Protesters who have camped out near Wall Street for two weeks marched on Friday on police headquarters in Manhattan over what they viewed as a heavy-handed police response to a previous demonstration.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, whose members have vowed to stay through the winter, are protesting issues including the 2008 bank bailouts, foreclosures and high unemployment.
More than 1,000 people marched past City Hall and arrived at a plaza outside police headquarters in the late afternoon.
Photo: Reuters
Some held banners criticizing police, while others chanted “We are the 99 percent” and “The banks got bailed out, we got sold out.”
Workers from the financial district on their way home watched as the marchers passed, with some saying it was not obvious what outcome organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement wanted.
Police observed the march and kept protesters on the sidewalk, but no clashes were reported. Police said no arrests were made before the protest dispersed peaceably by 8pm after the march.
“No to the NYPD [New York City Police Department] crackdown on Wall Street protesters,” organizers had said on their Web site, promoting the march. Other online flyers for the march read: “No to Stop-and-Frisk in Black & Latino neighborhoods” and “No to Spying and Harassment of Muslim Communities.”
The protest came less than a week after police arrested 80 people during a march to the bustling Union Square shopping district.
A police commander used pepper spray on four women at last weekend’s march and a video of the incident went viral, angering many protesters who vowed to continue their protests indefinitely.
The protest encampment in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan is festooned with placards and anti-Wall Street slogans.
Asked on his weekly radio show on Friday whether the protesters could stay indefinitely at the private park they call their base, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said: “We’ll see.”
“People have a right to protest. But we also have to make sure that people who don’t want to protest can go down the street unmolested,” he added.
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