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Video: Watch People Get Arrested In Zuccotti Park For Lying Down
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 12, 2012
Modified Jan 12, 2012
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 12, 2012
Modified Jan 12, 2012
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When the barricades surrounding Zuccotti Park were removed Tuesday night, Occupy Wall Street protesters flocked to the iconic space that they call Liberty Square. The library was reopened, free pizza distributed, a General Assembly held, and three people were arrested for the crime of lying down. The NYPD and private security guards militantly policed the park throughout the night to enforce new rules that Brookfield Properties hand-crafted to make the occupation all but impossible to revive. First and foremost among these is a prohibition against lying down, which intrepid cameraman Joey Boots defied with his usual panache:
Boots and two others were arrested for lying down in the park, while 20 other protesters reportedly spent the night without incident. Another arrestee was Keegan Stephan, who was recently featured in Vanity Fair's oral history of Occupy Wall Street. "I’m just devastated that we lost the park," said Stephan. "I just loved the space and loved the people there. People felt like they had a voice again because we had that space. I don’t know if it’s going to continue to happen if we don’t have that space. We’ll see. I hope it does. I hope we retake the space."
Here's another video of the jubilant scene in the park Tuesday night, culminating in Stephan's arrest. Be sure to check out the end (around the 2 minute mark) when a cop tells Barbara Ross, who was documenting the arrest, to "get the fuck out of our way with that piece of shit you've got in your hand. You're a regular fucking pain in the ass." Under these circumstances, that can only be taken as a compliment.
UPDATE: Here's one more video, courtesy OccupyTVNY.org:
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Zuccotti Park
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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