ATLANTA (AP) – Police arrested a number of Occupy Atlanta protesters late Saturday after a rally in a city park spilled into the streets and officers converged on the nearby area on motorcycles, horseback and in riot gear.
A crowd of several hundred protesters had gathered at Woodruff Park, the scene of about 50 arrests of demonstrators last month, and set up tents. Organizers had said they planned to stay overnight despite warnings from the mayor and police that anyone there past the 11 p.m. EDT closing would be arrested.
But as 11 p.m. approached, protesters began decamping peacefully. Dozens of officers were on hand, herding protesters away from the park's entrances and installing barricades around it. A police helicopter flew overhead.
While most protesters left the park, a few people stayed behind. And as demonstrators poured onto Peachtree Street and downtown, a police officer on a motorcycle drove into the crowd, sparking a confrontation between officers and protesters that turned tense at times.
Police officers in riot gear and on horseback filled the street, warning protesters to stay on the sidewalk. Many protesters shouted insults at the officers, chanting slogans such as, "Put the pigs back in their sty, we the people occupy." Police made a number of arrests, mostly people who disobeyed orders to stay on the sidewalk. But officers at the scene declined to say how many and for what offenses.
Protesters began camping out in Woodruff Park on Oct. 7. Mayor Kasim Reed initially issued an executive order allowing them to stay overnight, but later revoked it after he said there were increasing security concerns.
Police on Oct. 26 arrested more than 50 people they say were violating a city ordinance by staying in the park after closing.
The protesters returned Saturday night. The crowd swelled during the brisk evening, as the Rev. Jesse Jackson paid an early-evening visit to show his support. He told those gathered that the movement was an extension of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign.
Hours later, though, Occupy Atlanta organizer Latron Price said he was disappointed that the situation grew confrontational.
"As responsible occupiers, we have to step up and try to display an example that the overall agenda is not about confrontation with police," he told the Associated Press. "We need to deal with the banks, we need to deal with home foreclosures, and we need to deal with wealth disparity."
Asked about the exchanges with police, the 37-year-old Atlanta man said, "That has me equally upset because we're losing what we came here to do, which is to protest peacefully."
He said protesters need to regroup and focus on a nonviolent message.
La'die Mansfield, 29, a spokeswoman for the Occupy Atlanta, said the police used "unnecessary force" and stressed that the group would continue to organize and to protest what they see as a system that promotes an unequal distribution of wealth.
"Today is a sad day for us. It's almost like we're seeing a little bit of what happened in Oakland here, not to the extent," she said. "Today was just a reminder of the system that we have, the corrupt system."
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A protest that shut down the Port of Oakland to show the broadening reach of the Occupy Wall Street movement ended in violence when police in riot gear arrested dozens of protesters overnight who broke into a vacant building, shattered downtown windows, sprayed graffiti and set blazes along the way.
An anarchy symbol is painted the entrance to an office building at 1333 Broadway in Oakland, Calif., following an Occupy Oakland protest early Thursday morning, Nov. 3, 2011. After a mainly peaceful day-long rally by thousands of anti-Wall Street demonstrators, several hundred reconvened during the night with a few painting graffiti, breaking windows and setting fire to garbage cans. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
At least four protesters were hospitalized Thursday with various injuries, including one needing stitches after fighting with an officer, police said. Several officers were also injured but didn't need hospitalization.
"We go from having a peaceful movement to now just chaos," protester Monique Agnew, 40, said early Thursday.
Protesters also threw concrete chunks, metal pipes, lit roman candles and molotov cocktails, police said.
The far-flung movement of protesters challenging the world's economic systems and distribution of wealth has gained momentum in recent weeks, capturing the world's attention by shutting down one of the nation's busiest shipping ports toward the end of a daylong "general strike" that prompted solidarity rallies across the U.S.
Several thousands of people converged on the Port of Oakland, the nation's fifth-busiest harbor, in a nearly five-hour protest Wednesday, swarming the area and blocking exits and streets with illegally parked vehicles and hastily erected, chain-link fences afterward.
Port spokesman Isaac Kos-Read said evening operations had been "effectively shut down."
Port officials hoped to resume maritime operations Thursday "and that Port workers will be allowed to get to their jobs without incident. Continued missed shifts represent economic hardship for maritime workers, truckers, and their families, as well as lost jobs and lost tax revenue for our region."
Big trucks were backed up Thursday morning as footage on KGO-TV showed about a dozen protesters manning a chain link fence blocking a port entrance. Truck drivers argued with protesters, who said they planned to stay until at least 9 a.m.
Port officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the status of operations at the port.
Supporters in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and elsewhere staged smaller-scale demonstrations. Each group said its protest was a show of support for the Oakland movement, which became a rallying point when an Iraq War veteran was seriously injured in a clash with police last week.
The larger Occupy movement has yet to coalesce into an organized association and until the port shut down had largely been limited scattershot marches, rallies and tent encampments since it began in September.
Organizers in Oakland viewed the strike and port shutdown as a significant victory. Police said that about 7,000 people participated in demonstrations throughout the day that were peaceful except for a few incidents of vandalism at local banks and businesses.
Boots Riley, a protest organizer, touted the day as a success, saying "we put together an ideological principle that the mainstream media wouldn't talk about two months ago."
His comments came before a group of protesters broke into the former Travelers Aid building in order to, as some shouting protesters put it, "reclaim the building for the people."
Riley, whose anti-capitalist views are well documented, considered the port shutdown particularly significant for organizers who targeted it in an effort to stop the "flow of capital."
The port sends goods primarily to Asia, including wine as well as rice, fruits and nuts, and handles imported electronics, apparel and manufacturing equipment, mostly from Asia, as well as cars and parts from Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai.
An accounting of the financial toll from the shutdown was not immediately available.
The potential for the chaos that ultimately erupted was not something Riley wanted to even consider.
"If they do that after all this ..." said Riley pausing cautiously, then adding, "They're smarter than that."
But the peace that abided throughout a sunny warm autumn Wednesday, as protesters hung a large black banner downtown that read: "DEATH TO CAPITALISM," did not last as a cool midnight approached.
Occupy protesters voicing anger over a budget trim that forced the closure of a homeless aid program converged on the empty building where it had been housed just outside of downtown.
They blocked off a street with wood, metal Dumpsters and other large trash bins, sparking bonfires that leapt as high as 15 feet in the air.
City officials later released a statement describing the spasm of unrest.
"Oakland Police responded to a late night call that protesters had broken into and occupied a downtown building and set several simultaneous fires," the statement read. "The protesters began hurling rocks, explosives, bottles, and flaming objects at responding officers."
Several businesses were heavily vandalized. Dozens of protesters wielding shields were surrounded and arrested.
Protesters ran from several rounds of tear gas and bright flashes and deafening pops that some thought were caused by "flash bang" grenades. Fire crews arrived and suppressed the protesters' flames.
Protesters and police faced off in an uneasy standoff until the wee hours of the morning.
In Philadelphia, protesters were arrested earlier Wednesday as they held a sit-in at the headquarters of cable giant Comcast.
In New York, about 100 military veterans marched in uniform and stopped in front of the New York Stock Exchange, standing in loose formation as police officers on scooters separated them from the entrance. On the other side was a lineup of NYPD horses carrying officers with nightsticks.
"We are marching to express support for our brother, (Iraq war veteran) Scott Olsen, who was injured in Oakland," said Jerry Bordeleau, a former Army specialist who served in Iraq through 2009.
The veterans were also angry that returned from war to find few job prospects.
"Wall Street corporations have played a big role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Bordeleau, now a college student. He said private contractors have reaped big profits in those countries.
A New York Post editorial on Thursday called on protesters camped out in Manhattan to leave or have police evict them. "What began as a credible protest against bank bailouts, crony capitalism and the like has, in large measure, been hijacked by crazies and criminals," it said.
In Boston, college students and union workers marched on Bank of America offices, the Harvard Club and the Statehouse to protest the nation's burgeoning student debt crisis. They said total outstanding student loans exceed credit card debt, increase by $1 million every six minutes and will reach $1 trillion this year, potentially undermining the economy.
"There are so many students that are trying to get jobs and go on with their lives," said Sarvenaz Asasy, of Boston, who joined the march after recently graduating with a master's degree and $60,000 in loan debt. "They've educated themselves and there are no jobs and we're paying tons of student loans. For what?"
And among the other protests in Oakland, parents and their kids, some in strollers, joined in by forming a "children's brigade."
"There's absolutely something wrong with the system," said Jessica Medina, a single mother who attends school part time and works at an Oakland cafe. "We need to change that."
The People Solidarity Movement from Bangladesh gives solidarity to the global occupy Wall Street movement by holding a protest. Occupy Wall Street is an ongoing series of demonstrations all over the world. Dhaka, October 19th 2011
Activists chant and wave placards and banners supporting the global movement against the banks, and corruption.
People Solidarity Movement from Bangladesh gives solidarity to occupy Wall Street movement. Activists chant anti capitalism slogan and demanding socialism. They congratulate all people who join such a movement.
Occupy Wall Street is an ongoing series of demonstrations in New York City based in Zuccotti Park on Wall Street. Initiated by the Canadian activist group Adbusters, the protests were inspired by the Arab Spring movement, especially Cairo's Tahrir Square protests, and the Spanish Indignants.
The participants are mainly protesting social and economic inequality, corporate greed, as well as the power and influence of corporations, particularly from the financial service sector, and lobbyists over government. By October 9, similar demonstrations were either ongoing or had been held in 70 major cities and over 600 communities in the U.S., including the estimated 100,000 people who demonstrated on October 15. Internationally, other "Occupy" protests have modeled themselves after Occupy Wall Street, in over 900 cities worldwide.
Activists chant and wave placards and banners supporting the global movement against the banks, and corruption.
In mid-2011, the Canadian-based group Adbusters Media Foundation, best known for its advertisement-free anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, address a growing disparity in wealth, and the absence of legal repercussions behind the recent global financial crisis. According to the senior editor of the magazine, “[they] basically floated the idea in mid-July into our [email list] and it was spontaneously taken up by all the people of the world, it just kind of snowballed from there. They promoted the protest with a poster featuring a dancer atop Wall Street's iconic Charging Bull. Also in July, they stated that, "Beginning from one simple demand – a presidential commission to separate money from politics – we start setting the agenda for a new America." Activists from Anonymous also encouraged its followers to take part in the protest which increased the attention it received calling protesters to "flood lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street"
Activists chant and wave placards and banners supporting the global movement against the banks, and corruption.
One month ago today about 2,000 people rallied in Lower Manhattan and marched up Broadway. Stopping at Zuccotti Park an estimated 150 stayed the night and began an encampment. Renaming the space “Liberty Square,” we kicked off a protest against bank bailouts, corporate greed, and the unchecked power of Wall Street in Washington. In the last month, the message of “We are the 99%” has won the hearts and minds of over half of Americans (according to a recent Time survey) and is gaining ground globally, with 1500 protests in 82 countries this past Saturday (October 15).
“I am here to celebrate the 30th day of this protest against corporate power,” said Karanja Gacuca from Liberty Square, a former Wall Street analyst who now organizes with Occupy Wall Street. “Concerned about the egregious Wall Street bonuses — particularly after the industry accepted a tax-payer bailout and the middle class continues to be squeezed — I believe it's time for a fairer system that provides health care, education, and opportunity for all, and rejects corporate influence over government.”
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