A dozen Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested yesterday in New York City as demonstrators marched in support of Occupy Oakland after Saturday’s chaotic West Coast action. “We’re going to get the backs of our brothers and sisters in the Bay Area,” said one vocal man last night, in reference to the some 400 people arrested in California. Inspired by the previous night’s events, a local crowd of about 300 moved north on Fifth Avenue from Washington Square Park on Sunday and chanted, “New York is Oakland; Oakland is New York.” A report from the New York Times tells of some questionable behavior from both protesters and police after weeks of relative calm.
Marchers allegedly threw bottles at the cops at least twice, leading officers to storm the crowd. Most protesters arrested were charged with disorderly conduct, but three men were charged with assault and one with criminal weapons possession, the Times reports. Some mischievous demonstrators dragged objects into the road in order to block police cars and vans following the march.
A few moments later, on Park Avenue, a man wearing dark clothes and wearing no visible badge grabbed a woman by the arm and threw her to the ground. Uniformed officers arrested her and a second woman as other officers blocked the lens of a newspaper photographer attempting to document the arrests.
As they were led away in handcuff, the two told onlookers that they had done nothing to deserve being arrested. The woman thrown to the ground identified herself as Jessica Lemmer, 21, and said that the man in the dark clothes had thrown her down after she told him not to push her.
At the corner of 13th Street and Second Avenue, the police dragged a man from the crowd, accusing him of having thrown a bottle.
In Washington, D.C., Occupy protesters face a noon deadline today as the National Park Service wants the group’s McPherson Square camp gone. Tension was already building yesterday, as one protester was zapped with a Taser and arrested.
The movement’s little resurgence of late is likely to carry into this week, spurred, for better or worse, by the weekend clashes with law enforcement, and those showdowns, for instance in D.C., that are still to come.
