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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)
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72 Comments so far
Show AllAND Tampa, Florida.
yes civil disobedience is the only venue to address the 2008 bailouts, foreclosures debacle and the continued high unemployment, remnants of the struggle in India and unfortunately similar actions...but I applaud you all since I am one of the 99% underemployed single parents
gbtrancer,
I agree. Also remember the 2008 "legislation" was unconstitutional because the House did not pass the measure and the Senate resorted to trickery in order to tack the measure onto an unrelated measure previously sent to the senate. The House corrupt leadership then steamrolled the measure into law through a "conference committee". It was all illegal and dictatorial.
In short, though the media term "bailout" has stuck, it was really the most massive GRAND LARCENY in the history of the USA.
Anyone that believes we have a democratic representative republic is in denial of the reality of our corporate dictatorship. The oligarchy must go.
The 2008 "legislation" was just the beginning of the bailouts. Since 2008, serial guarantees, free money schemes and other bailouts have transferred trillions of US taxpayers' dollars into the hands of the banksters. Obama and the GOP contrived the recent deficit ceiling charade, and super catfood commission to extract money from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to fund the previous bailouts and future bailouts that will result from the unregulated financial sector creating serial bubbles and busts.
WOW!
Even Reuters can't quite turn the marchers into the bad guys here.
They have to try the desperate tactic of framing the roadway group as a "split-off" from the "main group".
That picture shows a HELLUVA LARGE "split-off" group, don't it? ;)
If you read the comments from Kay Johnson (Oct 1 2011 - 9:23pm)
http://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/10/01
You find that the NYPD DIRECTED the marchers to the lane on the bridge AS A TACTIC to enable a charge of what-ever-the-hell-they-want, so as to provide the excuse to kettle and begin arrests.
Does anyone still think that the NYPD are anything but a gang of Fascist thugs?
If yes, please pull your head out of your ass!
This is SOP for the NYPD. They did the same thing during the 2004 RNC. I hope the lawsuit over the RNC arrests is decided soon. Now would be the perfect time.
I did see that Galen.
The Klumsy Kettling should be the name for this incident. ;)
i don't know about large or small split off groups, but here's over 6 minutes of video that shows a very a large number of people; other MSM outlets (like fox) report over 700 arrested.
- - - - -
Occupy Wall Street Protesters Take Brooklyn Bridge - 400+ Arrested
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1tCYAEDl6g
- - - - -
kudos to the organizers and the folks who clearly expressed their first amendment right to protest conditions as they exist in the status quo. these are fundamental rights - the right to express political dissent. it's the fucking foundation of our country on so many fundamental levels (boston tea party).
again, kudos to the organizers and participants, may the message and enthusiasm spread...for the message is on point.
...peace...
Stand Tall You Real Americans!!
Why did the march split? Agent provocateurs?
It split because the police used the orange netting to force a group into the street so they could arrest them. It was deliberate, a friend of mine was there. This ham fisted
BS from the NYPD will cause the protest to grow, I hope the police keep this crap
up, we need the support.
i hate this crap. The people that "split" were actually doing the right thing. The wholebunch should have tied up that bridge. I'm glad to know that there are still people who believe that resistance is just that.
Well, if you are going to engage in confrontational tactics, a bridge is not the place -- too easy for the cops to corral everybody, impossible to run away. Which is probably why the NYPD split the marchers on the bridge.
I'm not making a tactical point above--I agree with you here. What I resented was this idea that anyone who colors outside the line is an "agent". I can't think of a stronger recipe for failure than accepting power's rules of engagement. Pointing the finger at an imaginary bogeyman is a way of diminishing radicalism in movements.
So we are in agreement. :) Of course, the biggest strategic problem is the lack of numbers. I hope this changes with the unions getting in the act this week, and I hope TWU lives up to its militant reputation. I have the feeling that it's on now.
They should *not* have tied up the bridge.
The people driving over that bridge (and all the commuters watching at home) are the folks who need to be enlightened, not angered.
Tie up Wall Street itself on Monday at noon. Protest outside the oligarchs' mansions.
Please don't piss off innocent commuter allies!!!
See above post to clear this up. For the record, I would have opted to literally occupy the buildings on Wall Street myself. And if that's your point, then we're in agreement. Again, my response was mostly to the quisling spirit of the OP. I can't stand this whole "they're agents!" crap. Cops don't need an excuse as you saw the other day with Capt Pepper Spray. So don't plan your agenda around their psychopathy.
I disagree.
It was the police who caused the tie-up by forming a line halting the march and then arresting the marchers.
This is without the additional police responsibility for channelling the marchers onto the roadway.
In other, similar cases of non-permitted marches. The police forces have instead formed mobile barriers before and after the marchers to ensure safety, then allow the march to cross the bridge (or what-have-you) escorted.
Such actions by the NYPD here would have meant a very short delay for drivers, less publicity for the marchers, and forced a situation where the marchers would have had to get out of line to cause arrest or delay of traffic.
The serious traffic stoppage here is entirely the NYPD's doing.
So the police are resorting to orange nets? It kind of reminds me of that large bunch of fish caught in the net in the "Finding Nemo" animated movie of the clownfish.
You remember what happened to the net in the movie, don't you?
;>)
I have a suggestion I hope gets traction. (and I'm soon to join occupysf in person to make my suggestion) The suggestion is to keep the issues as brief as possible. In fact, a single issue which would be worth staying until addressed is: WE WILL NOT LEAVE UNTIL THE ESTABLISHMENT AGREES THAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE NOT LIBEL FOR THE 16-100 TRILLION THE BANKS LOST IN THE PHONEY DERIVATIVES MARKET.
Mike Templewind,
Good idea. If I may suggest a slight addendum to your suggestion on behalf of the American people, I would phrase it this way:
WE WILL NOT LEAVE UNTIL THE ESTABLISHMENT AGREES THAT THE BANKS, NOT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, ARE LIBEL FOR THE 16-100 TRILLION THE BANKS LOST IN THE PHONEY DERIVATIVES MARKET
It is spelled liable, not libel. But yes, that is a great unifying theme.
I relize this is a pipe dream, but the true demand is and should be the complete surrender of the oligarchy and the return of the government to the people. Anything short is a policy disagreement, and those are not movements or rebellions. I'm sure the Egyptians would be happy to confirm that observation right now.
drone,
Well, yeah, but IF they agreed to the banks being liable for the massive grand larceny, we would then say, "Hold on a minute. Your "agreement" needs a few "confidence building" measures before we believe you are sincere."
Here's the list:
1. Debt forgiveness for all mortgages in arrears or foreclosed on because of job loss (wall street predatory speculators need not apply).
2. No more fucking wars. Make preemptive warfare illegal, treasonous and punishable with life imprisonment and loss of all monetary assets. We can't afford the bloated pentagon expense, piggery, butchery, inhumanity and culture destruction brought about by PTSD troops and the military psycho factory. Bring 'em home, demobilize and pay them full wages while they do a job search.
3. Impose a speculation tax, place a max of 5% on all credit of any sort (houses, credit cards, cars, etc.), and take the cap off of social security max income withholding while you declare ALL income as equally taxable (no more captial gains 15% giveaways to the rich).
AFTER that happens, THEN the people can proceed to defang the corporate control of DC with a return to about 30,000 to 40,000 population size per congressional district. And while we are at it, take ratio of the Senate to the first House of Representatives count in 1789 (about 1 senator for every 3 representatives) and make us into a democratic representative republic again.
I like the idea of about 11,000 reps and 350 senators. That would break the elitist money hold on our Congress because it would just be too many people to buy, blackmail or threaten. How about you?
For those that fear the "tyranny of the masses", I say, if you can't trust a pluraity of a population to vote for their best interests, you can't trust anyone.
Hear, hear on the antiwar component. I would add war crimes trials and forgiveness of student debt as well.
jclientelle,
Right. I should have checked the spelling when I did the copy and paste before adding my modification.
A spell check would not have caught it. There is an English word "libel" (a false accusation in writing) but it means a completely different thing than "liable" (to be responsible for).
But, actually, my understanding is that the fed govt has recovered most of its TARP funds and may even make some money on the assets not bought back. This is a very different than the S&L bailouts of the 1980's - which did cost the taxpayers hundreds of billions.
That is a good and just demand.
But I believe that the refusal by the Occupiers to issue a single demand or list of demands is one of their best decisions.
Check out their List of Grievances in their Declaration and you will see most of the demands you all are bringing up mentioned in different form.
Also, check out Willie Osterweil's article from yesterday for a convincing argument that the "single demand" concept is actually what undermined the 2-15-03 mass protest:
The Park and the Protests
There is some life (and hope) left in this nation after all.
i feel the same way
In Egypt, once the people's fear of the police state was overcome, the revolution could proceed, though it certainly has not yet ended, and there are still very entrenched obstacles to structural change. Here, perhaps the first thing to overcome is our, the people's self-perception of our impotence and alienation from each other. We're now beginning to see we can act together in numbers for a meaningful, radical purpose.
goodness yes-hope, you all in jail from todays's march are more free than top 1% elites and the fascist oligarch government...you provide us all hope...this may be a nation worth saving after all....thank you!
I've now seen CBS, AP, the New York Times, Forbes and several other corporate media outlets provide at least half-assed mass media coverage of these protests, but still NOTHING from the "Public" Broadcasting System or National "Public" Radio.
To show how hypocritical they are about this: PBS Newshour covered the original Tahrir Square encampment/protest in Cairo, Egypt for MONTHS--day by day coverage almost from its inception. They still haven't sent a single reporter to Wall Street to cover the Occupy Wall Street general assembly or anything else pertaining to this movement.
NPR is no better. Their news director basically said yesterday that the Occupy Wall Street protesters weren't newsworthy. I'm old enough to remember when NPR was an excellent source of news on a wide variety of issues, national and global. In the late 1980s they'd have sent a reporter to do street interviews of the OWS protesters by now.
I hope both PBS and NPR are extremely shamed and lose substantial citizen donations for refusing to cover these already historically significant events. If you have donated to them in the past, then please consider donating instead to independent media, Pacifica Radio, Free Speech Radio News, FAIR, Counterpoint, Democracy Now or any progressive local low power FM radio stations in your area. These outfits are either mostly or all listener and viewer sponsored and have no corporate bottom lines to tow. They all need the money and will produce more real and timely journalism than PBS or NPR are allowed to produce anymore.
Before I hit the sack for the night:
I can tell from Bloomberg's statements that he's scared shitless and knows OWS could grow huge at this point whether he cracks down on it or not. He knows he can't afford to make a wrong call because Obama is up for re-election and will come down on him like a ton of bricks if he screws up because the federal government has been raining DHS money down on NYC for a decade now since 9/11 and Obama could easily halve that superfluous flow.
Bloomberg's top-down class warfare lie that "protesters are protesting against people who make $40,000 to $50,000 a year" is equivalent to the American Petroleum Institute ad for ABC News I saw last week that proclaimed, "development of Canada's oil sands is unquestioned good news!" Bloomberg and the API are both spouting unquestioned lies because no one in corporate mass media is allowed or will dare to question their own owners or key sponsors.
Re: Bloomberg's Big Lie: The current incarnation of Wall Street only benefits those affluent enough to gain significantly from (1) "free trade" dividends generated by foreign labor working in U.S. owned or leased manufacturing plants offshore (at the direct expense of our dying middle-class and growing lower-class), or by (2) "financialized," Fed-abetted, over-speculation in global food commodities, bio-fuels, oil, strategic or rare earth minerals, sub-prime auto loans, sub-prime student loans, more bundled sub-prime mortgages and other dubious derivatives. This financialized, "free trade" dependent McEconomy has withered the underlying real economies of America and the EU that used to produce more tradable goods of real value for domestic sale and export. They used to hang rampant over-speculators in the 17th century.
Bloomberg is well aware of all this and has personally profited over the last thirty years from the post-Carter poisoning of our real economy by the neo-liberal "financialized" economy of Wall Street: Basically a political crony infested, cannibal casino run by a US/EU cartel of mafia banksters who want everyone else to cover their bad gambling debts except the very rich and super rich who benefit from the present rigged casino.
The Police work for the banks.
>>NEW YORK CITY POLICE FOUNDATION — NEW YORK
JPMorgan Chase recently donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation. The gift was the largest in the history of the foundation and will enable the New York City Police Department to strengthen security in the Big Apple. The money will pay for 1,000 new patrol car laptops, as well as security monitoring software in the NYPD's main data center.
New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly sent CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon a note expressing "profound gratitude" for the company's donation.
"These officers put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe," Dimon said. "We're incredibly proud to help them build this program and let them know how much we value their hard work."
We don't have to be told that the financiers and the police administration fit together like Bill and Monica (well, of course we do, but for the sake of literary licence...),
but what about the blue-shirt cops? Do they identify with the Dimons, the Bloombergs, the Kellys and the Bolognas? Do they see the Occupiers as the enemy they are there to suppress? Or if (as the protesters anecdotally tell us) their sympathies are with the "enemy", why are they there doing the white-shirts' bidding? Do they talk to each other? Are they allowed to talk to each other? Do they think, and share their thoughts? Are they allowed to think? A telephone call in the morning (well, a large number of telephone calls) pleading (blue) flu symptoms could radically change the mechanics of what we're seeing.What the cops are doing has little or no justificarion in the law. The orders from the white-shirts to the blue-shirts (and from the PTB to the white-shirts) are, for the most part, unlawful. What is keeping the blue-shirt cops from treating the unlawful orders as unlawful orders?If they don't get out of the marchers' way, the marchers have no alternative but to walk over them.
Maybe, someone has already reported this, but yesterday, when I was at Zuccotti Park, I was told that Warren Buffet has just donated more than $3 million to NYPD.
Geez, I guess they're not even bothering to hide the fact that cops are now private security forces. hopefully they're treated accordingly from here on out.
By the way, this number of arrests is unsustainable on an ongoing basis by any city police department. Number one, each person typically arrested would logistically have to be released relatively soon after they were detained, and it could really bog-down an already burdened jail and court system. If rallies like this could be done once every other week it would eventually be VERY disruptive to the city in question. And that's always a basic goal of resistance movements: meaningful disruption in the status quo of operations.
This is interesting:
Occupy Wallstreet Update! The Marines are Coming to PROTECT the ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp-eapYpL8c&feature=player_embedded
We will see. It would be great if veterans showed up.
At 2:20 AM, Occupy Wall Street updated their website to say that more than 700 protesters were arrested on Saturday, October 1, 2011.
Campaign Finance Reform is the answer.
Now some seem to think that arrest is always a good thing. I believe that it is better if the demonstrators make the decision. In this case, it was as a result of a police trap. The marchers at the end of the line were lured away from the main march, and entrapped by these circumstances:
1. Not having heard or understood the plan of the march. And the march was so large that people at the front had no idea what was happening at the back.
2. Listening to people who appear radical, but may be working for the police - Those who shouted "Take the Bridge!' for example. Who knows if it was an excess of enthusiasm or not.
3. A cynical police plan to lead them into a trap. One speaker at the park on the Brooklyn side said she overheard an officer say "They fell for it. It worked like a charm".
So there are lessons about communication, and having well-informed people throughout the crowd, not only at the beginning. And about being skeptical of showboaters.
--"2. Listening to people who appear radical, but may be working for the police..."---
So now, you don't even have to break a window to be accused of being an "agent provocateur", merely stepping off the sidewalk into the street will get you accused of being a cop! What nonsense!
Having been at many protests, the accusation of "agent provocateur" is usually false, slanderous, and generally are leveled by older-generation hippie-generation organizers toward the more enthusiastic younger anarcho-generation marchers who prefer a diversity of tactics. We need to see these "agent provocateur" accusations as mostly a symptom of the generational rift that has made effective protest organizing very difficult. Anyone involved in organizing over the past decade will know what I am talking about.
But those who speak vehemently against diversity of tactics, as some famous rich old hippie did here in Pgh. after the G-20 should consider that the group of disobedient marchers who got on the bridge roadway are the only reason most USAns now know the Occupy Wall street movement even exists!
One of the nice things about these protests is that nobody calls the shots. So I put my experience out there and the participants can decide for themselves whether or not they think it is useful.
Exactly, just like the protests in latin america or the failed coup of Hugo Chavez no agent provocateurs there. It is not a generational thing, it is a reality. They are there or will be. And stop referencing hippies as if you had a clue.
What is the downside of these arrests?
In some cases Civil Disobedience (with the intention of getting arrested like the Keystone XL protests at the White House) is the thing to do, in some cases not.
But you seem to be forgetting that the NYPD forced the arrests in this situation!
I have personally been in non-permitted marches that have been escorted through traffic bottlenecks by the police to ensure safety of all and as little delay as possible. In that situation (and in other, similar ones I have read of) the protesters are forced to bear responsibility for arrest because the police are being imminently reasonable. People have to DO something to get themselves arrested, not just be where the crowd was going.
If you talk to people that look down on these arrests, remember this, they were the NYPD's doing entirely!
I did not forget how the arrests happened. What I said was "I believe that it is better if the demonstrators make the decision. In this case, it was as a result of a police trap. "
I do not reject civil disobedience that leads to arrest. I do not quarrel with the fact that whenever we try to right a wrong, getting beaten up or arrested are distinct possibilities. But I also believe in planning and taking mutual responsibility for the security of the participants in actions, to whatever extent possible. In this case, I believe the arrests were a result of police entrapment and insufficient lines of communication within the group.