NYPD Mass Arrests of Occupy Wall Street Protesters: Firsthand Account from AlterNet Staffer Trapped

[deminks]

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/674824/nypd_mass_arrests_of_occupy_wall_street_protesters:_firsthand_account_from_alternet_staffer_trapped_on_bridge/

At the time of this posting, hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters, members of the press and bystanders are being penned by the police on the Brooklyn Bridge, waiting to get arrested one by one. (The livestream is in the previous post.) According to eyewitnesses, the NYPD closed the bridge to traffic as the surge of protesters arrived, but then used the crowd's presence on the roadway to corral them in on both sides, so that no exit is possible.

AlterNet's Kristen Gwynne is among the crowd, and here is what she just told us by phone:

"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 clammed in."

(snip)

UPDATE, 6:32pm, Kristen reports by phone: "Protesters are asking able-bodied male people to go up to the cops and accept their arrest, to speed along the process. Boyfriends and girlfriends are kissing each other goodbye as the guys go off to get arrested."

(end snip)

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. Police tactics such as this will cause the Occupiers to Adapt.

It's certainly not going to win the NYPD any friends.

[Coexist]

2. is that the 13 year old?

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. Yes, she is supposedly 13. Like anything this requires confirmation but her mother

was evidently there with her, and people are uploading live from the site, so it's a very good bet that this is true.

[jwirr]

12. Good I am glad to know that her parent was there with her. Social

Services could have been called in if not.

[roguevalley]

10. I doubt that all the cops like to do this.

[jwirr]

13. With that I agree but do not know what they can do about it when it

looks like their bosses are the ones leading the attacks. I guess if I were a policeman who did not agree I would just hang back and take as little part in it as I could.

[Fire Walk With Me]

15. Some 100 are said to have refused to come to work after the Bologna attacks became known.

These cops could have suddenly developed Blue Flue at any given moment during this exceedingly-prolonged episode of "shooting fish in a barrel". If I may recklessly mix metaphors!

[roguevalley]

11. what a sweet child. she and her mom are heroes.

[Fire Walk With Me]

18. I also wanted to give her major props for the Gir cap. Go Jhonen!

:rofl:

[NBachers]

3. When do they rope off, corral, & arrest the criminal banksters who plundered & destroyed the world?

[StarsInHerHair]

5. they're fool robocops for the Banking Cartel

[Fire Walk With Me]

14. Bingo!

[Kurovski]

4. K&R. (nt)

[seabeyond]

6. bathroom, liquds, foods... taking hours. how can this be ok? nt

[WinkyDink]

7. Lawsuits to follow. I give you AG Mitchell, 1971:

But all the planning and organization counted for little in the face of the government's sweep arrests. More than 7,000 people were caught in the dragnet that first day. Never before or since have there been that many arrests in the United States on a single day. (Another 6,000 were arrested over three more days, most of them for blockading the Justice Department and the U.S. Capitol.) Many of the arrestees were ordinary people with no connection to the protest; they just happened to be where sweeps were taking place. Others were demonstrators who were arrested preemptively, without having committed any illegal acts. To transport the mass of prisoners, the police had to commandeer city buses; when even that wasn't enough, they hired Hertz and Avis rent-a-trucks.

The city jail quickly filled, even though the police crammed as many as twenty people into two-person cells. Another 1500 were packed into the jail's recreation yard. That still left thousands of prisoners, whom the police herded into an outdoor practice field next to RFK Stadium. Conditions were awful, with next to no sanitary facilities, blankets, or food. One anarchist wag made a sign proclaiming the football field, without much overstatement, "Smash the State Concentration Camp #1." The government had made a major misstep, which cost it public sympathy. People who had strongly disapproved of the Mayday Tribe's shutdown plan were appalled by the flagrant violation of civil liberties, and upset to see the nation's capital turned into an overt police state.

There was a class action lawsuit that came out of these illegal arrests, and I remember there was a fairly large financial award won on behalf of those arrested.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/25/969961/-My-Meeting-AG-John-N-Mitchell-40-years-ago-this-week-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To show their disagreement with the war effort in Vietnam, thousands of protestors filled the streets of Washington to halt the day-to-day operations of the federal government. Between April 22 and May 6, 1971, the police arrested 14,517 persons, typically on charges of disorderly conduct. The government held more than 1,500 of these protestors at the Washington Coliseum. Of those charged, 871 proceeded to full trial on the merits. The Court of Appeals eventually ordered the District Court to enjoin prosecutions not supported by specific evidence—the vast majority of cases. The Court later ordered that the arrest records of thousands of protesters be expunged. In 1976, a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of 1,200 arrested protestors against former Attorney General John Mitchell, former U.S. Capitol Police Chief James Powell, the District of Columbia, and others, alleging that the officials violated their First Amendment rights. In 1981, the parties settled.
http://www.dcchs.org/news/5_History.pdf

[femrap]

9. Police

should join OWS and call in sick....what is that called....Blue Flu???? The police are part of the 99% and shouldn't be arresting these brave people.

[Dawson Leery]

16. Unlike the police in Wisconsin, the NYPD had decided to

side with the corrupt business interests. When the NY FOP is busted, they would have asked for it.

[chill_wind]

17. K & R. NYT reports it as a "planned move on the protesters"

Police Arrest About 500 Protesters on Brooklyn Bridge
AL BAKER and COLIN MOYNIHAN

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/police-arresting-protesters-on-brooklyn-bridge/?hp

Earlier in the afternoon, as many as 10 Department of Correction buses, big enough to hold 20 prisoners apiece, had been dispatched from Rikers Island in what one law enforcement official said was “a planned move on the protesters.”