At a protest after Wednesday’s Bureau of Land Management meeting about fracking at the Athens Community Center, an onlooker captured video of what appeared to be a U.S. Forest Service officer pushing and shoving protesters with a baton.
During a protest after Wednesday’s Bureau of Land Management meeting about fracking at the Athens Community Center, an onlooker captured video of a U.S. Forest Service officer engaging in what appeared to be a physical altercation with a demonstrator.
In a short video posted to Facebook on Wednesday by Sarah Kaplan, the vice president of communications for Ohio University's Graduate Student Senate, the officer can be seen using his baton to shove a protester on two occasions, saying that it was “time to go” before officers from the Athens Police Department intervened. OU Graduate Student Senate President Carl Edward Smith III identified the individual as Forest Service Officer Babatunde Oyewole.
The meeting, which was open to the public, served as an opportunity for Athens County residents to voice their opinions on the Bureau of Land Management’s move to potentially lease land in Wayne National Forest for potential oil and gas development, according to a previous Post report.
Kaplan said in an email that during the meeting “a few hundred” anti-fracking advocates began chanting slogans to protest the proposed land leases while several pro-fracking advocates countered with chants of their own. Kaplan said the Forest Service then closed the meeting early.
“(Oyewole) began pushing and shoving his baton into a woman’s back causing her to slam into other people and almost fall,” Kaplan said in an email.
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Smith submitted an officer misconduct complaint to Oyewole’s supervisor, Forest Service administrator Gala Goldsmith.
“Everyone nearby took notice when Officer Oyewole shoved (Athens resident) Grace Hall several times in the back with his baton — and this needs stressed — he shoved her very, very hard,” Smith said in the complaint. “This is not hyperbole — after the second and third shove, Grace had been knocked into several other people and nearly fell to the ground.”
Smith said Athens resident Tyler Scott was struck “several times” with the officer’s baton, adding that the officer used “excessive force.”
If Oyewole is not “placed on administrative leave and if an investigation is not launched,” a formal complaint will be filed to the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, according to Smith’s complaint.
“At no point did any of these community members become aggressive, make fists, throw objects at the officers, or indicate that they would not leave,” Smith said in the complaint. “In fact, the crowd was very compliant, and aside from Officer Oyewole, no other officers in the room were reacting this way or becoming aggressive.”
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Alyssa Bernstein, the director of the OU Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics, attended the meeting and said in an op-ed in The Athens Messenger that Oyewole was “behaving aggressively, pushing people and wielding a stick.”
“He looked ready to beat people severely,” Bernstein said in the op-ed. “Other people had to hold him back.”
Anna Lippincott, a senior studying political science and journalism and the president of OU College Republicans, attended the meeting and said anti-fracking protesters were becoming “verbally aggressive” before the meeting was shut down by police.
“I felt horrible for them,” Lippincott said of the Bureau of Land Management officials, adding that though she was not present for the incident, tensions escalated “very quickly.”
Neither Goldsmith nor APD could be reached for comment as of press time.
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