20,000+ Protesters March on Brooklyn Bridge!

This is our Liveblog of the day’s events, brought to you by Will McLeod with TheOther99. Press Refresh for timely updates. Watch our live video broadcasts here.

7:18

Tim Pool, our Media Director, was kept out of the Press Area by people working for UnitedNY. They were trying to guarantee a safe environment, and this was a huge misunderstanding. They’ve graciously apologized, and we’ve gladly accepted. We’ll all be in better communication next time to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

 6:37

Journalist told Tim Pool that arrested members of the press are in danger of loosing their press passes. Considering the arbitrary arrests of people with official press passes on tuesday morning, that’s intimidation.

6:13

NBC Reports their chopper pilot misunderstood directions. Airspace over lower Manhattan is open.

5:54

All choppers are called away. Airspace over lower Manhattan has been closed.

5:37

Over 9,000 people are standing in Foley Square right now. This is a massive gathering.

5:18

Foley square is completely packed. Henry Ferry is en route. Tim Pool is marching with 3000 others who are heading to Foley square now.

There are seven choppers in the air that I can confirm. Some are news, others are NYPD.

4:20

Huge confrontation between protesters and police!

Protester kicks over police barricade and is tackled, papers are being thrown out of a window! THIS IS AN OCCUPIED BUILDING, JOIN US TAKE IT BACK!”

Thousands marching down 5th ave, facing off with a few dozen officers. We now have two streams up.

4:06

We can confirm that there are other marches in other places around the city. People are occupying the subways, telling their stories. In addition to this, a march is beginning, heading to Foley Sqare.

3:54

“We stood up against economic injustice, and for that, they took our tents, they took our medicine, they took the people’s library.”

3:37

Sign: “Student Debt is a National Threat.”

3:30

Marchers have arrived at Union Square.

2:51

Video of Bloodied protester being arrested:

2:48

Captain Lewis, Retired, of the Philly PD was arrested while in full uniform today:

2:21 

This is what we’re being told: A man known as Brendan “Romania” was kicking barricades. We’re told that the police tackled him to the ground, bashing his head on the curb surrounding a flower bed.

His clothes are in the park, and there is blood on the ground.

2:09

Protesters have told us that the man who kicked a barricade was beaten by the NYPD and stripped. His pants, scarf, and boots are lying on the ground.

They stripped him in the park.

There is blood on the ground.

2:07

At least one person arrested. They ripped something that looked like a camera out of his hands.

One protester was hit in the head, and is bleeding. We’ve seen photographs over our video on others’ cameras.

Tim Pool is now in the park.

OWS Loses Right To Tents. Evicted Protesters now Returning. Park will close at 10. Liveblog.

This is our liveblog for the day’s events. Press Refresh for updated information. 

Summary of the Day’s Events:

Last night at 1:30 AM, Mayor Bloomberg ordered the police to clear the square in a night raid. The city was served with a Temporary Restraining Order, but by design or incompetence, the city did not receive the order, saying in court that it was issued at 4:30 AM. Apparently, this is too early to obey the laws, but not too early to arbitrarily enforce them. At least 7 journalists were arrested during the night raid, many of them with official NYC press passes. One journalist informed an officer that she was a member of the press. The police responded “Not tonight.” New York City seems to believe that it can violate freedom of the press at will.

A tense court battle followed, and while protesters were ultimately allowed back in the square, they were not allowed to bring tents with them. We are broadcasting these events live at ustream.tv/theother99.

25 Swat Members Raid Peaceful Occupation of Vacant Building

There have been a number of stories elsewhere  about the Take Back The Land movement, which seeks to end the foreclosure crisis. Chris Bowers at DailyKos wrote an excellent diary about the occupy movement’s occupation of a police officer’s home to prevent foreclosure foreclosure.

As part of this movement, protesters occupied an abandoned building in Chapel Hill which has been vacant for more than a decade.

The plans to repurpose the building included a dormatory, library, dining room, kitchen, free clinic, performance space, seed library and tool shed for urban farming, free childcare center, and a bike mechanic’s space. The owner’s plans included leaving this space vacant for more than a decade.

Here’s the building before the eviction, courtesy of the Charlotte Observer:

Arrests at Occupy Houston for the Use of Tarps and Jaywalking

I wish I were joking.

Last night, ten people were arrested at OccupyHouston. As this was a night raid, the quality of the camera footage is poor. Much of it was taken on cellphones.

Occupy Houston has been beset by problems. Though they live in one of the largest cities in the US, they’re one of the smallest occupations. They’ve been camped at Tranquility Park, north of city hall, for weeks now. They’ve braved swarming mosquitoes, hot weather, waterfountains that barely work, and this week, dangerous thunderstorms that caused tornadoes in other parts of the county.

One of the protesters built himself a lean-to style structure to protect his belongings from the rain. A tarp descended from a wall at an angle, creating a cover. The police approached him, and told him that he could remove the tarp, or be arrested. He refused. Five other occupiers crawled into the lean to with him, refusing to let him be arrested alone. They were all arrested.

Later, a protester attempted to cross the street. A patrol car blocked the crosswalk, so he was arrested for Jaywalking, as were three other people who crossed the street after him to ask for badge numbers. For those who don’t know the area, the paddy wagon in the first video is driving the wrong way down a one way street. This is, again, in order to arrest a protester for Jaywalking. The protesters chant “this is what hypocrisy looks like!”

Here’s the full video on that:

As you can see from these videos, the police refuse to give badge numbers. Among the three people arrested for crossing the street was Occupy Houston’s legal counsel.

Thankfully, I have no reports of injuries at this time, and it looks like the Houston Police were civil in their behavior, though they enforced ridiculous laws. The reasons for these arrests are pathetic, but par for the course in Houston, whose “Civility Ordinance” illegalizes homelessness, making it illegal to sleep on sidewalks or construct shelters.

I’m expecting an e-mail from the Occupiers at houston. I’ll update you with more information when I recieve it.

Violent Arrests at OccupyMobile in Alabama

Yesterday, OccupyMobile agreed to peacefully vacate Spanish Plaza.

The reason they did so was to make way for Veterans Day celebrations. They’ve made this very clear. They didn’t want to prevent the veterans from using Spanish Plaza. At least 20 protesters form Occupy Pensacola joined them, and they attempted to re-base further away from down town, at Memorial Park.

At least 20 people from both occupations were arrested last night, violently. They sang God Bless America, This Land is Your Land, and Why Can’t We Be Friends before the police moved in.

The protesters linked arms, and clung tightly to each other as the police pulled them apart, dragging at least one protester feet first down several stone steps, knocking his head against the stone.

These videos are hard to watch.

We’re also getting reports of arrests out of several other smaller occupations, we can confirm raids in two cities, and are trying to verify raids in two more. Stay with us here, and we’ll update you. We’re editing video right now, which will be up shortly.

After being chased out of Spanish Plaza, Occupy Mobile and supporters from Occupy Pensacola attempted to regroup at Memorial Park.

The full 10 minute video is here.

The protesters linked arms, and sang. The police moved in.

For those who can’t use youtube, in these videos, protestesters were warned that they were about to be arrested. They linked arms. They sang “God Bless America,” “This Land is Your Land,” and “Why Can’t We Be Friends,” before the officers pulled them apart.

This is what happened next: the police approached, and began pulling the protesters apart. At about 50 seconds in this video, you can see the police pull one protester legs first down the memorial steps, his back and head impacting with the stone stairs.

You can see the same thing at about 1:00 in this video, from a seperate camera:

Here’s a third angle. You can see the protester get dragged down the steps at about 1:30.

You can hear the crowd chanting “the whole world is watching,” and shouting at the police “Stop hurting them! Don’t break his arm, officer!”

Outside of the police station, family members can hear at least one protester begging the police to take his cuffs off.

The people listening in tell the camera that the person inside was begging to have his cuffs taken off because they were so tight they were cutting into his wrists.

“Please please please! Oh my god please! Please please please take these cuffs off!” Another voice speaks to the person inside. All I can hear is “You know what?” Repeated.

Someone approaches the people standing outside of the station, and asks them to move. The video cuts out.

We’ll be following this story, and the peaceful occupation in Mobile, Alabama, very closely. We’ll post updates and followups here when we have more information.

Occupy Mobile Evicted. Liveblog.

TheOther99 is committed to making sure that Smaller Occupations get the coverage they deserve. That’s why we’re covering places like OccupyTulsa, and OccupyMobile. When they chant “the whole world is watching” it’s our job to make sure that the whole world actually is. So please, stay with us as we set up this liveblog. We’ve got two sources on the ground we’ve been talking with, and we’ve put in a call to Mobile’s mayor.

This is what we know so far: The Mayor of Mobile told them they had till Wednesday Morning. Because almost all of the Mobile occupiers are employed, their camp has as few as ten people during the day. The mayor and police know this. So today, at noon, police ordered the encampment cleared, reneging on the previous deadline of tomorrow morning.

Because Mobile is critically underfunded, they absolutely cannot lose anything: there’s no way to replace it. The ten protesters that were there packed up what they could, and left Spanish park. Mayor Sam Jones says that he does not believe in public peaceable assembly.

“I respect the right of free speech guaranteed under the US constitution,” he said, “however, that right does not allow the occupation of public parks and facilities without permission.” [Emphasis Mine]

Yet again, public officials are declaring that the right to free assembly only applies to private property. We have unconfirmed reports that one of the officers on scene has been accused of brutality in the past. We’re still trying to confirm those reports. We haven’t received a response to our request for official comment.

Emily Shuler spoke about the Occupation:

Emilee: We could benefit from more people in Mobile coming out and helping us. Right now we have the same people that we’ve had this whole time. We have acquired some new faces from upstate new york and from all around the country but we need more people locally. We’re not just focusing on the issues of Wall Street, I mean, that is a big part of it, but a lot of it has to do with a bunch of local Grievances that everyone can relate to. That’s one thing that we really need is more heads here to help us.

Newscaster: Now do y’all plan on coming back if you get a chance?

Emilee: I’m not sure what the exact plans are yet. I guess we’ll decide that in a general assembly. For the most part we plan on finding a place. We’re not going to fizzle out and die, that’s for sure. We’re going to find a place, maybe some private property, where we can set up camp and come tackle different issues, just have somewhere we can stay and work from there, have a base camp here.

4:36 PM EST:

Two Things. First, the protesters only agreed to move so that veterans day celebrations could take place in Spanish Plaza. Al.com quotes one of them: Michael Lynch, one of the protestors, said that the group came to a consensual decision to comply with the mayor’s demand in respect for the veterans. “We are moving for the veterans because we respect the sacrifice they made so we can even be here,” he said. “We are not doing this for City Hall. They can go to hell.”

They’ve moved temporarily to a second location, but many will re-enter the park tonight, having volunteered to be arrested.

Second, people requested phone numbers.

Here you go: (And Remember, it’s Mo-BEEL Alabama)

Mobile Mayor’s Office: 251-208-7411

Mobile Prosecutor’s Office: 251-208-7416

Mobile City Administration: 251-208-7416

5:38 PM EST:

Several of us have called multiple times. As of now, no one has returned our calls. People who are set aside to deal with the press are “unavailable.” Why is it that any time we ask questions of any government body, the people who are designated to respond are unavailable? This is a consistent problem.

5:50 PM EST

This was the scene at Occupy Mobile yesterday:

Encampment at Occupy Mobile

As you can see for yourrself, it’s a very small, very orderly occupation. Many people have been involved for weeks. As I wrote earlier, most of them work, so the encampment is very small during the day. While they have had daily marches for the past three weeks, they’ve only been occupying Spanish Plaza since Saturday.
Their General Assembly is being held now. Several people have volunteered to be arrested. Stay with us.

7:20 PM EST:

The OccupyMobile Livestream is online. You can follow it here:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/occupymobileal

We have confirmed reports of Police on Horseback.

7:38 PM EST

We can confirm multiple police on horseback. We can hear the occasional clopping of hooves over livestream. The Narrator told us about the horses recently. They can see at least 4 mounted officers that can be seen. The Livestream operator is reporting multiple paddywagons nearby, as well as several patrol and undercover cars.

 

9:00 PM EST

50 supporters are inbound from Pensacola, and they’re planning on occupying a different park. This is the result of a long, procedural GA, and conversations with Occupiers Elsewhere.