an officer - identified in the lawsuit as Ercivan Martin - hit him in the abdomen and back with a baton.

Ovetz, a Woodacre resident who has taught sociology and other courses at Cañada College in Redwood City and College of Marin in Kentfield, was treated at the Highland Hospital emergency room in Oakland for what he said was a large bruise on his abdomen and two damaged teeth.

He was jailed for three days on suspicion of felony assault on a police officer, but Alameda County prosecutors filed only a misdemeanor obstruction charge, then dismissed the case because, they said, it was in the interest of justice.

Ovetz was among hundreds of people who were corralled by police after Occupy activists tried unsuccessfully to take over the vacant Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center earlier in the day.

In July, the city approved a $1.17 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by a dozen Occupy Oakland protesters who said they were victims of excessive force during clashes with officers in 2011. That payout came a little less than a month after a judge approved a $1 million settlement to 150 people who accused police of mishandling their arrests during a 2009 protest over the BART police shooting of Oscar Grant.