AFP
Twenty Occupy Wall Street protesters have been arrested after getting into a skirmish with police trying to clear their anti-corporate greed demonstration off the sidewalks, officials said Sunday.
“Most of them were arrested for disorderly conduct, three were arrested for assaulting police officers,” a New York Police Department spokeswoman said.
The incidents took place Saturday afternoon at Foley Square in lower Manhattan, an area dotted with administrative buildings including the local district court and the New York State Court of Appeals.
Police had asked protesters to clear several sidewalks and the steps of the appeals court, according to witnesses.
Several skirmishes ensued and police made the arrests.
The NYPD spokeswoman could not confirm how many of the 20 protesters had since been released.
The movement that began in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park in September, inspiring similar anti-Wall Street demonstrations across the United States and abroad, organizes near-daily protests.
Saturday’s demo was billed as an action against the speculation and greed of banks, and hundreds of people participated.
The arrests came amid mounting political pressure on the movement, along with plummeting temperatures.
Protesters worry about a looming police crackdown and that Mayor Michael Bloomberg may try to evict them from the site where they have camped since September 17 in the heart of global finance.
Bloomberg has given mixed messages over his support for freedom of speech and his dislike for how protesters have established their noisy presence in the high-rent downtown neighborhood.
On Thursday, the mayor labeled the protesters “despicable” and “outrageous” for attempting to self-police incidents of reported sex assaults and other crimes, rather than go to the authorities. Protesters deny this is their practice.
Further heating the rhetoric against OWS are lurid media reports of unsavory behavior, including taking drugs and urinating in public.
