NYCLU at OccupyWallStreet, cops intimidating journalists and photographers.

Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, the alleged NYPD official who discharged pepper spray on protestors during demonstrations on Saturday (Jim Kiernan / Gothamist)

Since #OccupyWallStreet is in it’s second week and a few police officers are making the Corporate Media sit up and take notice, with the pepper-spraying of select individuals, the ACLU has released the following information on their Blog of Rights:

NYCLU on the Scene at Wall Street Protests

Inspired by the Arab Spring, a group of a few hundred protesters have occupied a park right off of Wall Street for more than a week, seeking attention for what they call a greedy and unjust financial system.  The staff of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) has been on the scene talking to protesters, learning about their experiences with police, and passing out Know Your Rights guides on protesting in New York City and on surviving police encounters.

Interested in joining them? Here’s a few things to keep in mind when you’re protesting in New York City:

• You have a right to stand or march on sidewalks without a permit.
• You may photograph or video the cops, but do not interfere with police action.
• Remember officers’ badge numbers, names and physical descriptions.
• File complaints about misconduct by calling 311.
• If you march in the street without a permit, you risk arrest.
• If ordered to disperse, do so unless you want to be arrested.

And for more protest news, follow the NYCLU’s twitter feed.

NYC’s the Gothamist reports that police are intimidating and targeting journalists, photographers and videographers. Their writeup:

Photographs and especially videos of the NYPD’s actions during the occupation of Wall Street have sparked outrage and media attention regarding the protests, which have now spanned ten days. Accordingly, witnesses, including our own photographer, tell us that the NYPD has been specifically targeting photographers and videographers for arrest. Two protestors who were maintaining the live video feed of the protests were arrested on Saturday, the first claiming that she was detained solely because she was holding a camera. “Those are the first people the police go after,” protest organizer Patrick Bruner tells us. “They’re always the first to get held up.”

While it is well within a protestor’s right to film a demonstration or an arrest, NYCLU spokesperson Jennifer Carnig tells us, “You cannot interfere with police action, i.e. get in the middle of an arrest to take a photo or make a video.” It may be a stretch to say that those operating the protest’s live stream would be able to physically “interfere” with an arrest while holding a laptop.

Times’ Up! photographer Barbara Ross tells us that as she was filming Saturday’s march down Broadway to Union Square, a white-shirted NYPD officer repeatedly warned her that she would be arrested unless she started marching with the demonstrators. “I was standing off to the side so I could document what was going on—you couldn’t really see much from within the group,” Ross says, “And he kept saying, ‘You either join them or I’ll arrest you.’ I wasn’t blocking traffic or harming anything, it was obvious it was because I was holding a camera.”

Jim Kiernan, who was shooting Saturday’s protests for Gothamist, said that NYPD officers were “definitely” zeroing in on anyone with a camera. At around 12th Street and Fifth Avenue, Kiernan saw a large black SUV pull up next to a few police supervisors. “It was Ray Kelly. He rolled down his window and I had a perfect shot but I knew if I pointed my camera at him I’d get arrested on the spot.” Moments later, “a videographer who I had seen all day, who didn’t seem to be part of the protest was arrested. One officer took her camera, another cuffed her,” Kiernan said. “A few seconds later, another photographer next to her gets arrested—no provocation whatsoever. That’s when I decided I was done for the day.”

“The NYPD has been known to aggressively videotape people,” Carnig says. Indeed, a police officer can be seen filming in this arrest video, presumably protecting them from any accusations of mistreatment. “We encourage people to let us know if they’ve been harassed by the cops for taking a photo or making a video.” We’ve yet to receive comment from the NYPD.

It’s getting ugly out there..but that shouldn’t surprise anyone. Anonymous claims to have ID’d the cop who pepper-sprayed various individuals for no apparent reason this weekend. From the Gothamist writeup:

In response to the seemingly unprovoked use of pepper spray on protestors around Union Square on Saturday, the hacking group Anonymous has leaked the name and personal information of the officer who allegedly discharged the spray. Anthony Bologna is a Deputy Inspector for Patrol Borough Manhattan South, and his name appears to be corroborated by a blown-up photo of his badge along with an eyewitness account.

Anonymous writes:

As we watched your officers kettle innocent women, we observed you barberically pepper spray wildly into the group of kettled women. We were shocked and disgusted by your behavior. You know who the innocent women were, now they will have the chance to know who you are. Before you commit atrocities against innocent people, think twice. WE ARE WATCHING!!! Expect Us!

Occupy Wall Street, one of the organizers of the protests (along with Anonymous) is reporting that Bologna is in fact the officer in question, and an article in NYC Indy Media from 2001 about the MayDay protest refers to Bologna by name as “notorious for his treatment of protestors.”

A member of the People’s Law Collective, who witnessed the arrests said a police officer, Lt. Anthony Bologna, notorious for his previous treatment of protestors, shoved two young activists, a male and a female and began to leave the now-agitated crowd. Bologna then left, and returned to arrest them.

Bologna formerly worked as the head of the First Precinct for five years until he was bumped up to Patrol Borough Manhattan South. “I’m leaving on a good note—every year crime has gone down,” he told DNAinfo at the time. Over at The Rant, one commenter in a discussion on the pepper spraying notes, “the white shirt is my old CO, i wont monday morning qauterback his actions , BUT he was a douche when he was my CO”

Whats that old saying? A few bad apples spoil the whole damn bunch. Police Officers are part of the other 99% and the vast majority of them seem to realize that and treat the protesters with respect, to a certain degree. I would hope so as they too are most likely fearing budget cuts that would cost some of them their jobs, the attack on public worker unions by GOP governors and not to mention their retirement funds are taking huge hits lately.

The University of Oklahoma Independent Student website, the OUDaily.com, has an interesting writeup entitled: Wall Street brutality legitimizes protesters. A snippet:

Ten days ago, hundreds of people gathered in New York City’s Wall Street district in protest against corporate exploitation. Since then, their numbers have swelled to an estimated 1,200 to 1,500, organizers said. The demonstration has been subjected to police attacks and a blackout by the U.S. journalistic establishment.

“When I first arrived and looked at the camp, a maze of sleeping bags, floor mats, signs and topless protesters dancing and shouting, I was a little apprehensive,” said Daniel Julier, a photographer who recently moved to Brooklyn from the United Kingdom. “However, the second I stepped inside the area I was made to feel welcome. Everyone smiled as you passed them. The area was remarkably clean for the number of people around.”

Protesters have coordinated their activities through a democratic decision-making body dubbed the General Assembly.

“We’ve been called disorganized, and we have to laugh at that,” said demonstrator Patrick Bruner, who serves on the General Assembly’s public relations committee. “We’re quite well-organized, particularly considering that our system of government has only existed for a week.”

The Wall Street occupation is consciously modeled after protests that began in Egypt’s Tahrir Square this January. The Tahrir Square demonstrators — through labor strikes, online agitation and direct confrontation with police — forced the removal of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and the dissolution of many organs of state oppression.

The Wall Street protesters have issued a varied and not-always-coherent list of demands, ranging from the abolition of capital punishment to the end of imperialistic foreign policy. Perhaps the most common point of concern shared by protesters is the growing degree of economic inequality in the U.S. Protesters have taken to referring to the working class as “the 99 percent” and the ruling class as “the 1 percent,” in reference to the fact that in the U.S., the richest 1 percent of the population controls more than one-third of society’s economic wealth, according to a report from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Though, by all accounts, the demonstrators have conducted themselves peacefully, police behavior has been erratic and aggressive. On Saturday, following two days of relative calm, a force of hundreds of police attacked demonstrators near Union Square. Police tased and pepper-sprayed protesters and arrested more than 80 people, The New York Times reported. A member of the Industrial Workers of the World, who was among the arrested, said at least one person sustained a “possibly life threatening” head injury in the attack.

Even the “Okies” are sitting up and taking notice. I use that word with love in my heart as my son lives in OK and I have a few fellow writers, including the founder of the blog, Roundtree7 who reside there also. The Ball n’ Chain is a native Oklahoman, as is a huge part of the population of the south end of the San Joaquin Valley.

If middle America is writing about the Occupation of Wall Street, when will the Corporate Media start writing about it as news..other than their bashing of it.

Allison Kilkenny offers up an excellent piece at The Nation, which also takes to task a NYT piece penned by a critic, not a reporter. Ms. Kilkenny makes no excuses, as Mr. Heresy (in the video) also does not, for the lack of leaders or specific focus of the protest.

Ms. Kilkenny makes a point that comparing the Occupy Wall St group to the Teabaggers is ridiculous on it’s face. Corporate money, in the form of benefactors like the Koch Bros, pours into the extreme right groups. We do not see the same happening with the Occupy Wall St group. The Professional Left groups…MoveOn.org as an example, raise millions that they keep for themselves. The unions are no where to be seen supporting the occupiers either…not with funding or organizational expertise, although Mr. Heresy is proud of the fact that the occupiers are leaderless and, as he says, “Having an open Democratic process”.

From Allison Kilkenny’s piece at The Nation:

While the left loses the valuable organizational mechanism of unions, the right has gained corporate masters like the Koch brothers to disseminate millions of dollars into astroturfing campaigns to organize and destroy on their behalf. While the left makes signs, the right has already deployed troupes to scream at town hall events.

These are the kinds of massive oppositional forces activists find themselves facing these days: an incredibly oppressive police state and a corporate cash monster bearing down on them from the right. Meanwhile, their union support army is either in retreat or preoccupied fighting other battles on other fronts in Wisconsin or Ohio, or one of the other forty-eight states where anti-union legislation was introduced this year courtesy of ALEC, a front group that serves as proxy for corporate interests.

As someone that spent my last employed years working in marketing, I clench my teeth when I read blogs or Corporate Media articles tearing into the occupiers about the lack of  ‘a message’. I know they need one, if only to appeal to the folks among us that want to compare and contrast these two polar opposites of the spectrum that want to see change. One group is truly grassroots and the other is astroturf.

But I am rooting for those occupiers..damn skippy. I tell myself to be patient because they are the ones out there, without a safety net, just the raw belief that our financial system and our government is one fucked up mess and they are looking for a way to change it, to fix it..to bring the rest of us along with them..as we sit on our asses and watch from afar.