Eviction of Zuccotti park canceled: Protesters clash with cops anyway

posted at 1:09 pm on October 14, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Culture ]   

Raise your hand if you’re surprised by the fact that the Occupy Wall Street protests in lower Manhattan erupted this morning in a noisy, violent clash with the police. After all, wouldn’t you gomano a mano with New York’s Finest if they tried to evict you from your home of four weeks?

Before you answer that question, be mindful that no one attempted to evict anyone. Early this morning, the squatters in Zuccotti Park learned that Brookfield Properties, which owns the plot of land, had aborted its planned cleanup. The mayor’s office sent tidings at 6 a.m., informing the occupiers that they were once again free to camp out in the park indefinitely.

But the protesters, who apparently had girded themselves for a good fight, began “throwing bottles and bags of garbage at officers” anyway. Police retaliated. CBS New York reports on one particularly ugly skirmish:

First Precinct Commander Ed Winski checked a protester who refused to stay on the sidewalk. When the protester came back into the street, Winski hurled his megaphone down and wound up rolling around in the street with the protester, throwing punches. Other officers surrounded the two, throwing punches. The protester was arrested.

Shades of Chicago, 1968.

There were about a dozen arrests in all, all provoked by demonstrators who, channeling the president’s former chief of staff, decided not to let a crisis go to waste.

Today’s were not the first arrests since the sit-in began. That dubious distinction belongs to some 700 protesters who were taken into police custody after blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 2. Something, however, tells me this won’t be the last incidence of violence from the “party of peace.”

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