Occupy Wall Street: Day 4 - Police Ban Tarps in Rain - 3 More Arrested
Chaz Valenza
11:06 AM- Police blocking some water and resupply efforts.
7:50 AM - Three members of the Occupy Wall Street media team arrested for trying to use a tarp to protect communications equipment from rain.
7:45 AM - light rain, police order all tents, tarps and signs down.
Yesterday, the police banned the use of megaphone. The patriot occupiers are getting around this problem by having the audience of any speak repeat short phrases after they are announced.
This morning Occupy Wall Street put out the word that more reinforcements were needed. Last night there was a discussion that the 5,000 in Liberty Plaza would feel more comfortable about deterring any police action if the gathering was at least 10,000.
Thousands Occupy Wall Street @ NYSE by The Transmitter Group
Above is the image the authorities did their best to stop on Saturday, September 17 by closing all entries to Wall Street. Protesters in front of the sacrosanct NYSE.
(As I did yesterday - I will post time stamped updates as revisions to this article above. I will be at the event on Thursday, September 22nd.)
Link: 11 things you can do to support Occupy Wall Street
About a thousand people camped out last night at what was Zoccotti Park, a privately owned park BTW, now renamed Liberty Plaza, which was its name when there was a bit more democracy available in NYC.
Yesterday the occupational gathering swelled to about 5,000 when the work day was done. A local pizzeria sold $2,800 worth of "Occu Pies" 99% cheese and 1% pig to hungry protesters. Donations for food on We Pay were close to $10,000 at last check.
Tarps over communications equipment by Global Revolution
One Saturday, September 17th, the first day of the occupation, Wall Street was closed and nobody was allowed near the NYSE. Yesterday, that changed with the beginning of the work week. Can't let some but no others on public street.
The police tactics are now turning to petty harassment and intimidation to discourage others from physically coming to join the protest.
Op-ed News has now confirmed 10 arrests over the 3 plus days record:
Two for protecting video equipment with tarps in the rain this morning.
One for jumping police barrier (photographer/witness said there was no police barrier jumping)
One for chalk drawing/writing on the sidewalk
Two for attempting to enter of Bank of America branch masked, a third perpetrator got away (Kinda' dumb, but it broke the ice. What's demonstration without any arrests? A picnic.)
And four for wearing masks in public.
Plastic handcuffs would not hold on one protester arrested even though he was not resisting. He raised his arm to show the police he was still unrestrained with a total of four plastic straps broken. They tried again. (Is the NYPD getting their supplies from China? Too much melamine, perhaps?)
The protest is being run as a consensus building democracy. You go, you have a say in what goes on. (A bit unAmerican at this point, but refreshing, wouldn't you agree?)
At 10:30 last night a spokesperson for a working group of Occupy Wall Street General Assembly (OWS-GA, my acronym not theirs) announced plans for a rally on Thursday, September 22, 2011.
Another OWS-GA working group deciding demands had not yet come to a decision.
Chinese Handcuffs - 4th Time's the Charm! by Glassbeadian
Earlier, police confiscated gasoline effectively cutting off electrical power provided to the gathering by portable generators. At last report a resupply of gasoline had not arrived and was thought to be delayed or intercepted by heavy police protection around the perimeter of the plaza.
Laptop batteries were needed to continue to power equipment running a live video stream on the internet: Global Revolution.
The live feed was up at about 9:20 p.m. and was expected to last for a couple of hours. By then the number of people watching had dropped to under 3,000 due to the feed being down for hours.
The live video feed was not operating this morning.
During the day the tweeter hashtag #OccupyWallStreet was apparently blocked. Supporters immediately switched to #globalrevolution and #takewallstreet without missing a beat.
Unconfirmed: Roseanne Barr made an appearance and spoke. Police confiscated the gasoline generators. In retrospect, the tweets and other reports coming out of the protest were reliable. If you can confirm the above, please comment.
The Party of Wall Street (please credit Dr. David Harvey for the term) was unimpressed.
Tweets from Goldman Sachs analysts mocked the protesters saying they would protest with a sign: "Goldman Sachs: Win, cheat, or quit. We don't f*cking lose - ever." (Interesting, that would be a good banner for the protesters as well.) Other Wall Street executives claimed they didn't listen to what the protesters were chanting or care.
Author's Bio: Chaz Valenza is writer and small business owner in New Jersey. He earned his MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. His current feature film project is "Single Point Failure" an insider's account of how the Reagan Administration caused the greatest tragedy of the space age based on Richard C. Cook's book "Challenger Revealed." He is a former Director of Public Information for Planned Parenthood of NYC. His website is: www.WordsWillNever.com
Sept. 20, 2011