terribleminds

thedailywhat:

Occupy Wall Street News Round Up of the Day: A week after the “occupation” of Wall Street began with a “Day of Rage,” the peaceful demonstration took a turn for the violent as tensions between police and protesters boiled over.

Between 80 and 100 members of the so-called “99 percent” were arrested for impeding traffic; some were charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. According to protest spokesman Patrick Bruner, the police response was “exceedingly violent.”

Bruner’s claim appears to be confirmed in footage from the Financial District and surrounding areas showing mostly unprovoked altercations between NYPD officers and demonstrators.

“I was shocked because it seemed like one person after another was being brutally tackled, and it wasn’t clear why,” rally attendee Meaghan Linick told the New York Daily News. “I was deeply disturbed to see them throw a man [down] and immediately they were pounding on him. Their arms were going back in the air. I couldn’t believe how violent five people needed to be against one unarmed man.”

Perhaps the most egregious incident involving excessive force came after NYPD officers began kettling protesters with orange police nets. In a video posted to YouTube, a uniformed officer can clearly be seen approaching a corralled group of women and macing them without warning or provocation, before quickly leaving the scene (see below).

In a statement to CBS New York, the NYPD said every arrest made was “justified.” The official Occupy Wall Street website is demanding jail time for the police officer responsible for pepper spraying the barricaded women.

Ironically, by attempting to curb the protesters’ continued Wall Street presence, the police may have unwittingly supplied the “diffuse and leaderless convocation of activists against greed, corporate influence, gross social inequality and other nasty byproducts of wayward capitalism” with the “infusion of energy” they had long hoped for.

Further Reading/Viewing: Photos: 1 2, Videos: 1 2 3, Twitter, Facebook, LiveStream.

[ows / nydn / bi / ap via wapo / cbsny / nyt.]