Second Fatal Shooting Near an Occupy Protest Won't Be Good for PR
Here's a video in which a man describes a shooting that took place "30 feet" from the Occupy Oakland site. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, protesters said they "did not recognize" the victim, who was shot in the head and died shortly thereafter. Nevertheless, Oakland mayor Jean Quan has asked protesters to shut down their camp.
The shooting follows the suicide of a 35-year-old veteran who was participating in the Occupy Vermont protest. Several media outlets that are unfriendly to the Occupy movement have used ambiguous language in reporting the Vermont shooting—for example, Fox News titled its report, "Man Fatally Shot at 'Occupy Burlington' Protest," which—if you're just looking at the headline—makes it unclear as to whether the shooting was a suicide or a homicide. Now, with two shootings, media outlets can spin out a "people are getting shot at protests! MAYHEM DANGER DEATH" angle and stir up the public fear and outrage.
Oh hey, that's already happening: The New York Daily News has just given one of its protest reports the headline, "Shootings rock Occupy Wall Street encampments in Oakland, Vermont." This frames the two incidents, which occurred on opposite sides of the country, for totally different reasons, as related or—oh no!—signs of an outbreak/growing epidemic/trend. The Occupy movement's media relations team will probably putting in some long hours this weekend to try and clarify the confusion.
