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12:00 AM ET Thanks for following Firedoglake’s coverage of May Day. Here’s a Twitter list you can follow if you want to track any additional evening action. This blog is now closed for the night.
11:55 PM ET Occupy PDX protesters scuffle with police in Portland, Oregon while a foreclosed home is reclaimed…Three arrested during Occupy Miami protest…Despite all the focus on band of black bloc that damaged windows in Seattle, immigration march ends peacefully.
11:45 PM ET Follow @Susie_C for latest on the dispersal of Occupy Oakland by police. Squads attempted “snatch and grab” arrests of many occupiers. People took off running. Helicopters with search lights followed protesters. Legal observers say dispersal orders not legal because not enough time given for people to leave.
11:40 PM ET Occupy Oakland is now being attacked by Oakland police who are firing smoke bombs. @PixPlz is livestreaming.
11:15 PM ET And here’s another angle of the police violence that NYPD engaged in against Occupy Wall Street after ordering them to disperse from Veterans Plaza:
11:12 PM ET Occupy Oakland update: Sheriff has an M-4 assault rifle and tells older woman to step away from him (via @Susie_C)
11:11 PM ET Here’s a highlight from Tim Pool’s livestream that shows the brawl NYPD got into with Occupy protesters.
10:30 PM ET Police brutality: NYPD white shirts, riot cops quickly moved to clear an area. Suddenly, a bunch of protesters were grabbed. Officers started beating a protester in the leg with a steel baton. It was chaos and looked like an all-out brawl
Reports of a handful arrests after this scene.
10:20 PM ET Park was cleared. Now, hundred or so Occupy Wall Street protesters are out on sidewalk and possibly in street. Police are surrounding people. It is the kind of situation right now that can get ugly fast. The group is being told they are blocking vehicular traffic but they are being blocked in and they cannot go anywhere.
10:10 PM ET Cops are all over. They have a huge force moving on Veterans Plaza. Dispersal order was given five or six times. Number of people remaining in the park unknown, but this much is clear:
10:00 PM ET Reports that police are preparing for arrests. Hundreds are still assembling. There are about as many police as there were night of raid on Zuccotti Park. Only 30 or so arrests of Occupy Wall Street so far. That is surely about to change.
9:35 PM ET Occupy Wall Street is planning a new occupation at 55 Water Place between JPMorganChase and S&P. The park closes at 10 pm though. In about a half hour, there will be a mass arrest or people will be ordered to disperse, many will leave and a few will be loaded into police vans that are waiting nearby.
9:20 PM ET This is what Union Square in New York looked like a few hours ago.
9:19 PM ET Reuters initially called Occupy “resurgence” a “dud.” But, it seems they came to their senses, looked at video and pictures and decided today’s action wasn’t.
9:12 PM ET Someone or some people are congratulating Seattle for acts of vandalism today, which is concerning.
9:08 PM ET Portland police in standoff with Occupy PDX protesters – photo
9:05 PM ET Oakland police using new “snatch and grab tactics”?
8:55 PM ET “SF Commune” – the building Occupy SF decided to occupy – about to be raided. PunkBoyinSF has a livestream of it here.
8:50 PM ET Occupy Wall Street has large People’s Assembly at 55 Water St (via Paul Weiskel)
8:45 PM ET On Occupy SF’s action: riot police are now in standoff with protesters. (via Joshua Holland)
8:35 PM ET Joshua Stearns of Free Press has a collection of photos & tweets on incidents of press suppression from today’s actions. Both protesters and police have been violating freedom of the press.
8:20 PM ET Nick Pinto reports that at Occupy Wall Street action police lunge into crowd of peaceful protesters, grab two women for arrest and throw others to ground as they go after the women.
Original Post
All day, Firedoglake has been posting updates on the Occupy movement’s May Day actions. The actions continue to unfold, even on the East coast as a massive Occupy Wall Street march gathers near Wall Street and faces off with police, who may arrest them for “rallying” because they do not have a permit to do that. They had a permit for a march.
To catch up on action that occurred during the last few hours, here is Dustin Slaughter’s live blog of action between 4-8 pm EST. Now, updates on May Day continue here and will be posted until at least midnight EST.
LIVESTREAM FROM OCCUPY WALL STREET
Previous updates
-Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn issues emergency order after windows are damaged. The order grants police the authority to have any objects that could be used as weapons confiscated or seized from protesters.
-At least 30-40 people arrested in Occupy Wall Street protests. Here’s livestream of action right now.
-Occupy SF has a new building they are occupying, which they are again dubbing the “SF Commune”
-Los Angeles Airport (LAX) faces protest. Planned arrests happen delaying traffic around the airport. But, the airport is not shut down.
50 Comments
Hey, Kevin! Thanks for the liveblogs!
Here was Memphis today:
http://wreg.com/2012/05/01/memphis-may-day-protest/
Small compared to other cities, but huge for modern Memphis (we haven’t had much activism since MLK was shot here back in the day.)
Cool!
LOL
https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyWallStNYC/status/197498698635284481/photo/1
Here we go.
Occupy LSX is BACK!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=398528283514575&set=a.268288123205259.74990.264223386945066&type=1&theater
Back to NY, lookin’ bad:
https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyInfo/status/197505365070462976/photo/1
Shit, shit shit.
https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyInfo/status/197507290541199361/photo/1
NY livestream is getting active. I’m hearing cops on loudspeaker announcing 5 minutes till arrests right now.
They’re talking about this on LS right now:
https://twitter.com/#!/JAMyerson/status/197508377994215424/photo/1
Ryan from Democracy Now! says the mass arrests have begun:
Nets are out.
I’m surprised they don’t pair this technology with flashbangs, like illegal fishing techniques.
What stream are you watching? The embedded one isn’t showing arrests…
I’m also using my old twitter list of reliable NY sources:
https://twitter.com/?iid=am-22609974913300962533970612&nid=22+dm_reply&screen_name=kittielala&uid=376017547&utm_content=action#!/kellywind/ows
Try this if that link is goofy
https://twitter.com/#!/kellywind/ows
Chaos on LS.
LS narrators says there are 1K to 2K people marching in the street in front of the park…
Right in front of the “Timcast” One (or two?) NYPD officers just clubbed a protester that was already on the ground in the leg with batons. Literally right in front of livecaster.
Continued peaceful assembly downtown at a permitted march. Why are our tax dollar$ being wasted on riot police being deployed to make arrests?
I know. No shame. I bet it’ll be on youtube within 30 minutes.
Gotta’ let the serfs know where they are in the pecking order, I guess.
The one percenters need to shut it down or they lose. They are losing a little every day. People are “finding” out about them. Cenk Uygur had a nice segment on OWS LA earlier.
Do not fight the police. We need to make them allies. Not easy but it can be done. They are working stiffs too you know.
David Graeber is there!
Also, just heard a mic check on LS – they’re thinking of going back to Zucotti…
#PDX LIVE: People chanting, “Undocumented! Unafraid!” Riot cops, panel trucks, bike cops are coming in now: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jessehadden. Please witness!
Huge BOOOOOOs now!!!!!!
Hideous– caught posing for pictures earlier:
Most of these police are natural allies. What would happen if they started to shade their orders or pushed back on them? Ask them for help.
Zucotti pic:
https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyWallSt/status/197516830326259717/photo/1
A better re-occupied Zucotti pic:
https://twitter.com/#!/macfathom/status/197517221747105794/photo/1
Yeah that protester should not be beating the cop’s baton with his blood and leg.
This is a union for which the public now has very little sympathy. Here in Portland some of them are openly nailing up Nazi literature on trees in our parks (can give you the citation in a moment if you ask). They are on a contract to work for the City of Portland and get paid up to 6 figures to harass, spy on and beat the sh#t out of the actual working stiffs who pay their salaries and from whom they derive their benefits. Something really wrong with this picture, eh?
Right. Give him another shot of scotch. I mean the cop to show how much you appreciate his very fine discipline and punishment. Wait, I need another shot too.
The modern day Pinkertons. Maybe they will instigate another Haymarket massacre.
If they can’t be turned, they become the enemy.
Youtube’s up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFizIjzTiSQ
I’m only seeing cops beating protesters.
Portland police pre-emptively arrested the coordinator of tonight’s dance party. So the Disco Tryke is now deployed!! Playing “Disco Inferno” and people are dancing while they march!
Divide the police, if you can. Make the world see the evil.
Sorry. We dance, we march, we do satirical theater but we don’t beat and hurt others. We also move our money to our own owned and managed money cooperatives so there’s even less financial juice from the Fed for these sort of mercenary activities.
That would be the absolute worst thing to do. Violence from our side would end this quickly.
That brawl is not good. You can’t beat them. You make them hate you more. You make the public think you are hoodlums. Bad karma.
That is not what I said. Please read my comment describing peaceful, non-violent resistance one more time.
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I am told that some of these small coops actually put their deposits back in the big money center banks. True?
Everything seems calm and peaceful at Zucotti.
(according to livestream)
But…there are barricades on the west side of zucotti, and the mass arrest bus is parked opposite it. UStream Tim (?) is guessing 20 minutes till eviction, and says more police are arriving.
I just saw CNN’s May Day coverage. Some program called “OutFront”.
The story went something like this:
“OWS is concerned about the economy and poor people. But we’ve already spent over 3 trillion dollars ( on TARP and, QE1 & 2, etc. their numbers actually showed). But can we do more? NO. Enough is enough, say top yadayadas.”
Nice little bit of disinfo/misinfo there. I’ll try and find the video later.
Occupy Hilo just wrapped up our Lei Day festivities…! I’ll be posting at myFDL about it tomorrow…! We were even interviewed by the Free Speech crew…!
Okay, I’m sorry, but OWS needs to disavow black bloc tactics if it wants to maintain any semblance of being the “99%.”
Here in Seattle, the “word on the street” that I’m hearing from coworkers and friends is distinctly anti-OWS, and it’s all because the black bloc angry youth brigade seems to take every possible opportunity to turn a peaceful march into a riot.
I think OWS is pretty much over as a popular movement, even if the folks involved do not/will not admit that yet. I’m just hoping that whatever REPLACES OWS (and make no mistake, since the underlying injustices/inequities are still very much there, and growing, something WILL replace it) has the sense to disavow black bloc tactics and aggressive actions (like vandalism) from day one. Otherwise it, too, will be doomed to irrelevance as the “common man” loses patience with what he (rightly) sees as just a bunch of angry teenagers looking for mayhem.
I still haven’t ruled out the possibility that black bloc tactics are a false flag op, but if OWS openly and forcefully disavowed these tactics and turned over black bloc kids to the police, then in the mind of the “common man,” there would be two distinct groups — OWS protesters, and black bloc troublemakers. Right now, I can pretty much guarantee that just about everyone in Seattle just sees one group: protesters, who like to break windows and set shops on fire.
Your response illustrates the problem perfectly. You are well aware that there are serious issues facing this country that Occupy is trying to address – that corporations have sabotaged our economy (and our environment, and our health) for their own profit, that our rights and liberties are being systematically destroyed, that the common people are being reduced to slaves, and so on. You are also aware that the police charged with protecting this criminal anti-American elite regularly use armed violence and the threat of violence against protesters, the media, and anyone who gets caught in the middle.
And yet, all Occupy has to do is break a window or yell “fuck the police” (a very worthy sentiment, by the way) and suddenly they’re the bad guys?