Organizer admits to paying ‘Occupy DC’ protesters [VIDEO]

By Michelle Fields - The Daily Caller
Published: 6:37 PM 10/06/2011
Updated: 7:07 PM 10/06/2011

A liberal organizer told the Daily Caller on Thursday afternoon that he paid some Hispanics to attend “Occupy DC” protests happening in the nation’s capital.

TheDC attended the protest event, an expansion of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that began in New York City. Some aspects of the protest, it turned out, are more Astroturf than grassroots.

One group of about ten Hispanic protesters marched behind a Caucasian individual from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting rent control in Washington, D.C.

Asked why they were there, some Hispanic protesters holding up English protest signs could not articulate what their signs said.

Interviewed in Spanish, the protesters told conflicting stories about how their group was organized. Some said it was organized at their church, and that they were there as volunteers. Others, however, referred to the man from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition — the only Caucasian in the group — as their “boss.”

TheDC asked that organizer whether he was paying the group to attend the protest, and he conceded that some protesters “aren’t” volunteers.

“Some of them are volunteers. Some of them aren’t,” he explained. “I can’t identify them. I’m not going to get into an identification game.”