As I’m sure you’ve all heard, the judge’s decision went against the Occupy Wall Street protesters. I didn’t have net access for awhile. 

The judge said the protesters cannot be prevented from assembly, but they can be prevented from camping, laying sleeping bags, etc. - similar to the rules in other cities as of now. 

The link to the .pdf of the decision is above.

People in NYC - MOVE! GET DOWN THERE! They are raiding Liberty Square in riot gear!

Watch live streaming video from occupynyc at livestream.com

Earlier this month, hundreds of New Yorkers received an unusual dinner invitation from the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union.

The Credit Union, a small lender serving New York’s poor, was holding a fund-raiser to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Among the chief sponsors listed on the invitation was Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Among the honorees: “Occupy Wall Street.”

They might as well have asked Marie Antoinette to dig into her purse to support Madame Defarge’s knitting business.

Shortly after the invitation was sent out, Goldman withdrew its name from the dinner. It also pulled the plug on its $5,000 funding pledge.

“Their money was welcome, but not at the price of giving up what we believe in,” said Pablo DeFilippi, one of the dinner hosts and associate director of member development at the National Federal of Community Development Credit Unions. “We lost their $5,000, but we have our principles.”

Linda Levy, CEO of the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union, declined comment saying “I made promises to people about talking about this.” 

Looks like if Goldman Sachs can’t control the game, they’ll take their ball and go home. They could have spun this into a marvelous PR opportunity. Goldman Sachs could have, but they didn’t. 

Good job, guys. You’ve done the 1% proud.

As alleged in the complaint, on July 5, 2008, [Admir] Kacamakovic, while on duty and in uniform, assaulted with pepper spray, handcuffed and unlawfully detained a man who was involved in a parking dispute in front of a bar owned by Kacamakovic’s cousin. Using an expletive, Kacamakovic told the man that “no one f***s with my cousin’s place.” Kacamakovic also pepper-sprayed a second person during the incident. Thereafter, on two separate occasions, Kacamakovic, in violation of NYPD directives, accessed the NYPD’s computer system to obtain information from a federal database about the assault victim, who had filed both a complaint against Kacamakovic with the Civilian Complaint Review Board and a civil action in New York state court.

Boy, the NYPD likes their pepper spray, eh? Wonder if this guy is BFFs with Tony Bologna?

h/t to @AnonyOps for this release.

I had to add this. Just read this excerpt from the story:

On Wednesday, Sept. 16, after months of growing tension between Mayor David N. Dinkins and New York City’s police, more than 10,000 off-duty officers and their supporters gathered outside City Hall to protest the Dinkins administration’s handling of a list of police issues. The demonstration began calmly enough, with a series of predictable chants, songs and demands.

Then something went badly awry.

A handful of people, then hundreds, then thousands, broke through police barricades and surged onto City Hall’s steps. From there, the protest degenerated into a beer-swilling, traffic-snarling, epithet-hurling melee that stretched from the Brooklyn Bridge to Murray Street, where several politicians helped stoke the emotional fires.

The protest would have been noteworthy even if it had been any rally gone a bit too wild. But the protesters were the police. That only underscored the immediacy of one of the very questions they had gathered to address: Who should police the police?

Emphasis is mine. Who polices the police? It’s nearly twenty years later. Imagine how the present-day story would shift if it were the Occupy Wall Street protesters swilling beer and breaking through barricades.

(Source: soupsoup, via iuwaehfoaiuwhefoiaulfjqn)

More than 700 people were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening during a march by anti-Wall Street protesters who have been occupying a downtown Manhattan square for two weeks.

The group, called Occupy Wall Street, has been protesting against the finance industry and other perceived social ills by camping out in Zuccotti park in New York.

During the afternoon a long line of protesters numbering several thousand snaked through the streets towards the landmark bridge across the East River with the aim of ending at a Brooklyn park.

However, during the march across the bridge groups of protesters sat down or strayed into the road from the pedestrian pathway. They were then arrested in large numbers by officers who were part of a heavy police presence shepherding the march along its path.

At one stage 500 protesters were blocked off by police on the bridge. At least one journalist, freelancer Natasha Lennard for the New York Times, was among those arrested.

Is anyone shocked by this? It will be interesting to see what happens as more people show up. 

New York Times(!) has great coverage here. It appears police may have inadvertently (at best) or purposefully (at worst) led some of the marchers from the walk bridge to where they were arrested. Several reports have Tony Bologna as one of the officers who was walking ahead of marchers. Here’s one photo that appears to show him talking with officers watching over several handcuffed protesters on the bridge.

Up until this announcement, the Occupy Wall Street movement has been unwieldy and somewhat lacking in a coherent voice, but that’s all about the change. New York City labor unions have decided to descend upon the streets of Lower Manhattan on Friday.

The leadership of the Transit Workers Union Local 100—comprised of subway and bus workers—voted unanimously to support the protestors. With a membership of 38,000, 5 Oct. will easily be the largest day yet in the protest. On 12 Oct., SEIU 32BJ, representing doormen, security guards, and maintenance workers around the city, is also staging a rally in support of the cause.

It’s unclear for now whether the transit system will be completely shut down while the 38,000 workers are participating in the protest. If it is, the Occupy Wall Street movement will definitely make its mark in history. And either way, it now has a substantial footing to make a real statement about American economy policy.

Jackie DiSalvo, an #OccupyWallStreet organizer, summarized the movement’s policy as such: “Occupy Wall Street will not negotiate watering down its own message.”

You have no idea how excited I am to see this. 

Update: Conflicting reports online have this set for Wednesday or next Friday. Tell you what - join Occupy Wall Street in NYC or a nearby city both days!