Police Herd Wall Street Protesters like Cattle, Arrest Hundreds

Two days ago, it was reported that the Occupy Wall St. protesters got lost when they tried to march on NYPD HQ. It looks like the Police got the best of the whack-a-doodle bunch again yesterday, when a few protesters broke away from the pack in an attempt to shut down the Brooklyn Bridge. Apparently, this flash of brilliance enticed others to join them. The police allowed the protesters to march on the bridge... for a while. That's because they were waiting for them farther down the bridge with orange netting and nylon handcuffs. The only thing missing was a border collie or two.

Via NYT:

In a tense showdown above the East River, the police arrested more than 700 demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street protests who took to the roadway as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday afternoon.

The police said it was the marchers’ choice that led to the enforcement action.

“Protesters who used the Brooklyn Bridge walkway were not arrested,” Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the New York Police Department, said. “Those who took over the Brooklyn-bound roadway, and impeded vehicle traffic, were arrested.”

But many protesters said they believed the police had tricked them, allowing them onto the bridge, and even escorting them partway across, only to trap them in orange netting after hundreds had entered.

“The cops watched and did nothing, indeed, seemed to guide us onto the roadway,” said Jesse A. Myerson, a media coordinator for Occupy Wall Street who marched but was not arrested.

Here is another account of how the police dealt with these mental / emotional juveniles, who don't even know why they're protesting:

Where the entrance to the bridge narrowed their path, some marchers, including organizers, stuck to the generally agreed-upon route and headed up onto the wooden walkway that runs between and about 15 feet above the bridge’s traffic lanes.

But about 20 others headed for the Brooklyn-bound roadway, said Christopher T. Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who accompanied the march. Some of them chanted “take the bridge.” They were met by a handful of high-level police supervisors, who blocked the way and announced repeatedly through bullhorns that the marchers were blocking the roadway and that if they continued to do so, they would be subject to arrest.

There were no physical barriers, though, and at one point, the marchers began walking up the roadway with the police commanders in front of them – seeming, from a distance, as if they were leading the way. The Chief of Department Joseph J. Esposito, and a horde of other white-shirted commanders, were among them.

After allowing the protesters to walk about a third of the way to Brooklyn, the police then cut the marchers off and surrounded them with orange nets on both sides, trapping hundreds of people, said Mr. Dunn. As protesters at times chanted “white shirts, white shirts,” officers began making arrests, at one point plunging briefly into the crowd to grab a man.

The police said that those arrested were taken to several police stations and were being charged with disorderly conduct, at a minimum.

Today, NYPD police are probably high-fiving each other, laughing their butts off.

h/t Drudge