Action marks movement’s two-month anniversary
Updated at 1:45 PM
Hundreds of protesters stormed the financial district this morning in an attempt to shut down the New York Stock Exchange. What became clear almost immediately upon arriving downtown in the wee hours of the morning was that lofty goal would be impossible. Before any demonstrator could set foot near Wall Street, the NYPD had barricaded off the streets surrounding the NYSE so that protesters wouldn’t be able to access the area.
A new plan quickly emerged. The group would split into different marches identified by colors (red, green, and black) in the hopes of decentralizing the police. Then the activists would converge on 11 Wall Street.
However, that strategy also changed when it became clear the protesters wouldn’t be permitted to get close to the trading floor. The demonstrators devised a new plan on the fly, consisting of splinter groups that acted to occupy the financial district’s intersections, so while they could not occupy the NYSE itself, they surrounded it.
It was literally impossible to walk anywhere in the financial district without colliding with an Occupy protest. Several business people lost their cool when, time after time, they kept running into the protesters.
“Move out of daddy’s basement, children!” one businessman shouted before practically running away down Exchange Place. Another businessman got into a screaming match with demonstrators, accusing them of unfairly using the “99 percent” title, and demanding that some Wall Street employees are simply average Joes trying to earn an honest living.
The business class losing their composure and shouting at protesters is something of a new phenomenon. In past weeks, business people ignored Occupy, but I’ve witnessed quite a few heated confrontations in recent days.
Additionally, the NYPD appear to have an arbitrary system in place for who they choose to order around. For example, a group of people attempted to move up Broadway as riot police were walking in the other direction and attempting to herd everyone backwards.
A young man, dressed in a camouflage jacket, attempted to pass between two officers, who promptly grabbed him. “I’m not a protester!” he insisted, a claim that didn’t seem to convince the officers, who instructed him to turn around and walk the other way. At the same time, two Asian men attempted to cross the police line. The officers hesitated momentarily, but then another officer said, “They’re tourists,” and let them pass. There was no further conversation than that, so clearly those assumptions were being made based on the appearance of the men in question.
This arbitrary policing based on profiling was also documented by Newyorkist, which posted several reports of NYPD only letting people with corporate IDs into the area of subways near Wall Street, and activist Michael Kink, who quite remarkably did manage to make it to the trading floor…because he wore a suit.
Throughout the afternoon, protesters engaged in civil disobedience, sitting down in intersections, singing, dancing, chanting, and using the people’s mic to express why they had joined the march. At one point, police inexplicably charged the spontaneous dance party that had broken out at the corner of Beaver and Broad St., violently shoving protesters.
One of the marchers taking part in the day of action was a young woman named Lauren, who expressed anger at the NYPD for taking her possessions during the raid on Liberty Park. Police seized her tent, winter attire, and “a leather suitcase that has been in my family quite a while,” Lauren said. I asked her if she’d visited the storage facility where Mayor Bloomberg claims some of OWS’s property is being held. Lauren said she had, but every time she visits the storage unit, it’s closed.
By the afternoon, around 100 protesters had been arrested, including well-known activist Jesse Myerson (I appeared on MSNBC’s “Up with Chris Hayes” last month with Myerson to discuss OWS). I witnessed police arresting a protester named George Mashado, who had a large bloody gash across his forehead, another young man whose name I never learned (but whose arrest I was able to capture in this short video clip), and several other protesters who were arrested and carried by police onto NYPD buses. (Note: This paragraph was edited to reflect a higher arrest figure).
Police also attempted to arrest a woman in a wheelchair, but after failing to figure out how to take her to jail, officers settled on ticketing her.
Note: This is an early report. Arrest figures may change as new reports come in.
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