Video Analysis:Scott Olsen Probably Knocked Down Accidentally by Fellow Protester

Hello,

I'm new here, but I've been reading the thread on Scott Olsen's alleged shooting. I've also examined, at length, two videos that Occupy supporters cite as proof that the police shot him.

I believe that the video evidence supports that instead of being struck by a projectile, Scott was instead knocked down hard, accidentally, by a protester who's seen running away from some sort of firework or other explosion.

If that is the case, the police may have been justified in throwing the flash-bang at Scott's well-intentioned rescuers: the police would have seen Scott lying motionless on the pavement after a hard fall precipitated by a collision. Such a person must be assumed to have a neck injury; moving him without first stabilizing his neck could have been life-threatening. With only seconds to act, the police may have been justified in risking minor injury to the rescuers by throwing the flash-bang, in order to stop them from inadvertently harming Scott severely.

Thank you for your time and attention. Here is my analysis of two videos that Occupy supporters cite as evidence proving that Scott was shot by the police.

A video taken from ground-level is available as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kA1yP5eFuE. At about 1:17, it shows something ignite in the air, at about shoulder-height, among the protesters in the background. That object falls to the ground and explodes. At almost the same time, we see Scott falling to the ground as two people (a dark-clad man, and a woman in light-colored clothing) run by him. The video does not show what caused his fall.

An aerial-view video of the same events is available as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILEmWIMKoEw&feature=player_embedded#!). At 0:43, a flash initiates among the protesters near the bottom center-left of the screen. A protester in light-colored clothing immediately joins a dark-clad protester in running away from the flash. Neither of these protesters can be Scott, because the Ground-Level video showed that all this time, he was standing near the other end of the police line, at the point where he later fell.

In the aerial video, just before the flash at 0:43, the dark-clad protester is seen running toward the point at which that flash initiates. The flash appears to be the same one that initiates at 1:17 in the ground-Level video. In the aerial view, we can see that the object that ignited at 0:43 (1:17 in the ground-level video) explodes well away from Scott.

As the two protesters run away from the flash and exlosion, the protester in light-colored clothing runs right through the point where Scott Olsen ends up lying on the ground, and continues on past. It’s difficult to discern Scott himself before he falls, perhaps because of the camouflage jacket he’s wearing. I had to go through this video many times, at different speeds. As the runner goes through Scott's position, you can see the runner delay slightly before contuing on.

If you now go very carefully through the ground-level video, you’ll see a man in black and a woman in light-colored clothing running past Scott just as he’s falling (about 1:18 to 1:19). The woman continues past him along the edge of a light-colored line, just as the light-clad figure did in the aerial view.

This evidence strongly supports that the woman in light-colored clothing came into contact with Scott while running away from the explosion, after which he immediately fell to the ground. The videos do not support that her head hit Scott in the face, but that does seem to be a credible explanation for his immediate fall.