NOW HEAR THIS: A cop reads out a warning to protesters in video footage of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations provided by the NYPD. (
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The cops said they were loud and clear — and yesterday produced two videos to prove it.
The NYPD released videotapes showing police captains with bullhorns warning anti-Wall Street protesters that they’d be busted if they marched on the Brooklyn Bridge’s roadway — countering claims that demonstrators had been lured into mass arrests on the span.
In one of the videos, a captain in a white shirt can be heard issuing the directive while Occupy Wall Street marchers chant, “Take the bridge!”
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“The police did exactly what they are supposed to do,’’ Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly added: “The protesters were given sufficient warnings. They were warned to stay off the roadway … The actions on the part of department were appropriate.”
The NYPD said “700-plus” of an estimated 3,000 demonstrators were arrested Saturday night — the largest number of busts ever in a protest on the bridge.
It also was the largest mass arrest since 2004, when more than 1,100 were busted during protests of the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden.
The marchers, protesting corporate greed and social injustice, were processed, mostly on charges of disorderly conduct or obstructing vehicular traffic, at 10 precinct houses in Manhattan and Brooklyn, as well as at Manhattan Criminal Court and One Police Plaza.
Many of the protesters — hauled away on police and city buses — said they had no idea where they were taken and processed. But most were freed in four to nine hours.
Yesterday, in downtown’s Zuccotti Park, MTA employee John Bolton, 29, of Queens, held a sign to show his support for the protesters, who were entering their third week in the plaza.
“Just the beginning,” it read.
“I’ve witnessed our infrastructure crumbling in our subway, and they always blame the MTA. They never blame Bloomberg,” Bolton said.
“Budget cuts have affected jobs and pensions. The rich, how do they get to work? Helicopters and limousines. We need to ask how their secretaries get to work.”
The protest has drawn the backing of Bolton’s union, the Transport Workers Union. It also has gotten support from the occasional celebrity, including Susan Sarandon.
Author Salman Rushdie also weighed in, tweeting: “The world’s economy has been wrecked by these rapacious traders. Yet it is the protesters who are jailed.”
Erin Larkins, a Columbia University grad student who was among the throng protesting Saturday, said she has no regrets.
“I don’t think we’re asking for much, just to wake up every morning not worrying whether we can pay the rent or whether our next meal will be rice and beans again,” she e-mailed The Associated Press.
“No one is expecting immediate change. I think everyone is just hopeful that people will wake up a bit and realize that the more we speak up, the more the people that do have the authority to make changes in this world listen.”
Similar protests have popped up other US cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Denver and Washington.
Additional reporting by Cathy Burke