Sat Mar 23, 2024 11:33 pm by globalturbo
Mass arrests in NYC as OWS movement marks one year
Hundreds of police barricaded the New York Stock Exchange as Occupy
Wall Street protesters swarmed the Financial District for the
movement’s one-year anniversary, with over 180 reportedly arrested.
Police made 180 arrests by Monday evening, primarily for "disorderly conduct" or impeding "vehicular or pedestrian traffic."
Witnesses had previously reported on Twitter that demonstrators were being arrested for "blocking pedestrian traffic."
A well known local artist named Molly Crapabble was sitting in a police
van when she wrote on her Twitter page that people were being "yanked off of the sidewalk" by police.
The
final tally will ultimately be higher, as at least seven people were
arrested after falling on the Bank of America building later in the
afternoon. Several more arrests were subsequently reported after
demonstrators marched to the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan
and the adjacent Goldman Sachs Tower. Around half a dozen protesters
staged a sit-in protest outside of the Goldman Sachs headquarters and
refused orders by police to disperse.
The protesters’ initial plan
was to surround the New York Stock Exchange and hold a sit-down
protest, though the heavy handed police response redirected protesters
to Bowling Green Park where the iconic Charging Bull sculpture is
located. Protesters later moved on to Battery Park on the southern tip
of Manhattan, where activists reported up to 1,000 peaceful
demonstrators had amassed.
By early afternoon, union leaders and
activists had already begun streaming into Zuccotti Park – the epicenter
of the OWS movement – with strident police sirens marking the heavy
presence of the NYPD in the area.
Around 1000 supporters of OWS
met at four separate meeting points to mark the movement’s one-year
anniversary early Monday morning. Some 200 people gathering in Zuccotti
Park – the movement’s birthplace – by 7:00am local time, and later began
marching south along Broadway. When the group was confronted by
several police officers at the entrance to Wall Street, several of them
sat down in protest. Upon refusing to remove, they were arrested.
A
group of 50 protesters entered the lobby of the JPMorgan Chase
building, and eight were arrested, New York Daily News reported.
The
OWS movement, sparked by protests last year against corporate greed,
income inequality and the corrupting influence of money in politics, was
inactive for several months. Monday’s protest comes in the wake of
three days of civic activism intended to breathe new life into the
movement, ahead of its one-year anniversary.
After the
movement set up tents in New York City’s Zucotti Park last September,
OWS spawned a number of similar ‘Occupy’ protest groups across the US,
and in major cities around the world. The group’s creators dubbed
themselves the voice of the ‘99 percent,’ and protested chiefly against
the wide gap between rich and poor in the US.
The Occupy
movement was dealt a blow in November when a police crackdown broke up
the group’s main encampment at Zuccotti Park, with some 200 people
arrested in the process. Many of the group’s public protests likewise
saw mass arrests, and related reports of police brutality against
activists.
Photo from instagram.com user srl2126
Photo from twitter.com user @OccupyWallStNYC
Photo from twitter.com user @arunindy
Photo from twitter.com user @_greenlove_
Photo from twitter.com user @CarrieM213
Photo from twitter.com user @Power_Closer
Photo from twitter.com user @johnknefel
Photo from twitter.com user @mimileitsinger
Photo from twitter.com user @mimileitsinger
Photo from twitter.com user @mollyknefel
Photo from twitter.com user @MSU_SDS
Photo from twitter.com user @mimileitsinger
Photo from twitter.com user @DJBentley
Photo from twitter.com user @carwinb
http://rt.com/usa/news/occupy-wall-street-anniversary-318/
Print PDF
Posted by
enerchi
at
9/18/2012 07:00:00 AM
Thanks to: http://www.ascensionwithearth.com
