Paul Harris
London Guardian
Oct 1, 2011
Several thousand anti-Wall Street protesters marched through downtown Manhattan on Friday night to protest against incidents of police brutality at a previous demonstration.
The group was part of the Occupy Wall Street movement which has camped for almost two weeks in a New York square to protest against the finance industry, among other grievances.
The group had attempted a march last weekend which ended in scores of arrests. Numerous incidents of police roughing up protesters were caught on film including one senior officer spraying mace at several female demonstrators being kept behind a police barrier.
Video of that attack went viral on the internet prompted mainstream media – which had mostly ignored the protests – to give them sympathetic attention. Computer hackers also released the name and address of the officer caught on film. Since then the occupation has garnered many new supporters and global press attention.
It has attracted celebrity visits from liberal figures such as filmmaker Michael Moore and actor Susan Sarandon. On Friday an apparently false rumour that the band Radiohead were to play an impromptu gig at the square caused a temporary Twitter storm.
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