Monday, September 17, 2012

Arrests Near Stock Exchange Top 150 on Occupy Wall St. Anniversary

By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Updated, 9:05 p.m.
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More than 150 people were arrested on Monday as protesters tried to block access to the New York Stock Exchange on the first anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Demonstrators had planned to converge from several directions and form what was called the People’s Wall around the stock exchange to protest what they said was an unfair economic system that benefited the rich and corporations at the expense of ordinary citizens.
Marcus Yam for The New York Times
Though organizers said more than 1,000 people participated in the demonstration, the roving groups did not appear to cause much disruption on Wall Street. By early evening, 181 people had been arrested, the police said.

Although officers sometimes surrounded large groups of protesters, they did not appear to make mass arrests. But on several occasions, officers plunged onto sidewalks packed with protesters and arrested people after saying the crowds were blocking pedestrian traffic.

At one point, at Broad and Beaver Streets, a commander grabbed a man from a crowd standing on the corner. Protesters tried to pull the man back, but officers surged into the crowd and wrested the man away, placing him in handcuffs.

One of the more turbulent episodes took place along Broadway where several hundred people marched. Officers approached a man who had been yelling objections to the metal police barricades that cordoned off Wall Street. When the officers grabbed the man, he began shouting “I did nothing wrong,” but they removed him.

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