Disparate reports

The people who were there said the cops allowed them onto the bridge, and not only that but allowed them onto the street of the bridge, before arresting them.


What Yahoo!news said about the arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge: Last week 700 demonstrators who spilled onto the road at the Brooklyn Bridge despite police warnings were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct. – from Yahoo! News.


Democracy Now interviewed people who where there:
AARON G.: What happened yesterday, is we were marching, as you know, and a group of people were funneled by the police off into the road. So, there were police up in front of us and we were marching. So, as we were going down, we were assuming that the police were clearing a path for us to march. So, they were like clearing the road and they were up in front of us, so we were following them, and and all of a sudden, they cut off about, like, 700 of us, and then they, like, cut if off. And then once we got—-when we were walking and stopped and then the police were in front of us and they blockaded us; and then they blockaded us from the back and they were telling the front to turn around and go back, and they were telling the back to turn around and go front-wards. So, they were like—-people were getting squished in the middle because no one knew what to do. Then eventually they brought out with these orange nets and they circled us and they just did a mass arrest on the bridge.

From the same interview:
AMY GOODMAN: So you started over the bridge.

MARISA HOLMES: We started over the bridge and, initially, the police seemed to be OK with letting us onto the street. There didn’t seem to be a lo of presence and people just started flooding into the street and taking the bridge. And later on, of course, we were penned in, the cops surrounded us from both sides, from the Manhattan side and the Brooklyn side, with nets, the orange nets that they like to use, that they used in the RNC protests. And people were quickly kettled, but very non-violent; no one really resisted the situation.

AMY GOODMAN: And when you say, kettled, that’s a common term now, explain what that means.

MARISA HOLMES: It means we were encircled by these nets.

AMY GOODMAN: Enwrapped—-you are wrapped in the netting.

MARISA HOLMES: We were wrapped so there was no way we could move and were also on the bridge, so it was a very difficult situation.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about this issue of people who came, since there were more than 1000 people later, feeling like the police were ushering them onto the bridge, not knowing they were in violation of some order.

MARISA HOLMES: There were lots of testimonials to that effect. I personally saw the police allow us on at the front of the march, and then I fell back into the middle once we were kettled. So, yeah, I think that is definitely true. They allowed us on and then kept us in the middle of the bridge.