UPDATE: 700 'Occupy Wall Street' protesters arrested on Brooklyn Bridge

UPDATE: As of 1:30 a.m. ET, MSNBC is reporting that almost 700 protesters have been arrested.

At least 400 "Occupy Wall Street" protesters were arrested on Saturday as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, according to the New York Times.

The protesters have pledged to occupy Wall Street until something is done about corporate greed and corporate influence on the U.S. government. They have been camped out in New York’s old Liberty Plaza since September 17.

As approximately 1,500 protesters walked about a third of the way across the bridge, the police corralled hundreds of them with orange netting.

The police then began slowly arresting the protesters, according to AlterNet's Kristen Gwynne.

"They're arresting us one by one," she said. "I just asked a cop and they said they're going to arrest all of us. There are hundreds of people who don't have room to sit down. We're just clammed in."

The New York Police Department said it only arrested protesters who had spilled out onto the roadway and impeded vehicle traffic.

"Protesters are asking able-bodied male people to go up to the cops and accept their arrest, to speed along the process," Gwynne added. "Boyfriends and girlfriends are kissing each other goodbye as the guys go off to get arrested."

Protesters claimed that New York police officers had purposefully led them onto the bridge roadway so that they could arrest them en masse.

A freelance journalist for the New York Times was among those arrested.