Police Arrests Hundreds of Protesters in New York

NEW YORK - America is at  crossroads as the middle class is vanishing rapidly. Obama administration’s reforms to close the gap between the rich and the poor is backfiring and the protests seem to be the only way people could use to express their anger against corporate greed, global warming and social inequality.

A group called Occupy Wall Street has been camped out in a plaza in Manhattan's Financial District for nearly two weeks staging various marches, and had orchestrated an impromptu trek to Brooklyn on Saturday evening. Some of the protesters entered the bridge's roadway and were met by a large police presence.

“Multiple warnings by police were given to protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway and that if they took roadway they would be arrested,” said Paul Browne, the chief spokesman of the New York Police Department. The number of those arrested is estimated to 700. The majority of those arrested were given citations for disorderly conduct and were released, police said.

But many protesters said they believed the police had tricked them, allowing them onto the bridge, and even escorting them partway across, only to trap them in orange netting after hundreds had entered.

Several videos taken of the event show a confusing, chaotic scene. Some show protesters screaming obscenities at police and taking a hat from one of the officers. Others show police struggling with people who refuse to get up. Nearby, a couple posed for wedding pictures on the bridge.

“We were supposed to go up the pedestrian roadway,” said Robert Cammiso, a 48-year-old student from Brooklyn told the Daily News. “There was a huge funnel, a bottleneck, and we couldn’t fit. People jumped from the walkway onto the roadway. We thought the roadway was open to us.”

"This was not a protest against the NYPD. This was a protest of the 99% against the disproportionate power of the 1%," protester Robert Cammiso told the BBC.

"We are not anarchists. We are not hooligans. I am a 48-year-old man. The top 1% control 50% of the wealth in the USA."

Another protester, Henry-James Ferry, said: "It is not fair that our government supports large corporations rather than the people.

"I only heard about the protest on day one when I came across it. I then decided to go back every day," he told the BBC.

Erin Larkins, a Columbia University graduate student at who says she and her boyfriend have significant student loan debt, was among the thousands of protesters on the bridge. She said a friend persuaded her to join the march and she’s glad she did.

“I don’t think we’re asking for much, just to wake up every morning not worrying whether we can pay the rent, or whether our next meal will be rice and beans again,” Larkins wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “No one is expecting immediate change. I think everyone is just hopeful that people will wake up a bit and realize that the more we speak up, the more the people that do have the authority to make changes in this world listen.”

In related protests elsewhere in the country, 25 people were arrested in Boston for trespassing while protesting Bank of America’s foreclosure practices, according to Eddy Chrispin, a spokesman for the Boston Police Department. The protesters were on the grounds and blocking the entrance to the building, Mr. Chrispin said.

by Alfred Kola (NY Times, WP, BBC, FoxNews)