Hempstead, NY Vol.77 | Issue 04
The Hofstra
Chronicle
Thursday
October 6, 2011
Keeping the Hofstra Community informed since 1935
Occupy Wall Street and the politics of trying By Bryan Menegus Staff Writer
On October 2 at 2:46am, i felt the greatest wave of relief of my adult life. a manila envelope containing my wallet and my backpack were returned to me, now bearing tags with my name and date of birth on them, and i was let free to find my own way home in the damp chill of light rain. 2:46 was the time i was released from a holding cell at 1 Police Plaza, NYPD headquarters, where myself and several hundred other detainees had been carted off in the first wave of over 700 arrests which occurred on the Brooklyn Bridge this weekend. My cell alone held 120 people. approximately 11 hours earlier, over 1,000 protestors representing the Occupy Wall Street movement had started to march from their de facto home base of Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan down the sidewalks of Broadway, flanked by motorcycle-mounted police officers. The park – which had served the functions of both hub and hostel for the previous 14 days–all forms of media attention. Celebrities like Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore, rapper immortal technique, and intellectual Cornell West came in person to speak, while Noah Chomsky commented by video. Zuccotti Park also remains circumscribed by a 24-hour police presence: officers mainly from the outer boroughs working overtime. Wall Street proper, a few blocks south, is barricaded and on constant watch. All officers assigned to the protest are given standing orders not to speak to the media, and the Deputy Commissioner of Public information was unavailable for comment by phone, email, or in person. the reasons protesters listed for participation were just as varied as the personalities who made appearances. Some had come to demand accountability
from bankers in regards to the global recession, bearing signs like ‘Where’s my bailout?’ Others were aggravated unions workers. Professional Staff Congress, USPS, and the Steelworkers have, among others, pledged their solidarity. Other protesters had more tangential causes: the ron Paul sycophants, the 9/11 and illuminati conspiracy theorists, drifters, fringe radicals, and a few homeless people. and some people just want to get arrested— a belt notch and a badge of honor among pseudo-radicals. While the encampment at Zuccotti Park is startlingly efficient and compartmentalized—a generator powers a media center, donations are sent to either the kitchen or the comfort center, which provides everything from bedding to baby wipes, a library provides reading material, and a team of protesters, like Kyle Kneightinger, have volunteered as medics to treat injuries and manage sanitation—the protesters’ purpose resembles an internet forum more than a traditional protest. Occupy Wall Street offers an outlet for the multivariate threads of frustration, in whatever form they manifest themselves. Like a perverse walk across the red carpet the protest migrated down Broadway, waylaid pedestrians on either side of the street and tourists leaning out of double-decker buses clenched their cameras in anticipation; NYPD officers from the Tactical assistance research Unit panned across the growing crowd with camcorders. Protesters in motion snapped photos of themselves and their compatriots. “Can i take a picture of you?” a stout Korean woman in the march asked of a ragged anarchist to her left. in the hearts and minds of New Yorkers, this moment was predetermined to be an historic one, and no one wanted to be without proof that
“My little nightstick’s gonna get a workout tonight.”
Bryan Menegus/The Chronicle
Photo from inside NYPD paddy wagon taken with cellular phone while handcuffed. Officer Louie stands outside the vehicle awaiting more detainees.
they had been a witness. “all day, all week,” the protesters chanted, “occupy Wall Street!” “Stay on the sidewalk,” officers demanded as the protest yawned left around City Hall Park towards Centre Street – the entry point of the Brooklyn Bridge Promenade. the narrow pedestrian entrance bottlenecked the protesters, who spilled out into the street despite officers’ requests. At the entry to the Brooklyn Bridge’s roadway, a few officers attempted to hold off the swell of bodies. One whiteshirt (an officer ranked as a Lieutenant or higher) read a written statement over a megaphone explaining blocking vehicular traffic as an arrestable offence; another officer about 50 feet back jeered, “S--t or get off the pot, you f--king losers.” Over the din of drums and chants, the megaphone was barely audible past 100 feet. the closest line of protesters linked arms and marched past the police and onto the roadway. Supporters leapt the promenade fenceand to rejoin the larger contingent of the march. an impromptu call-and-response rang out as they spread across all three Brooklyn-bound lanes. “Whose bridge? Our bridge!” “Keep marching!” shouted Bob Lyons, a teacher from Brooklyn.
the wiry, graying man craned his neck to see why the crowd had stopped dead. from atop the girders of the bridge, it was obvious that police had arrived from Brooklyn and that a second detachment was pushing its way up the road from Manhattan. Paddy wagons and buses joined as officers unfurled orange netting to contain the protesters from both sides. it was nearly 5pm. At first, demonstrators were being let out in a single file line. Orders were then modified: anyone on the road was to be arrested one at a time, ideally with five prisoners per arresting officer, and taken en masse to the nearest available precinct. “Hey handsome! Yeah, you. Come over here,” Officer Winski, a Manhattan-side whiteshirt at the edge of the orange netting barked, pointing to a man in a red suit. Like the dozen or so people before him, he was immediately restrained with plasticuffs and led towards a paddy wagon. The first few caravans of prisoners were directed to 1 Police Plaza in Manhattan to be processed and checked for outstanding warrants. Officer Scheiber, who was driving us to headquarters, mumbled to himself, “Do you know how many weekends this
is going to f--k up? Do you know how many people were supposed to be eating dinner?” it took the NYPD several hours to clear the protesters off the roadway, many of whom chose to sit and be dragged away rather than leave willingly. at the time this article is being written, Occupy Wall Street is engaged in another march. Protesters have pushed their way onto Wall Street, amanda Clarke, a New School senior, confirmed. Videos of police officers using nightsticks on protesters and one officer bragging, “My little nightstick’s gonna get a workout tonight,” are beginning to swamp social media sites. Pictures have confirmed the presence of the NYPD’s counterterrorism unit, and anajali Mullany from the New York Daily News reports random pepper-spraying into the crowd, which she estimates at between 10,000 and 20,000 strong, bolstered by a heavier union presence. the larger movement of Occupy together—springing up protests in dozens of cities—is still in its formative stages, and it will be a long and tiring road before (or if) they acquire the agency for the sweeping social changes they have alluded to. these are the politics of trying.