fter allowing marchers from the Occupy Wall Street protests to claim the Brooklyn-bound car lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge and get partway across, the police cut the marchers off and arrested dozens of demonstrators Saturday afternoon.
BREAKING: Police Arresting Protesters on Brooklyn Bridge
01 October 11
fter allowing marchers from the Occupy Wall Street protests to claim the Brooklyn-bound car lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge and get partway across, the police cut the marchers off and arrested dozens of demonstrators Saturday afternoon.
At 4:35, perhaps 500 people were caught on the bridge between orange nets, about a third of the way across to Brooklyn. The police let some of them walk back to Manhattan. Others on the roadway clambered dangerously up the structure of the bridge to get to the wooden pedestrian walkway, which is about 15 feet above the road.
A freelance reporter working for The Times, Natasha Lennard, sent an e-mail at 4:58 saying, "I'm being arrested."
Some marchers chanted "Hey hey, ho ho, corporate greed has got to go" as they were handcuffed.
Around 5 p.m., the police cleared all pedestrians off the footpath.
Police Department highway cars escorted as many as 10 Department of Correction buses from Rikers Island to Lower Manhattan in preparation for what one law enforcement official said was "a planned move on the protesters."
The official said that the buses, which can carry roughly 20 prisoners each, were needed because of the expected large number of arrests and the need to transport those arrested to central booking.
Shortly after 5, the buses began driving onto the bridge roadway, toward where the protesters were being held.
The march had set off from the protesters' headquarters in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan near ground zero shortly after 3 p.m. The Occupy Wall Street protests, against what demonstrators call inequities in the economic system, are in their 15th day.
Natasha Lennard and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.
