November 15, 2011
Occupy Wall Street Evicted in Late Night Raid; Lawyers Secure Injunction to Reopen Zuccotti Park
Nearly two months into Occupy Wall Street, New York City police have carried out a major crackdown on the protesters’ Lower Manhattan encampment, dismantling tents, confiscating belongings, and arresting more than 70 people. At around 1 a.m. local time, police officers in riot gear circled Zuccotti Park—renamed Liberty Plaza by the protesters—ordering them to leave. Although most people complied, a group of around 200 to 300 people refused, locking their arms together in the middle of the park. They were eventually detained after a tense standoff that saw police use pepper spray and hit protesters with batons. Police also dismantled the protesters’ encampment, tearing down tents and tossing the sea of belongings, clothing, tarps and equipment into large dump trucks. During our live broadcast, a judge issued a restraining order prohibiting the city and police from evicting the protesters from the Occupy Wall Street encampment. We get an update from longtime civil rights attorney, Danny Alterman, who helped file the injunction as part of the Liberty Park Plaza Legal Working Group. "We put together a set of papers on the fly, working nonstop throughout the night, and around 3 o’clock in the morning contacted Judge Lucy Billings of the New York State Supreme Court, who agreed to meet us between 5 and 6 a.m. to review our request for a temporary restraining order, restraining the police from evicting the protesters at Liberty Park, exclusive of lawful arrest for criminal offenses, and, most importantly, enforcing the rules published after the occupation began almost two months ago—or otherwise preventing protesters from re-entering Liberty Park with tents and other property utilized therein," Alterman says. Judge Billings signed the order before 6:30 a.m., and a court hearing is set for today. [
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November 15, 2011
Inside Occupy Wall Street Raid: Eyewitnesses Describe Arrests, Beatings as Police Dismantle Camp
The Democracy Now! team rushed down to Zuccotti Park in the middle of the night to report on the police crackdown on Occupy Wall Street. We were there until the early hours of the morning, witnessing the arrests in the streets in Lower Manhattan and the dismantling of the encampment — and the hauling away protesters’ belongings. "They can’t pull wool over our eyes. They can’t put nothing in our eyes that’s going to blind [us to] what’s going on here. And the same goes for all the people who are out there," a protester told Democracy Now! after the police twice pepper-sprayed him in the face. [
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