Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
More Than 500 Arrested in Wall Street Protest
NEW YORK - Police reopened the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening after more than 500 anti-Wall Street protesters were arrested for blocking traffic lanes and attempting an unauthorized march across the span.
Protesters react as police begin to make arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge during an Occupy Wall Street march in New York October 1, 2011. REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi (UNITED STATES - Tags: BUSINESS CIVIL UNREST) The arrests took place when a large group of marchers, participating in a second week of protests by the Occupy Wall Street movement, broke off from others on the bridge's pedestrian walkway and headed across the Brooklyn-bound lanes.
"More than 500 were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge late this afternoon after multiple warnings by police were given to protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway," a police spokesman said.
"Some complied and took the walkway without being arrested. Others locked arms and proceeded on the Brooklyn-bound vehicular roadway and were arrested," he added.
The bridge was reopened at 8:05 p.m. EDT after being closed for hours.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene on the famous suspension bridge as a sea of police officers surrounded the protesters using orange mesh netting.
Some protesters tried to get away as officers started handcuffing members of the group. Dozens of protesters were seen handcuffed and sitting on the span as three buses were called in to take them away, witnesses and organizers said.
The march started about 3:30 p.m. EDT from the protesters' camp in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan near the former World Trade Center. Members of the group have vowed to stay at the park through the winter.
CELEBRITY SUPPORT
In addition to what they view as excessive force and unfair treatment of minorities, including Muslims, the movement is also protesting against home foreclosures, high unemployment and the 2008 bailouts.
Filmmaker Michael Moore and actress Susan Sarandon have stopped by the protesters' camp, which is plastered with posters with anti-Wall Street slogans and has a kitchen and library, to offer their support.
On Friday evening, more than 1,000 demonstrators, including representatives of labor organizations, held a peaceful march to police headquarters a few blocks north of City Hall to protest what they said was a heavy-handed police response the previous week. No arrests were reported.
A week ago, police arrested about 80 members of Occupy Wall Street near the Union Square shopping district as the marchers swarmed onto oncoming traffic.
A police commander doused a handful of women with pepper spray in an incident captured on video and spread via the Internet, galvanizing the loosely organized protest movement.
The group has gained support among some union members. The United Federation of Teachers and the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which has 38,000 members, are among those pledging solidarity.
The unions could provide important organizational and financial support for the largely leaderless movement.
Similar protests are sprouting in other cities, including Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.
(Reporting by Ray Sanchez; editing by Philip Barbara)
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
72 Comments so far
Show Allmaybe some coould make signs that read
[Congress shall make no law
abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press;
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble!]
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is much stronger.
Which bit would you use?
I think it would be brilliant if for the next march there were large, multi person banners (like the now famous "We the People" one from this march) quoting BOTH the Constitution and the Declaration of Human Rights!
Connecting the Founding of the U.S. to the Global Social Movement would not only bring many USAns otherwise unsure onto the Occupiers side, but also demonstrate the closing of a circle, since it was our Founding Documents that inspired much of the latter.
Here is a link to converage of the arrests showing Orwell's Minitrue (Ministry of Truth) in action: It only takes 20 minutes to shift the blame http://www.spectrumz.com/z/minitrue.html
Stupidest tactic imaginable.
Got 'em on the NYC news, but the *last* thing you wanna do is alienate your potential audience.
The average commuter is on our side. They are angry at WS and want the criminals in jail. They do *not* wanna be stopped for an hour on the drive home.
This could be huge, but *only* if it's played right.
Think, brethren and sistern, think!
In NYC, the "average commuter" uses the subway, railroad or bus into town. Only the rich or rather privileged (or USAn visitors who don't know what public transportation is) drive a car into Manhattan.
Bingo!
Plus -as I seem to be saying over and over- the NYPD CAUSED THE TRAFFIC STOPPAGE HERE!
The march could have been escorted in an orderly manner across the bridge with only minor delays to traffic.
The idiot who hosts "Meet The Press" referred to the demonstrators as the "Left"! I wonder if he was instructed to use that term or is he just plain stupid. He would be more accurate if referred to the demonstrators as the "people" or the " Americans"!
No, calling us "the left" is just fine. The tea-party Republicans - which represent a lot of the US working class (the Mr. Blocks) are called "the right", aren't they?
I haven't seen anyone at the protests identify themselves as the left or progressive. The only identity that is prominent is anonymous.
Wall Street's Worst Nightmare
Wall Street & Washington DC's worst nightmare isn't Elizabeth Warren who is nowhere to be seen during the Occupy Wall Street protests; rather it's worst nightmare is that social unrest will start resulting in massive demonstrations from the public. It is the fear that the public will realize that problems aren't gettng solved by simply selecting red or blue in the ballot booth. Elizabeth Warren's absence reminds me of Obama's absence in Wisconsin after having pledged in his presidential race to stand up with workers like those in Wisconsin.
Do you really consider this the appropriate forum to do your gratuitous trashing of Warren?
Why not address my comment instead of trying to protect Warren by attacking me for making the comment? Yes, this is exactly the correct forum. This article is about people who went to the street to fight Wall Street. Noticeably absent is Warren, who according to her supporters is Wall Streets worst nightmare, In the same way, Obama was rightly criticized for not going to Wisconsin to defend state workers. I hate to bust your bubble, but Warren to date has not shown she is anything more than a typical Democrat and being a so-called champion of one cause isn't enough to break the mold.
Reading your original comment and your response to mine, I addressed your comment. You are using this forum to change the subject (which is not Elizabeth Warren) and air your
own particular rancor against her, which has nothing to do with what this thread is about. Apparently you think it's appropriate if it comes out of your mouth. Others may not agree.
Typical Democrat - Can't take the criticism so attacks the messenger. Using your illogic, if an article is about the war in Iraq, you can't talk about the politiicians who are doing nothing to stop the war. In your sanitized political world, you must like it that the Obama's and Warren's of the world, don't have to answer to the people and can hide behind their press conferences and political speeches and not have to actually address real issues and in your world Warren never has to take criticism for not supporting the Wall Street protestors because the articles about the Wall Street protestors don't "specifically" mention Warren. I rest my case to the CD readers.
In the photographs and videos I'm seeing, the white-shirts are more and more numberous, out in front of the blue-shirts, and aggressive. Does this indicate that they are losing confidence that the blue-shirts are up to doing the dirty work expected of them? How do we syphon off the blue-shirt support for the intransigence, aggression and brutality of the administrators and their masters?My feeling is (for one thing) to get rid of the "I'll go quietly, officer" syndrome. Resistance without friction makes no sense.
I think the white-shirts are doing that work for us. ;)
Do you really think that the corporate media is going to cover the grievances of non-violent protestors? Revolution is never achieved peacefully. So long as protestors announce their intention to be peaceful and non-violent the police will feel free to abuse and torture them with pepper spray and tazers, without any consequence or accountability for their actions. How “peaceful” demonstrators could stand by and watch ‘helplessly’ while their fellow demonstrators are assaulted and tortured by the police just sickens me. I have nothing but contempt for these cowards that never learned to fight back. At least the people in the Middle East showed that you can’t fight oppression with non-violent protests.
I agree with much of what you say. In particular, those that condemn protesters for merely moving their march off the sidewalks and into the street are disgusting. Are they suggesting that the revolution will require a police parade permit???
And as far the sympathies of poeple driving cars on the blocked bridge; well, first I personally have no sympathy with someone so car-addicted that they would drive it in Manhattan rather than take the far cheaper and far less hassle-free public transportation. Secondly, the memory of these finger wagging old hippies must be failing them, because the single most effective protest action against the Vietnam War on Mayday, 1971, when numerous roads and bridges were blocked on Monday, May 3. There was no DC metro system in 1971 either. They even released numerous helium party balloons with long tethers attached to foil police helicopters - something that make someone a target of a drone strike nowadays.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_May_Day_Protests
Why isn't fox news covering this? If they are please correct me as I refuse to watch the far right propaganda.
Isn't it ironic that the Brooklyn Bridge entrapment parallels the enlightened revolt of the chimpanzees in the most recent Planet of the Earth? In that movie they are trapped by an army of police on the Golden Gate Bridge as well as they make their escape for freedom from injustice and abuse by the system.
I think these nascent occupying demonstrations go way beyond "howling in the wind" and do represent an amalgamation of many ethnic, religious, cultural, economic, environmental and political movements. Take a look at Michael Moore’s recent interviews on 'Democracy Now' for more insight and discussion.
We are the 99% and have the advantage of instant audio, graphic and video communication. Now remember what the mostly uneducated, isolated and much-maligned American farmers accomplished in the late 1700's, in what is called Shays Rebellion, even without our instant communication. They revolted against economic unfairness in what has been called the second Revolutionary War. It's worth researching the remarkable parallel of the post-revolutionary Shay's Rebellion to today’s class warfare struggles. Many of these simple farmers were Revolutionary War soldiers who were told that they were fighting for economic and social justice and then after the War discovered that they couldn’t pay their farm mortgages because they were never paid for their war efforts and some maintained that they were lied to about their farm mortgage payback terms. Though the farmer’s rebellion against the plutocracy of the Boston, Ma-based elitist bankers, merchants and lawyers, was defeated by a monied militia, it wasn’t long before the US Constitution was developed. Be inspired by what these farmers achieved when you tell the plutocracy that you are ”mad as hell and won’t take it anymore”.