AM New York Monday March 19

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Occupy Wall Street: Cops probe threatening tweet as OWS regroups

Monday March 19 More

Seventy-three Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested over the weekend during the movement’s six-month anniversary, as organizers hope to put a fresh face on the occupation.

Some 300 protesters gathered at the movement’s former home base, Zuccotti Park, Saturday night after a day of protests in lower Manhattan.

Officers cleared the protesters out just before midnight, during which accounts of heavy-handedness were widely reported by protesters and the media…

Occupiers gathered yesterday to address on what they called continued “brutality” by police” and suppression of OWS by authorities.

“We need to confront and defeat the brutality and oppression that’s part of the continued suppression” of Occupy Wall Street, said organizer Alice Woodward, who spoke at a rally at Pace University yesterday.

“In order to come back and be strong, we need to confront that,” she said, adding that it will be a focal point of Occupy’s spring plans.

Fliers distributed in lower Manhattan yesterday called for a “massive demonstrations – soon – carried out in public spaces,” but organizers said there are no concrete plans for a major rally as of yet.

The NYP didn’t return a request for comment.  more

NYC Metro: Occupy Protesters Arrested

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Occupy protesters arrested

Metro NYC  ALISON BOWEN 18 March 2012 10:44

Getty Images

A worker cleans Zuccotti Park as a New York Police Department car sits nearby March 18, 2012 after Occupy Wall Street demonstrators were cleared from the park the previous night in New York.

After a failed attempt to reclaim Zuccotti Park on Saturday night, Occupy Wall Street members say they are victims of a fresh round of alleged police brutality.

The NYPD arrested 73 protesters, who were at the park in celebration of the movement’s six-month anniversary.

“They beat people. They grabbed people by the throat, and for what?” protester Travis Morales said. “We were joyously celebrating.”  More.

 

Emergency Meeting in Response to Saturday Night NYPD Brutalization of People in Zuccotti Park

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Suppression at Zuccotti Park March 17
Suppression at Zuccotti Park March 17. See NYT photos

Emergency Meeting in Response to Saturday Night NYPD Brutalization of People in Zuccotti Park
Today, Sunday, 2 pm
In the Courtyard, B-Level (entrance on Spruce Street)
At the Left Forum
Pace University
41 Park Row (just east across the street from City Hall Park)

As hundreds of people joyously celebrated the six month birthday of Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park, the largest gathering in months without police barricades, the NYPD declared the park closed at 11:30 pm.  They moved into the park swinging batons, beating people attempting to exercise rights that are supposed to be legally guaranteed.  The New York Times reported that scores were arrested. Continue reading →

Wall Street Protesters Complain of Police Surveillance

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March 11, 2012   New York Times
By

original story

On Nov. 17, Kira Moyer-Sims was near the Manhattan Bridge, buying coffee while three friends waited nearby in a car. More than a dozen blocks away, protesters gathered for an Occupy Wall Street “day of action,” which organizers had described as an attempt to block the streets around the New York Stock Exchange.

Then, Ms. Moyer-Sims said, about 30 police officers surrounded her and the people in the car. Continue reading →

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NYC: Standing with Occupy! February 28, 2012

Revolution March 1, 2012  Photostream Li Onesto, Special to Revolution

Four hundred people rallied in New York City to say: “We stand with Occupy! Don’t Suppress the Occupy Movement.” The rally was infused with the spirit of “The Call for Mass Resistance Against the Suppression of the Occupy Movement.” An Occupy activist led the crowd in “a mic check” of a portion of the Call, and occupiers perched on ladders in the crowd told their stories of repression. Continue reading →

Reports from F28 Chicago; Cleveland, Houston

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REPORTS FROM F28: “Don’t Suppress the Occupy Movement!”

Revolution received the following reports about Defend Occupy demonstrations on February 28 (see “NYC: Standing with Occupy!” for coverage of F28 in New York City):

CHICAGO

A February 28 protest was held in Chicago answering the call for mass action against the suppression of the Occupy movement. People gathered at the site of the original Chicago occupation where the Board of Trade, Federal Reserve and Bank of America meet. The protest included Occupy activists, students, a crew of dedicated occupiers who have kept a presence at this site for five months, environmental and anti-war activists, military veterans and others. Some who joined the protest had not been active since the fall. Some came in from hours away. Continue reading →

Weaponizing the Body Politic

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Weaponizing the Body Politic

 March 4, 2012 Tomgram: Stephan Salisbury

When I covered the Occupy Wall Street protests last fall, I just couldn’t stay focused, despite the fact that people from across the country and around the world were traveling to that block-long half-acre park of granite walls and honey-locust trees in lower Manhattan to build a new mini-society.  It boasted free housing, free food, free medical care, free education, and free music.  Every day in Zuccotti Park there were thrilling rap sessions and you could watch direct democracy in action as people came together to exchange ideas in provocative new ways.  To steal a well-worn activist phrase, it looked like another world was possible.

And there I was, staring across the street.  While it seemed like 99% of the 99% were captivated by the excitement in the park, I was transfixed by the police.

Day after day, I would cover Occupy Wall Street and day after day, I would get hassled by members of the New York City Police Department.  They didn’t like it when I asked questions about their Sky Watch tower — a two-story-tall, Panopticon-like structure outfitted with black-tinted windows, a spotlight, sensors, and multiple cameras that spied on the park.  They got angry when I counted their dozens of police vehicles around the plaza’s perimeter, or when I asked questions about the unmarked white truck that just happened to have a camera mounted on a forty-foot pole protruding from its roof.

They trailed me, took pictures of me, demanded my identification, and repeatedly confronted me. One cop even declared my reporting “illegal.” But I couldn’t help myself.  Watching the NYPD was like gawking at a car wreck. I was reminded of the police response to the 2004 Republic National Convention, but on steroids.  To take just one example, back then, the NYPD had around 9,000 steel barricades to pen in protesters around the city — enough, that is, to stretch from one tip of Manhattan to the other.  More than seven years later, the approximately 150 steel barricades that formed a cordon around Zuccotti Park were part of a NYPD inventory that could enclose the entire island in a formidable ring of steel.

Full article is here: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/