At Occupy Seattle last week, a pregnant woman was among those pepper-sprayed by cops (another victim was 84 years old). Now she says she's had a miscarriage.
According to OneAngryQueer, 19-year-old Jennifer Fox, who is homeless, has been part of Occupy Seattle from its inception. She's clear that she's not just in it for the tent space, saying, "We deserve to have a change and I felt like Occupy Seattle needed more people to participate." But when she participated in a march on November 15, she was three months pregnant. She says she was pepper-sprayed twice, kicked, and hit in the belly with a police officer's bicycle. Occupy organizers called her an ambulance, but she alleges that police wouldn't let her get in. She says, "I shouted 'I'm pregnant, I don't want to get hurt, please let me through!' They didn't cooperate."
Fox says she found out on Sunday that she had miscarried. She believes her injuries at the protest on the 15th caused the miscarriage. She tells OneAngryQueer,
It hurts. It's upsetting. I was ready to have a kid, because my family was going to support me in taking care of the child. Her name was going to be Miracle.
Fox also told The Stranger that when doctors diagnosed her miscarriage, they said "said the damage was from the kick and that the pepper spray got to it [the fetus], too." The Seattle police have not yet commented on the incident — after the protest last week, a police spokesman said, "Pepper spray was deployed only against subjects who were either refusing a lawful order to disperse or engaging in assaultive behavior toward officers." Some protesters have alleged that they were sprayed while peacefully protesting on a sidewalk — it's not clear what Fox was doing when she was sprayed.
Pregnant Occupier Alleges Police Brutality Resulted In Miscarriage [OneAngryQueer]
Pregnant Woman Blasted With Pepper Spray By SPD Says She Miscarried (Updated) [The Stranger]