Police Violence Escalates, Day Five on Wall Street

Chanting “Who do you protect? Who do you serve?” the protesters occupying Wall Street are digging in for a fifth day and circulating graphic images and video of escalating police violence and harassment.

There are several reports of hospitalizations due to brutal arrest tactics, such as this one showing a protestor tossed headfirst to the pavement from atop a pile of equipment. Police were using the pretext of protesters’ having covered their media gear with a tarp to claim they’d illegally erected a tent on city sidewalks.

Never mind that it wasn’t a tent, wasn’t on a sidewalk, and that every media professional in New York covers their gear when it rains without the police uttering a word, much less arresting them.

Other images clearly show the police causing injury by dragging protesters through the street, using intentionally painful holds, grinding faces into the sidewalk, etc. Apparently the media team for the Anonymous hackers organization were targeted for this special treatment.

For at least 48 hours, Yahoo blocked communications involving the occupation, and police are barricading streets & blocking shipments of water and food to the protesters.

The NYC chapter of CodePink has joined the protest, and promptly got arrested for “defacing” the NYC sidewalks with chalk.

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, which has covered the story from the beginning, just published an op-ed, Why the Wall Street Occupation Makes Sense. She makes the right point about the mainstream media blackout: “If 2,000 Tea Party activists descended on Wall Street, you would probably have an equal number of reporters there covering them.”

previous coverage
occupy and escalate
big brother on campus
california is burning
will occupation become a movement?
grad students spearhead wisconsin capitol occupation
the occupation will be televised
the occupation cookbook
xposted: chronicle of higher education