Last Updated: 6:56 PM, May 1, 2012
Posted: 1:04 PM, May 1, 2012
New York Post:
Cops arrested at least 30 people today as thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters fanned out across the city for a series of May Day demonstrations.
The NYPD was also investing a series of suspicious items mailed to multiple office building and city landmarks that are believed to be linked to the protests.
"They were walking from the Manhattan side towards Brooklyn," said a friend of the quartet of protesters busted on the Williamsburg Bridge earlier in the day.
"Cops told them that they were 'walking the wrong way' and they had to turn around. So they said forget that and they tried to push through. So they were arrested for that."
One of the four people arrested, 22-year-old Lindsey Sweeney of Buffalo, NY, said, "We were fighting for freedom. We didn't do anything wrong."
"What's happening right now is an indignity!" Sweeney fumed.
At least three of the protesters were allegedly wearing masks, which may have prompted their busts.
"I don't know if I was arrested for wearing a mask or not," said one of them, John Martogoio. "I was just walking and minding my business."
Elsewhere in Manhattan -- before a planned demonstration near Wall Street -- small cadres of protesters gathered outside several large corporate landmarks including the Time-Life building Sixth Avenue and outside the McGraw-Hill building as part of the Occupy Wall Street coordinated action. Major US banks including Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs also were targeted by demonstrators.
On OWS's Web site, the group wrote "While American corporate media has focused on yet another stale election between Wall Street-financed candidates, Occupy has been organizing something extraordinary: the first truly nationwide General Strike in US history." OWS began a series of protests in lower Manhattan last fall near Wall Street, criticizing government bailouts, allegedly excessive corporate salaries and what it characterized as weak economic prospects for many Americans.
Early this afternoon, more than 500 protesters began marching west on 42nd Street from Third Avenue, followed by a strong police presence that moved to break up groups of marchers who stopped to walk in circles around building entrances.
Protesters shouted. "When workers rights are under attack? What do we do? Stand up, fight back!"
Nearby, in Bryant Park in Midtown, about 300 raincoat-clad demonstrators rallied, chanting slogans including "Revolution!"
"We are here because this is right in the belly of the beast," said Phil Arnone, 25, organizer of the Immigrant Workers Justice group. "We are here to reassert ourselves as a people's movement on the day that the holiday was founded by immigrants and immigrant workers in America. We are all immigrants ultimately."
Arnone said his group and others will be marching from the park to other places "that profit off of exploitation and injustice towards immigrants."
Other protestors rallied outside Disney stores and The New York Times.
"Prosecute the fraud" and "Jobs now," read two placards hoisted by protesters.
Gideon Oliver, president of the New York chapter of National Lawyers’ Guild, told the Bloomberg news service that NYPD cops visited at least six homes of people police believed were involved in organizing the protests.
“It’s something the police do when they’re scared about people occupying public spaces,” Oliver said.
Additional reporting by Joe Mollica, Kevin Sheehan and Kate Kowsh
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