Occupy Wall Street Protesters Are Arrested In New York

Thousands of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators deluged New York on Thursday, a show of strength in the movement’s original home that was echoed nationwide as part of a “mass day of action.” Scores of Occupy Wall Street protesters have been arrested as they attempted to march onto the New York Stock Exchange to mark two months since the movement against corporate greed began.

While thousands of protesters clogged the streets in New York and more than 175 people were arrested in clashes with the police, demonstrators elsewhere in the country were largely peaceful, even as the crowds swelled during the evening commute.

Chanting “All day, all week, shut down Wall Street,” more than 1,000 protesters gathered near the New York Stock Exchange and sat down in several intersections. Helmeted police officers broke up some of the gatherings, and operations at the stock market were not disrupted.

Occupy Wall Street activists started the day by marching through the city’s financial district and later rallied at subway stations during rush hour. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said five police officers had been injured.

Thursday’s nationwide protests were seen as a test of Occupy Wall Street’s momentum, as the grassroots movement against economic equality marked two months since it began.

The rally, which began with a co-ordinated effort to shut down the stock exchange, grew into several thousand strong later in the day as the standard workday ended and unions joined a march across the Brooklyn Bridge, where last month more than 700 people were arrested.

Scores were arrested in New York, and several police officers were reported injured, as protesters fanned out across the city moved toward Foley Square in Lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. The demonstrations – which took place in cities including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Boston, Washington and Portland, Oregon – were for the most part peaceful.

Most of the arrests were for blocking streets, and the traffic disruptions were brief. Many protesters complained of police brutality, pointing to one image of a man whose face was bloodied during his arrest and another of a woman who was dragged across the sidewalk by an officer, Reuters news agency reported.