Another Day, Another March, Occupy Wallstreet Endu

Another Day, Another March, Occupy Wallstreet Endures

by the Los Angelos Times

Patrick M. Barth didn't plan on getting arrested when he set out on foot to protest corporate greed, but he was one of about 700 demonstrators who found themselves in jail cells over the weekend as tensions escalated between New York police and a movement now in its third week of a Manhattan sit-in.

The movement, which calls itself Occupy Wall Street, came to Los Angeles on Saturday with a protest outside City Hall downtown. Supporters, who are spreading the word largely via the Internet, say they will congregate in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 6. Check out the photographs of the L.A. event, in which protesters remained camped out in front of City Hall on Sunday night. 

But the real Wall Street is in New York City, making that protest the focal point of a force that has drawn increasing attention primarily because of its showdowns with police. Those confrontations peaked Saturday evening on the Brooklyn Bridge, where police and protesters agreed on just one thing: a lot of people were arrested. Otherwise, their versions of what happened have little in common.

On Sunday, in response to many protesters' claims that they were led into the bridge's traffic lanes by police and then trapped by officers, police released videos showing officers facing marchers on the bridge and warning them to leave the vehicle lanes or face arrest. Protesters in the front lines, at least, responded by chanting "Take our bridge," and "This is what democracy looks like," and moving forward with arms linked.

Barth says he and scores of people farther back could not hear or see what was happening up front, so they continued following the crowd -- straight into jail. Barth and others