700 Wall Street protesters arrested for blocking Brooklyn Bridge traffic

posted at 11:24 am on October 2, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Culture ]   

Liberals once again proved on Saturday that they can’t protest a perceived injustice without making a public nuisance of themselves. Members of Occupy Wall Street—the amorphous and largely clueless group that has been camped out in New York’s Financial District for nearly two weeks—decided on the spur of the moment to occupy the Brooklyn Bridge instead.

Police diverted from more important tasks to function as baby-sitters admonished demonstrators to stick to the pedestrian pathway. Needless to say, about 1,000 protesters interpreted the warning as their cue to move their act to the roadway, where they blocked traffic and clashed with cops for several hours, creating larger-than-normal traffic delays.

Some 700 protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct amid chants of “Let us go.” Change the slogan to “Off the pigs” and the theme to taking down “the Man,” and the scene could have been straight out of the ‘70s—except that the Man is currently black, which kind of spoils everything.

Some of those taken into custody claim they were tricked into being arrested by the NYPD, which they insist gave them misleading information about where on the bridge they could demonstrate.

Then again, the misinformation has been flowing for the duration of the sit-in, and those assembled have been willing dupes. At one point, for example, a rumor sprang up on Twitter that the police planned to use tear gas on the protesters—a crowd-control tactic the department doesn’t use. The claim was eventually rescinded.

As to what the protesters hope to accomplish, one of their own summed it up neatly in an email to The Associated Press. Erin Larkins, a Columbia University graduate student, wrote:

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. 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.

I’m pretty sure that most Americans at this point are on the same page as Larkins. The only question is how to bring about the change she is seeking. Somehow, I don’t think taking up residence on the streets of lower Manhattan and defiling the bathroom at a nearby McDonald’s is the answer.

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