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The New York Police Department (NYPD) responded with brute force in the first hours of the New Year to Occupy Wall Street’s attempt to re-take Zuccotti Park. The police went after live streamers, others with cameras and even bystanders and a National Lawyers Guild (NLG) observer.
At least 68 were arrested. Updates posted on the action by Occupy Wall Street that unfolded indicate NYPD threw around livestreamers and bystanders as they were removing people and making arrests. The police also blockaded the sidewalk stopping a march and told Occupy Wall Street demonstrators they were “blocking traffic.” They brought in horses. They searched for individuals with “official press passes,” ready to eject citizen journalists who wanted to remain and bear witness to the NYPD’s aggressive policing.
Again, a member of the Global Revolution livestream team was seemingly targeted and arrested. NYPD has seemingly targeted Occupy Wall Street media team members in the past months. In December, NYPD targeted 17 people, who all had some level of involvement with media. They had been covering a flash mob action in Brookfield Properties’ Winter Garden.
An NLG legal observer was “ejected” and left as ordered. When the observer made a phone call, the NYPD ordered the observer to put down the phone. The observer was then arrested.
Police arrested people for simply crossing the street. They had been ordered to cross and when they did cross they were subsequently arrested.
NYT’s “City Room” reported an incident where police interfered with a credentialed news photographer:
Just before 1:30 a.m., security guards and police officers entered the park, where only about 150 people remained. A line of officers pushed protesters from the park and led about five people out in handcuffs. One officer used two hands to repeatedly shove backwards a credentialed news photographer who was preparing to document an arrest.
A police commander announced through a megaphone that the park, which is normally open 24 hours a day, was closed until 9 a.m., but did not provide a reason. A few moments later, officers told the crowd that had just been moved from the park that the sidewalks surrounding Zuccotti Park were also closed, and directed people across Broadway.
Police arrested people as early as 10:30 pm on New Year’s Eve. It was also about this time that occupiers piled up barricades that had been up to control the area surrounding Zuccotti Park (namely to help protect Brookfield Properties from Occupy Wall Street). An officer pepper sprayed occupiers.
Democracy Now!’s Ryan Devereaux was, as usual, on the scene to report on what was happening with NYPD and Occupy Wall Street. He posted a photo of a protester that had been punched and arrested. He reported a girl who was trying to go meet up with her boyfriend was arrested. Professional photographers were being thrown against walls and arrested.
Devereaux reported occupiers using Christmas trees to “block police that were following them” and said there were maybe three hundred occupiers out marching. He estimated about one hundred police were there to control the protest.
Hours before the scuffles with police at Zuccotti Park, occupiers participated in a noisy demonstration, where they visited the Metropolitan Correction Center and told prisoners, “You are not alone!”
Here are some videos from the night:
“Girl Arrested While Waiting for Boyfriend”
“Occupy Wall Street Celebrates New Year’s Eve in Zuccotti Park”
From @DiceyTroop:
33 Comments
The New Year’s Revolution has begun!
The lawless Bloomberg Admin and his NYPD are clearly out of control. Time to bring in the National Gurard and federal marshals to protect citizens from their own city.
Kevin do you know if there have been any lawsuits filed over the brutal assaults by police or illegal arrests in NYC or at any of the Occupy sites?
Italy, 1922. Germany, 1933. USA, 2012.
I do not know of any, specifically. What I do know is that the legal help OWS has had from NLG was committed to clogging the courts with all these arrestees. The vast majority refused to take plea deals and wanted the judge to have to be in position where he or she considered throwing out arrestees’ cases entirely.
I caught O’Donnell’s “Word” last week chastizing NYPD and giving them the benefit of the doubt, that just a “tiny” minority of the force were just thugs who needed to be let go.
Looks like that minority was all there in force.
Last spring, Bloomberg was saying that the NYS budget deficit meant that the NYPD would have to shrink, but Ray Kelly’s
brownwhite shirts can breathe easy now. Even if their victims can’t.While NYPD smiled and waved to the camera from atop their horses in Times Sq, their fellow officers were out in the streets pepper spraying and charging horses into crowds, violating peaceful protesters and continuing to show their predisposition to interfere with press and target media for arrest.
So far it appears that no local officials have paid a price for these extreme crack-downs. Even if exonerated in court an arrestee is still bearing the brunt of the suffering, with no recompense. I wonder what would be the downside of going on the offensive for damages. And why would some of the larger media outlets not sue for the illegal arrest of their reporters? Democracy Now sued over the incident in Minneapolis.
Naturally, Murdoch’s rag, the NY Post saw it differently… OWS mob in clash with cops…
Some 800 Occupy Wall Street protesters began the new year by trying to retake Zuccotti Park last night, starting a massive clash with police in which one officer was stabbed in the hand with a pair of scissors.
That’s why the national media, as a rule, is shit.
And Murdoch’s isn’t good enough to wipe it.
I think what we are seeing in NY and elsewhere is that our domestic policy is a reflection of our foreign policy and always has been. Since the PTB have declared war on the people as represented by OWS it is time to return the favor.
When the Weather Underground declared that they were bringing the war home i agreed with the necessity of that action if not with their tactics. I hope that a more enlightened strategy can be developed to take the offensive in this conflict.
There will be offensive. The people will not forever tolerate this abuse.
“And why would some of the larger media outlets not sue for the illegal arrest of their reporters?”
I concede that this was a naive question and DN is hardly comparable to the ethics-free zone which is the corporate media at large.
Everyone whose case isn’t thrown out should insist on a jury trial.
If you wonder why cops are like they are, this could be why:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95836&page=1
And this.
Somebody call the cops! Hey! Wait a minute! Those ARE the cops!
Cops in riot gear are thugs.
Occupy forces could use some extra manpower, but all the really big guys are home, sitting on the sofa, eating chips and watching Tebow. What’s wrong with this picture?
Bloomberg is a public menace.
Clever comment to the post.
Scissors? Now why didn’t Osama bin Laden think of that?
Scissors will now become al Qaeda’s weapon of choice.
Police profiling?
Nice.
Nothing like a bit of booze to embolden the timid.
Booze is Bloomberg’s worst nightmare.
The PtB have the resources to deal with violent resistance severely and quickly. As long as the personnel they are depending on continue to obey orders. Typically those sorts of people stop obeying orders when it is significant members of their personal networks who are brutalized and there is a common sentiment among their colleagues that the orders are illegal and should be disobeyed. Those are very stringent conditions to reach, which is why police brutality works most of the time.
Pushing the envelope with direct action is tricky; you have to make sure that most of the time it is clear who is the aggressor and who triggers the incident. There is an intense strategy to obscure that information from being recorded and ensuring that it does not get in the popular media. That is why journalists and legal observers are targets.
Dealing with that requires a great deal of discipline in the direct action and, if not coordination, sensitivity to what others are doing so as to not undercut their actions. Folks whose only tactics are graffiti, baiting police with abusive language, and hidden sucker punches can undercut the growth of the movement. Folks who are too cautious can make action ineffective.
One of the ironies of the NYPD repression is that it has spawned news coverage in smaller cities and towns with the meme “Our Occupy is different…” Which is why there had to be national pressure exerted on mayors and city councils who were allowing encampments to shut them down. That pressure certainly came through networks of police officials and police unions. It also came through Chambers of Commerce, downtown associations, and rightwing pressure groups. And through the officials of both major political parties.
The success of the movement will be growth in numbers to the point that repression will be counterproductive for the officials ordering it. We are well away from that situation. We are at the beginning. The public is beginning to understand the occupations that are in defense of people threatened with eviction when there is clear evidence of bank misconduct. That is a relatively recent change in perceptions resulting from a half dozen or so successes in getting the banks to renegotiate terms.
But direct action must be framed in a way the public can understand. There must be a narrative that soon becomes common knowledge. One that is beginning to deal with encampments is best articulated by Occupy Pittsburgh’s call for action on 1/10/2012. A narrative about squatting includes properties that are (1) off the tax rolls, (2) have absentee owners, or (3) are public property not currently in use but could be used for community services. But this narrative has to break through to the public; that should be as important a matter for strategy as how to handle the legal issues. It is rare that it is; the romanticism of “revolution” and the posturing can prevent getting a win. Drawing a police response does not prove that an action was effective; it might just prove that it was reckless.
Good info.
If you’re thinking of including scissors in your strategy, you might want to consider that running with scissors could be hazardous to your health.
Non-protestor tourists BOYCOTT New York!
I hope that the word enlightened hasn’t lost its meaning or been warped by our Orwellian overloards. The OWS movement has been exceptionally creative in their response to the repression and i hope it will continue to be.
I’m not sure what tactics will will be effective in escalating the the response to this repression but they will be necessary to move forward.
There will be misguided people who will do stupid things but they will be minor compared to violent repression coming soon.
Don’t worry everyone.
Once the bench-warmer, and moderate Republican, President Obama is voted out of office by Diebold this fall, the far-right Republican president will use the new National Defense Authorization Act to declare everyone that exercises the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to be a Terrorist. That woman who was trying to ‘meet her boyfriend’ (which is terrorist-speak for overthrow the Republican Government) will be shipped off to Guantanamo to join her Al Qaeda comrades for the rest of her life.
Next, the Republican President will decree that all Republicans are ordered to exercise the 2nd Amendment against anyone that they think, believe or feel might want to some day exercise their 1st Amendment rights.
Only then will we be Free®™!
Remember, our brave soldiers gave their lives to uphold the sacred, God-given right of the right-wingers to kill Liberals for fun!
There is no right to a jury trial for minor offenses. See for example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_jury_in_the_United_States#Availability_of_jury_trial_in_criminal_and_similar_cases
Much better to have far too many we-the-people to be coped with, say 50000, than to have any violence.
Occupy the Rose Parade USTream (OccupyFreedomLA)