Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Video from yesterday's Occupy Lower East Side

Participants from Occupy Wall Street/May Day gathered yesterday afternoon in Sara Roosevelt Park on East Houston at Chrystie... (The Lo-Down has a report on it here.)

There were some skirmishes with the NYPD... captured here on this video now making the rounds...

6 comments:

Lisa said...

"Dude, I got arrested-- it was kewl!"

Marty Wombacher said...

The report at Lo-Down said the cops were arresting people for carrying signs that were too large, never heard of that one before. Thank God the NYPD is keeping us safe from these carriers of big signs. Funny, I don’t see a cop in sight when this was happening last year.

Laura Goggin Photography said...

The arrests seemed unprovoked. When the crowd was originally (peacefully) gathered, a few officers went into the crowd and demanded the stakes for the banners be removed. That didn't seem to bother anyone and they complied. Then, as part of the group tried to leave the park, the attacks started.

Barney Russell said...

After dealing with this nonsense all day, I think that the cops showed incredible restraint. Just another boring video with not much to get upset about.

Anonymous said...

"incredible restraint"? restraint against what kind of behavior exactly? beating people up? subjecting citizens to arbitrary arrest as they practice their right of free assembly? I saw a phalanx of cops, with clubs and guns ready, standing and surrounding a group of kids engaged in group-concensus-discussion-process--like this was a meeting of mafia kingpins or something. Its just so stupid--how can police really believe this is worth their time (and our money!)

Barney Russell said...

@ ANONYMOUS 3:40. My comment was based on what I witnessed on lower Broadway from 8 PM on. There were groups who were purpously trying to instigate a confrontation with the cops. My guess is that some of the demonstrators were frustrated in that it was getting late,and they hadn't yet gotten their big You Tube moment.