More than 700 people from the Occupy Wall Street protest movement have been briefly arrested for marchimng on New York’s City’s Brooklyn Bridge, police say.
They were part of a larger group crossing the bridge from Manhattan, where they have been camped out near Wall Street for two weeks.
“We are unions, students, teachers, veterans, first responders, families, the unemployed and underemployed. We are all races, sexes and creeds. We are the majority. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.” read more at Occupy Wall Street website and occupytogether.org.
NYPD Mass Arrests of Occupy Wall Street Protesters
UPDATE, 6:07 pm Kristen reports via text: ”Now it’s raining. There are still hundreds of us, people are putting backpacks on their fronts, so cops don’t take them when we’re arrested.”
She says that rumors in the crowd include the suggestion that the Lawyers Guild is working on bail money for the arrested protesters and negotiations with the cops. She says, “a friend told me there’s a rumor this is over. It’s not over.”
As for morale? The remaining protesters are huddled together under umbrellas singing “this little light of mine.”
A Massive Union Just Voted To Side With Protesters
According to Daily Kos, The New York Transit Workers Union (TWU) voted to support the Wall Street Protestors at their meeting last night. A member of TWU Local 100 told a reporter that they would join the protest Friday at 4PM.
Here’s more about them from their website: The TWU has four main divisions: Railroad; Gaming; Airline; Transit; and Utility, University and Service. The Union has 114 autonomous locals representing over 200,000 members and retirees in 22 states around the country.
Occupy Wall Street has been picking up some decent support from unions in the past few days. Yesterday we reported that the Teamsters Union declared their support for protestors, and we also found out that the United Pilots Union had members at the protest demonstrating in uniform.
Today we learned the Industrial Workers of the World put a message of support on their website as well.
UPDATE: Verizon union workers have joined the protestors in NYC.
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20111001135826694
Click here to see the protestor’s list of demands >
The Free 