NY police arrest 80 Wall St. protesters
The demonstrators took to the streets Saturday during the “Occupy Wall Street” protest and gathered near the New York Stock Exchange, the Associated Press reported.
The demonstrations, which began about a week ago, have brought hundreds of Americans to the most important US financial district, protesting against a number of economic issues, including bank bailouts, home loan crisis, and the widening gap between the very rich and those struggling in the aftermath of the US financial crisis.
“We’ve got a whole bunch of people sitting in Washington that can’t figure it out,” said Bill Csapo, a protest organizer.
As of June 16, 2011, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), 395 banks have been seized by the US government. At least 46 US banks have failed in 2011 so far, compared to 157 in 2010, 140 in 2009, and 25 in 2008.
Another incident that provoked protesters into action was the Wednesday execution of Troy Anthony Davis, an African American, in the State of Georgia over his alleged role in the 1989 killing of an off-duty police officer.
His execution by lethal injection took place despite many legal holes in his case as well as Davis’s insistence until his execution that he did not commit the alleged murder.
The police forces tried to corral the demonstrators using orange plastic nets at Manhattan’s Union Square.
According to police sources, most of the arrests were made for blocking traffic, though one person has been charged with attacking an officer.
Protest spokesman Patrick Bruner has lambasted the police response as “exceedingly violent,” emphasizing that protesters sought to remain peaceful.
“They’re being very aggressive … half the people here have no idea what’s going on … I’m actually very ashamed to be a New Yorker,” said Ryan Alley, a New York resident.
Statistics published by the Stolen Lives Project estimate that the number of cases in the United States relating to police brutality has reached thousands.
Most Americans that suffer abuse by the police do not report the case. Those who do file complaints, soon discover that police departments tend to be self-protective and that the general public tends to side with the police.
In 2010, there were at least 2,541 reports of misconduct and brutality perpetrated by US police.
“Apparently it is too threatening to corporate interests to acknowledge it,” James H. Fetzer, founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, told Press TV on Thursday.
Since US mass media refrains to cover the protests, “The average American who derives his news principally from television would have no idea that this protest movement is taking place,” Fetzer said.
Commenting on the protesters, he said “these are ordinary Americans who are protesting the difficult economic times in which they are living and the failure of the government to take appropriate actions to deal with the unemployment problem, which now affects as many as 25 million Americans. They are putting it on backburner, they are suppressing it.”
He noted that “what we have here is yet another stunning example of the mass media suppressing information that the American people and indeed the rest of the world deserve to know.”
US media is “dominated by a small number of corporations that control 90 to 95 percent of what Americans hear on TV or read in the paper,” he added.
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