[
Via EVG friend Heidi on Facebook]
May Day began around 9 a.m. ... as the NYPD arrived at Tompkins Square Park... ahead of the march to Union Square that was to commemorate International Worker's Day.
By 1 p.m., per those in Tompkins Square Park, about 100-125 people had peacefully gathered for the rally...
According to accounts in
The New York Times and on Gothamist, the group started walking north on Avenue A around 2 p.m. ... when we received these photos from a tipster showing people heading east down East 11th Street...
Per
Colin Moynihan at the
Times:
At 11th Street, the marchers suddenly turned east and began running in the roadway, some of them brandishing red and black flags. The police gave chase. At Avenue C and 12th Street, an officer tried to grab a black banner with the words “Never Work” from a man, who scrambled away.
Several people taking part in the rally were reportedly arrested here.
The group reassembled and continued to East 14th Street, where they turned to keep going toward Union Square...
At Second Avenue, the crowd turned north and a moment later a police commander wearing a white shirt began moving briskly toward a young man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and walking on the sidewalk.
Then more than a dozen other officers, some uniformed and others in plain clothes, plunged into the crowd of marchers, grabbing and arresting at least three additional protesters, shoving others against a wall and pushing news photographers.
Gothamist captured part of this scene on video:
According to Gothamist, the group, "followed by at least 100 NYPD officers on scooters, in vans, and on foot, then marched to Union Square without incident."
Read the Gothamist story
here. Find the
Times article
here.
Depending on the source, either five or six people were arrested.
Throughout the rest of the day, many people noted the presence of helicopters buzzing about the neighborhood...
