2011-09-26 #Occupywallstreet continues despite harsh police repression, as more occupations are planned across the U.S.
The popular occupation of Wall Street is now into it’s ninth day of camp in Zucotti Park, renamed as “Liberty Square”. The protesters have formed a General Assembly, which meets regularly in nearby Tompkins Park to discuss solutions, and exchange ideas on organization and goals, imitating the method used in similar actions worldwide (Spain, Egypt or Greece, for example). They claim to represent the forgotten 99% of the population, neglected by the ruling 1%. The amount of protesters has risen steadily peaking on Saturday as thousands marched on the streets. The local authorities reacted violently, with NYPD officers repeatedly using an excessive force against peaceful people. According to the New York Daily News at least 50 arrests were made, over 80, according to the protesters. Paul Browne, a police spokesman assured that "those arrested were engaged in disorderly conduct, namely impeding vehicular and/or pedestrian traffic, and in some instances resisting arrest, inciting to riot, obstructing governmental administration, and assaulting a police officer". This, however, seems to contradict many of the videos that appeared on the Internet. For example, the one below contains a slow motion analysis of a senior police officer using a spray canister (it is not known whether it is pepper or mace) against a group of women already kettled-in with police lines.
According to US Law’s analysis he “may have been agitated by the nearby arrest of a photographer as no officers appear to be under immediate threat and the women in greatest contact with the sprayed agent appear to have had no instant involvement in that arrest”. Even though Mayor Bloomberg stated that civilians were “free to express their opinion”, the images are obviously in contradiction with his words:
The controversy has given the movement a lot of publicity from the mainstream media, who were at first slow to cover (here you can find a collection of these sources), leading many to think it will find even more public support. This same reaction has already taken place in similar protests in Barcelona, Madrid and Athens, when thousands took to the streets after repression. As of now, several copy-cat protests have sprung up across the U.S. and are being tracked down in http://occupytogether.org.
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