Occupy Wall Street protesters ‘lured into Brooklyn Bridge trap by police’ | Mail Online.
This is ridiculous. I had to surf to England to find good pics of the US Occupy Wall Street movement, as the North-American media is finally showing its true agenda. That is to be the mouthpiece of the 1%. Shame on you North-American media. You make me sick.
Lou
By Mark Duell
3rd October 2011
Occupy Wall Street enters third week as protests spread to Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver and Seattle
Protesters fuming after 700 of their crowd were arrested in New York this weekend for blocking Brooklyn Bridge
Demonstrators plan to greet Wall Street workers dressed as corporate zombies and hold police brutality protest
Film stars such as Mark Ruffalo and Penn Badgley spotted looking around protest camp at Zuccoti Park in Manhattan
New York police are today facing fresh accusations they entrapped and intimidated demonstrators during the Brooklyn Bridge storm at the weekend.
Today protesters allege police allowed them onto a road reserved for vehicles and were then able to round up as many as possible, arresting 700. Meanwhile major cities are bracing themselves for more protests against corporate America as the Occupy Wall Street campaign enters its third week.
Protesters in the ever-growing movement are dressing as corporate zombies in New York and greeting Wall Street workers as they head into the office. A police brutality protest is planned after the 700 people were arrested this weekend for blocking Brooklyn Bridge traffic in the unauthorised protest.
Stars: Actor, producer and screenwriter Mark Ruffalo, left, and actor Penn Badgley, right, visit the Occupy Wall Street protests at Zuccoti Park in Manhattan this weekend
Shouting: Occupy Wall Street protestor Alexi Morris is arrested along with at several others in the financial district’s Zucotti Park on Monday
Living dead: Demonstrators with fake money in their mouths and hands march with others dressed as ‘corporate zombies’ as they take part in a New York protest today
Sleepout: A participant in the Wall Street protests sits at an information desk at Zuccotti Park that hundreds of activists are occupying today
Elsewhere: The Occupy Boston movement grew in Dewey Square on Sunday, left, and a girl holds a sign at Occupy LA on Saturday – as both joined forces with New York
Songs: Participants in the Wall Street protests play music on Monday in New York City
The demonstrations, which began in New York two weeks ago, have already spread to Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Denver and Seattle. The arrests of 700 people have only strengthened the resolve of protesters in New York, who have been camped out for the past fortnight and held mass gatherings.
It’s all been sparked by the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has seen thousands of protesters camped out in New York’s Financial District for the past fortnight and mass gatherings started nationwide, with the unified purpose of voicing anger at the U.S. banking and political systems.
Some protesters were left angry after the New York Times website reprotedly removed a line in a story inferring that the police tricked demonstrators into going onto the bridge. Famous actors such as Gossip Girl star Penn Badgley and Collateral’s Mark Ruffalo were spotted at the Zuccoti Park camp.
Many of the demonstrators on the Brooklyn Bridge thought they had been hemmed in deliberately by cops. But police denied this was the case. The NYPD claims it gave ‘numerous warnings’ to protesters to stay on the pavement and they were told they would be arrested if they went into the roadway.
Demonstrators are today being urged to dress in business wear with white faces and blood, and will march while eating monopoly money, a spokesman said. The group, which is also speaking out against climate change, want financial workers to see them ‘reflecting the metaphor of their actions’.
Silence: Occupy Wall Street demonstrators occupy a park near Wall Street in New York on Monday as they protest in different ways
Linkup: Protesters shout slogans while holding banners after marching to the courthouse where the trial for Michael Jackson’s doctor continues on Monday in L.A.
Demonstrations: A soldier is seen protesting in New York, left, and this photo, right, from the Occupy Wall Street website seems to be from inside a jail cell this weekend
California: A protester wears an eye-catching outfit this weekend as he demonstrates in Los Angeles as the protests gather pace across the U.S.
Mass movement: ‘Occupy’ protests started in Seattle, left, and Denver, right, this weekend – a clear sign that the sentiment chimes with residents across America
Illinois: Demonstrators hold signs across from the Federal Reserve bank of Chicago while trying to keep dry last Friday
‘We walked away realising what we’d just done’: Reports from protesters, activists and witnesses on the ground
‘At 5am I return to the 24-hour fast food bathroom. It is as hot as a sauna, and we pack in, taking turns using the hand drier. Some are changing, some cutting each other’s hair, some just sitting on the floor to get some warmth into their soaked bones. People tell each other they’re beautiful, reunite, hug, and compare horror stories of the rough night we just survived.’
Melanie Butler
‘They’re arresting us one by one. I just asked a cop and they said they’re going to arrest all of us. There are hundreds of people who dont have room to sit down. We’re just crammed in.’
Kristen Gwynne
‘We walked away realizing what we had just done – spontaneously come together, demand change, and create it, in a movement that we are in solidarity with, but also feel a need for constructive criticism.’
Hena Ashraf
‘The three charges I received from today’s Occupy Wall Street were: failure to obey order, prohibited use of roadway and blocking traffic.’
Jeff Rae
Police issued more than 700 summonses on Saturday to demonstrators who, despite multiple warnings, took part in the march on the Brooklyn-bound lanes which snarled traffic in the area until the bridge was reopened hours later. Most of those arrested were issued summonses and released.
‘In an hour or two, we’ll be somewhere else protesting,’ said Patrick Bruner, an English major at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, who has been serving a protest spokesman. He added that the group had contingency plans in case the park where they set up a makeshift camp was raided.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, which has garnered the support of celebrities such as filmmaker Michael Moore and actress Susan Sarandon, are protesting against many U.S. issues such as home foreclosures, high unemployment and the 2008 bailouts.
In Los Angeles, more than 100 protesters camped out in front of City Hall overnight on Saturday. Organisers want protests to spread across the country.
Saturday’s march in New York began at 3:30pm local time from the protesters’ camp in Zuccotti Park, in downtown Manhattan near the World Trade Center site. The fire department said it has been to the camp to check for fire safety issues. Protestors have vowed to stay there through the winter.
‘Our concern is cooking, the use of propane tanks and garbage piling up. All we’re concerned about is that everybody is safe,’ an FDNY spokesman said.
The park property is maintained by Brookfield Properties, a publicly traded corporation. In a statement last week the company said it was extremely concerned about the conditions that have been created in the park and was working with city officials to restore the park to its intended purpose.
During Saturday’s protest on the bridge, police used orange mesh nets to surround the marchers in what witnesses described as chaotic scenes with protesters being handcuffed and taken off the bridge. Warnings were given by the police to the protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway.
‘Some complied and took the walkway without being arrested,’ a police spokesman said. ‘Others locked arms and proceeded on the Brooklyn-bound vehicular roadway and were arrested.’
The arrests followed a peaceful march to police headquarters on Friday by more than 1,000 people to protest the arrest of 80 members of the Occupy Wall Street movement the previous week in the Union Square shopping district.
During that march a few women were doused with pepper spray which was captured on video and viewed widely on the Internet. The group has garnered support from some union members including the United Federation of Teachers and the Transport Workers Union Local 100.
Occupy LA: Los Angeles protesters marched from Pershing Square to City Hall to voice their discontent at the financial system on Saturday
California uprising: Views of the Occupy LA protests taking place in Pershing Square on Saturday in Los Angeles, California
Uprising: Demonstrators, pictured on Sunday, are camping outside the Federal Reserve building, in Boston. The group is part of a nationwide grassroots movement in support of the ongoing Wall Street protests in New York
‘Their slogans capture emotions but are too often unrelated to solutions’: The best U.S. comment on Occupy Wall Street
‘They are earnest and know how to play for the cameras. They have internalized slogans that capture emotions but are too often unrelated to solutions. And that is a lost opportunity.’
John Avlon, Daily Beast
‘Up until now, the organizers have seemed to view the decentralized, inchoate nature of the protests as a strength for the nascent movement, not a weakness. The unifying idea has been drawing attention to “the 99,” not offering a concrete policy agenda.’
Ezra Klein, Washington Post
‘Much of the sloganeering at “Occupy Wall Street” is pretty silly — but so is the self-righteous sloganeering of Wall Street itself. And if a ragtag band of youthful protesters can help bring a dose of accountability and equity to our financial system, more power to them.’
Nicholas Kristof, New York Times
‘Economic inequality is a consistent undertone, but at times this occupation has the feel of a music festival; drifting through the square are young people who seem to have walked out of a wormhole from Woodstock.’
Laurie Penny, New Statesman
‘I never imagined more than 700 people would be arrested. Nor did I imagine that I’d be kettled in an area where, ostensibly, protesters and witnesses were allowed to go’
Anjali Mullany, New York Daily News
Evocative: L.A. demonstrators are a range of ages, from 12-year-old Lula Rod, left, wearing haunting face paint, to an middle-aged woman, right, holding a straight-forward placard outside Los Angeles City Hall on Saturday
Star Spangled Banner: One protester in L.A. made use of the national flag to get his point across on Saturday
Actor’s admiration for protesters
Actor and screenwriter Mark Ruffalo has been following the Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York over the last weekend.
He praised them for standing up for ‘purely American’ values and ‘democracy’.
‘It is a thing of beauty to see so many people in love with the ideal of democracy, so alive with its promise, so committed to its continuity in the face of crony capitalism and corporate rule,’ he wrote in a Guardian comment article.
‘That should be celebrated. It should be respected and admired.’
The anti-corporate protest in New York City entered its third week today, as the city’s residents began to increasingly feel the effect of a mass gathering that began as little more than a dozen students.
Yesterday members of the NYPD moved in and ordered some of those who had camped out to dismantle what police said were ‘dwellings’.
‘A dozen officers came walking toward us with NYPD video cameras pointed at us,’ said John Dennehy, 29, who went straight back to Zuccotti Park after spending hours in police custody. He flashed a police desk appearance ticket charging him with disorderly conduct and prohibited use of a roadway.
On Saturday the United Nations employee joined thousands of protesters who tried to cross the bridge after marching through the Financial District.
Mr Dennehy and three others had built what they called their ‘box castle’ using cardboard mailing boxes to delineate their space on the plaza.
But police told them to remove the structure and plastic tarps they were using to stay dry in a pouring rain also were not acceptable, they said.
Screaming out loud: A man wearing a U.S. flag bandana across his face shows where Boston protesters drew their inspiration from on Friday, while a young woman shouts to make her message heard as hundreds of people converge on Boston Common
Thin blue line: Demonstrators from Occupy Boston stormed their way to the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston during the first night of their protest on Friday
Fledgling protests: The movements in Denver, left, and Seattle, right, this weekend are in their infancies and have so far been more peaceful than the New York version
Under clear skies on Sunday afternoon, protesters could help themselves to food that unnamed supporters donated to keep the encampment running. Some ate pizza they said was ordered for them by a man in Egypt who phoned a local shop to have the pies delivered.
‘A dozen officers came walking toward us with NYPD video cameras pointed at us’
John Dennehy
The campers also have been fuelled by encouraging words from well-known figures, the latest actor Alec Baldwin, who posted videos on his Twitter page that had already been widely circulated.
One appeared to show police using pepper spray on a group of women, another a young man being tackled to the ground by an officer. ‘This is unsettling,’ Baldwin wrote. ‘I think the NYPD has a PR problem.’
In Los Angeles, several hundred protesters marched from Pershing Square to City Hall on Saturday, and said they would remain camped at the site ‘indefinitely’, like their New York counterparts.
Organised by a group called Occupy LA, the demonstrators echoed the refrain begun by those on the East Coast, saying they hoped to change economic policies that benefit the richest one per cent of Americans.
Crowd members waved signs, including one that read ‘The Banks Ate My Baby,’ and chanted ‘Hey hey, ho ho, corporate welfare’s got to go,’ the Los Angeles Times reported.
Tired: A protester sleeps on a mattress on the ground in Liberty Plaza on Saturday. The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement has now entered its third week
The activists have even produced their own newspaper ‘The Occupied Wall Street Journal’. It is paid for by funds gathered online via crowd-sourcing websites
‘In the end, what we want to do is inspire working-class people to get involved in the political process,’ Adam Liszkiewics, a 32-year-old USC graduate student, told the paper.
‘In the end, what we want to do is inspire working-class people to get involved in the political process’
Adam Liszkiewics
The Occupy Boston movement appears the most well-developed of the off-shoot protests, with a sizeable camp, featuring tents, medical supplies and even wi-fi, setting up at Dewey Square, across from the Federal Reserve building.
Tactical groups have been formed, covering legal affairs, food and media outreach, and a crowd in the spot had reached nearly 1,000 on Friday night on the first day of protest, the Boston Herald reported.
Key organisers said they had been to New York to learn from the protests. Matthew Krawitz, an unemployed IT expert, told how he had been in Manhattan for the first day of the demonstrations there and wanted to replicate the scene in Boston.
There were other protests in the city over the weekend, including one outside the Bank of America aimed at expressing people’s anger at foreclosures and the announcement the bank will charge customers $5 a month to use debit cards to access their own money. It resulted in 24 arrests.
President Obama’s old stomping ground has been gripped by the ‘Occupy’ movement as well. A group of activists have gathered in front of the Federal Reserve Bank Chicago as part of a rally to protest against poverty and unemployment in the U.S.
Protestors at Occupy Wall Street’s media area coordinate news updates in Manhattan’s financial district’s Zuccotti Park
The protest in New York has triggered similar occupations around the country by activists angry at the power held by the big financial institutions
The Chicago sit-in began on September 23 with a march from Willis Tower to the bank, the Chicago Tribune reported, with some protesters calling it their Tahrir Square, in reference to the Egyptian capital Cairo.
One demonstrator, Emilio Baez, told Press TV the protest is a ‘direct call to working people worldwide’. ‘This is our Tahrir Square,’ he said of the spot which led to a revolution in the African country. ‘We’ll stay here for months if we have to.’
Meanwhile, more than 100 people turned out for Occupy Seattle on Saturday, with protesters waving signs and mingling peacefully with police.
The demonstrators, however, are only beginning to coalesce and they acknowledge that they need to clarify their goals. Like their New York counterparts, the protesters are seeking for a place in Seattle’s financial district to camp out for the winter.
Denver had its first protest on Saturday, with demonstrators telling 9News that they are a leaderless resistance movement of people who will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of Wall Street. Further ‘Occupy’ protests are planned for San Francisco, Washington DC, Phoenix and Albuquerque.
Meanwhile in New York, one couple apparently out to take photos after their wedding were pictured being caught up in the march over the Brooklyn Bridge, where more than 700 protesters were arrested.
Saturday: More than 700 people were arrested during the protest on Brooklyn Bridge and many were seen being led away in makeshift handcuffs
Photo-op gone wrong: A couple encounters a sea of protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge during Occupy Wall Street demonstrations
It emerged as the New York Police Department said it warned the protesters they would be taken into custody before staging the mass arrest.
The protesters who have been camping out in Manhattan’s Financial District say their movement has grown and become more organised over the last couple of weeks and they have no intention of stopping.
The Occupy Wall Street demonstration started out small, with less than a dozen college students, but has grown to include thousands of people in communities across the country.
Now entering its third week in Manhattan, those spending their days and nights at Zuccotti Park say they’re going to stay as long as they can. New York City public school teacher Denise Martinez joined the protest on Sunday. She says the financial industry isn’t doing enough to solve the country’s economic problems.
The Brooklyn Bridge was shut down and more than 700 people arrested this weekend after protesters camping out near Wall Street spilled onto the New York landmark and blocked traffic.
In a tense showdown, police took swift action – cuffing and dragging hundreds to the sidings – after many of the protesters risked being hit by cars by moving from the walkway on to the road.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2044704/Occupy-Wall-Street-protesters-lured-Brooklyn-Bridge-trap-police.html#ixzz1Zp0lNwN8
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