"#OccupyWallStreet Protestors: Police Led Crowd Onto Brooklyn Bridge, Then Maced And Assaulted Us"
"#OccupyWallStreet Protestors: Police Led Crowd Onto
Brooklyn Bridge, Then Maced And Assaulted Us"
By Alexander Higgins
By Alexander Higgins
"Protestors at the front line of yesterday’s Occupy Wall street protest, which led to the arrest of 780 activists on the Brooklyn Bridge, says the police allowed the crowd the march onto the Brooklyn bridge where they were met by a brigade of police officer’s who aggressively elbowed, punched, tossed, dragged, and maced them. A NY Times reporter arrested on the scene with the protestors initially reported police allowed them to enter the Brooklyn Bridge, then blocked them in and arrested them. The NY Times changed their story to match the official police version 20 minutes later, saying the protestors entered the bridge despite repeated warnings not to enter the bridge.
Yesterday, I documented in real-time the unfolding events at Brooklyn Bridge were over 780 people were mass arrested in a police setup. The event was streamed live to over 20,000 live web cam stream which switched back and forth from cameras set up at threes separate locations along the march. Since then hundreds of thousands have watched recordings of yesterdays videos. After the live streams went to playing previously recorded videos of the turmoil as it unfolded, I then documented the corporate media reports from news sites who had reporters on the ground and were reporting live on the situation.
As I wrote in the above article, I did so before the story disappeared or changed. As a very popular post on Reddit points out it only took 20 minutes for the New York Times to revise history.
As I wrote in the above article, I did so before the story disappeared or changed. As a very popular post on Reddit points out it only took 20 minutes for the New York Times to revise history.
Click image for larger size.
NY Times revises initial reports of Brooklyn Bridge arrests.
The revision of the article would be acceptable if the original story was provided by a third party source who was later found to be unreliable or if new information discredited the first source. But that is not what happened here. Colin Moyniham, who I have been in contact with recently about an article on the protests I am highly anticipating being published, has in fact co-authored other articles on the protests with Natasha Lennard. Now the kicker is Natasha Lennard was with the protestors on the bridge who were kettled and arrested and was the source of the information in article. Apparently, since the police have stated that report is not the official version, the NY Times had to disregard the version of events as reported by the protestors and even their own reporters who were caught in the middle of the anarchy
I spent all night interviewing people to find out what really happened. What I learned is that protestors recalled different versions of what happened depending on their place in the march. The people in the middle of the crowd following the leaders were simply following the people. The were under the impression that police allowed them on the bridge as they followed others in front of them past several police and marched onto the bridge. They all reported that they were not directed onto the bridge by the police, but instead were allowed. The Huffington Post has an excellent detailed interview with a person details a this kind “protestors in the middle of the crowd” account. However, as the full details emerged I learned that the people at the very front of the crowd had a very different account of the story.
The protestors in the front of the march say as the Marched up Broadway toward 1 Police Plaza and reached the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, the police sat and waited. Three different people interviewed, at different times with no knowledge of the other’s accounts told me that as the approached the bridge the police directed part of the crowd onto the pedestrian walkway which sits above the road way. A larger stream of marchers was then directed by the police onto the roadway heading out of Manhattan and into Brooklyn. Then as they continued to march, only 1/3rd of the bridge they met a line of hostile police officers forming a barricade and walking toward them. That indicates the officers on the Brooklyn side of the bridge began crossing the bridge on the roadway before the protestors even entered the roadway, because the Police crossed 2/3rds of the bridge in the same time the protestors crossed only 1/3rd of the bridge.
Another difference in the accounts from those in the front of the protests and those in the middle of the protests is police response in arresting the protestors. Those who were not in the front of the march report civil police who acted appropriately and calmly. The protestors who were at the front of the march say the police approached them in a rank and file and assaulted the protestors as they neared. All three interviewed say police were slamming and dragging protestors and elbowing them. Some people also told me the witnessed police throwing punches and one person interviewed reported the police macing people. While others overheard protestors discussing the macing, I could only find one person who said he witnessed it.
So basically protestors were given two damned if you do, damned if you don’t choices by the police. The first option was they could ignore the orders to separate the crowd and enter the roadway and face disorderly conduct charges for now following orders or perhaps even worse charges. The second option was to follow police direction to enter the bridge roadway as directed and obey the orders from the police. They obviously chose the second which led to the arrest of 780 people.
(Note: The third interview, in which the NYPD denied medical attention to a man who was handcuffed so tight he passed out, will be posted later because someone the name of a third party in the video who asked not to be identified needs to be edited out before the video can be posted. I am exhausted at this point and will edit the video and post it later.) Here are their interviews.
In closing, in 1992, thousands of police were protesting on the Brooklyn bridge and not arrested (nytimes.com)
JPMorgan Chase recently donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation. The gift was the largest in the history of the foundation and will enable the New York City Police Department to strengthen security in the Big Apple. (jpmorganchase.com)
I spent all night interviewing people to find out what really happened. What I learned is that protestors recalled different versions of what happened depending on their place in the march. The people in the middle of the crowd following the leaders were simply following the people. The were under the impression that police allowed them on the bridge as they followed others in front of them past several police and marched onto the bridge. They all reported that they were not directed onto the bridge by the police, but instead were allowed. The Huffington Post has an excellent detailed interview with a person details a this kind “protestors in the middle of the crowd” account. However, as the full details emerged I learned that the people at the very front of the crowd had a very different account of the story.
The protestors in the front of the march say as the Marched up Broadway toward 1 Police Plaza and reached the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, the police sat and waited. Three different people interviewed, at different times with no knowledge of the other’s accounts told me that as the approached the bridge the police directed part of the crowd onto the pedestrian walkway which sits above the road way. A larger stream of marchers was then directed by the police onto the roadway heading out of Manhattan and into Brooklyn. Then as they continued to march, only 1/3rd of the bridge they met a line of hostile police officers forming a barricade and walking toward them. That indicates the officers on the Brooklyn side of the bridge began crossing the bridge on the roadway before the protestors even entered the roadway, because the Police crossed 2/3rds of the bridge in the same time the protestors crossed only 1/3rd of the bridge.
Another difference in the accounts from those in the front of the protests and those in the middle of the protests is police response in arresting the protestors. Those who were not in the front of the march report civil police who acted appropriately and calmly. The protestors who were at the front of the march say the police approached them in a rank and file and assaulted the protestors as they neared. All three interviewed say police were slamming and dragging protestors and elbowing them. Some people also told me the witnessed police throwing punches and one person interviewed reported the police macing people. While others overheard protestors discussing the macing, I could only find one person who said he witnessed it.
So basically protestors were given two damned if you do, damned if you don’t choices by the police. The first option was they could ignore the orders to separate the crowd and enter the roadway and face disorderly conduct charges for now following orders or perhaps even worse charges. The second option was to follow police direction to enter the bridge roadway as directed and obey the orders from the police. They obviously chose the second which led to the arrest of 780 people.
(Note: The third interview, in which the NYPD denied medical attention to a man who was handcuffed so tight he passed out, will be posted later because someone the name of a third party in the video who asked not to be identified needs to be edited out before the video can be posted. I am exhausted at this point and will edit the video and post it later.) Here are their interviews.
In closing, in 1992, thousands of police were protesting on the Brooklyn bridge and not arrested (nytimes.com)
JPMorgan Chase recently donated an unprecedented $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation. The gift was the largest in the history of the foundation and will enable the New York City Police Department to strengthen security in the Big Apple. (jpmorganchase.com)
- http://beforeitsnews.com/
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