'Occupy Wall Street' attorney: NYPD trying to intimidate
Marina Sitrin, an attorney who is part of the "Occupy Wall Street" legal working group, told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now on Monday that New York Police officers were conducting mass arrests in hopes of suppressing the ongoing protest.
More than as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday. Protesters said that New York police officers had purposefully led them onto the bridge roadway so that they could then arrest them. Those who remained on the sidewalk were not arrested.
"I think we have seen this a few times before, but it is an attempt, in our opinion as both a legal group and I think also the activist group, to intimidate people so that they don’t come out into the street," Sitrin said.
"Including last weekend, it was wrapping people in that net on the sidewalk," she continued. "Which is very similar to the police allowing people to walk somewhere and then wrapping them up again."
"So, kind of giving the impression that where ever you go, you are not safe from potential arrest, and I think it is a potential message to people around the country, who are continuing to organize, that if you go out in the street, if you go on the sidewalk, there’s really nowhere where you could potentially be safe if you want to exercise your right to protest and to organize."
Watch video, courtesy of Democracy Now, below: