At just after 8 am, we got underway on the second march of the day. This was not to be as long as the 10 miles or so overnight. It was just over a mile. It left Foley Square and went south. The idea was to circle city hall and give Mayor Bloomberg a piece of their mind as he was speaking.
Usually there were just police on one side of us as we marched, along the street side, keeping protesters on the sidewalk and out of the road...
but since City Hall was on the other side, there was now a police presence on both sides
You'll note the ones right by the gates of City Hall were in riot gear, just in case.
If you have seen any of the footage of the protests, there is always a lot of chanting. This makes for great background as I am doing live reports. I usually cannot hear a darn thing being said from the studio. I just desperately listen to hear my name and hope I am supposed to talk, but it sounds great with the chanting in the background.
However... as they marched around City hall the chanting changed from the typical "We are the 99%" and "Whose street? Our Street!" to this....
Yes, just seconds before they went live to me the "Fuck you Bloomberg" chant erupted and was the backdrop for my report. I mentioned it in my report... that they had turned to a less-than friendly chant for the mayor that the listeners may or may not have been able to hear...
We continued onwards and ended up at Canal and 6th Ave. It was an open lot that belonged to a church that was friendly with the protesters. So they were welcome to hang out there. It was used as a gathering / regrouping / demonstration spot and a large crowd showed up.
This is where I got bored again. There was a lot of message passing going on. If you have not heard how that works... well... they have what they call the 'people's microphone'.
You hear a female voice. She is in the middle of the crowd starting the information chain. It is then repeated in 'waves' by the people in the crowd so everyone can get the information and hear. It's a very effective way to communicate in such a massive crowd, but it takes forever to get a couple sentences across and I can be impatient. I used this time to interview people off to the side as well as talk to some of the police officers.
What did I talk to them about? Well I told them that there was a reason they were cops and I was not and that after watching them be insulted, ridiculed, spit on, hit with trash bags, I would have decked someone and I was impressed with their restraint. The officers I talked to smiled, said thanks, and otherwise did not say much. I don't blame them, I am the media... they have to be careful.
After a lot of 'people's mic' talk, a decision was made that some of the group was going to march back to Zuccotti Park to see if the police were indeed allowing them back in, as the court order said they should. Frankly, they wanted to test them and see if they could find the police in contempt of court.
So, we got in formation behind a banner and American flag and started marching again. This was another march of about a mile.
Along the way we saw a lot of support for the occupiers. There were people standing the doorways of businesses waving and taking pictures. Cars would honk their horns. People were even waving from their apartment windows, including the baby in this picture.
The Return to Zuccotti Park
When we arrived at the park there were two layers of police barricades set up - one on the edge of the sidewalk by the street and one surrounding the park itself. We were on the outside of both to start... and the police were not letting anyone through...
The protesters started pulling out copies of the restraining order that said they were allowed to return to the park and waving them at police..
The crowd kept pouring in, but with no where to go, it got tighter and tighter. Think sardines.
Katie and I both felt like cattle that had once again been kettled. We both had the same hope... that things would not get out of hand and pepper spray or tear gas be used because we could not move and would have been stuck in the cloud.
Then they started jumping the first barricade.
Police in riot gear still held the line around the park
and the protesters started marching around the park trying to find a way in. Every now and then someone would break through the police line and run into the park, only to get arrested.
This is also where I saw another piece of evidence that the media is not exempt from being arrested. There was a reporter on top of a covered bus stop with a video camera. You know, one of those big TV cameras. He was told to get down, did not, and there were hands of two police officers pulling him and the camera down from the roof. I was mortified to see him come tumbling off the roof. The police did catch both him and the camera, so there was no thud of the person or crash of the camera, but it was horrible to watch.
The protesters kept circling the park, trying to get in....This I found was a perfect time to get my next chunks of audio. As people walked by me, I asked them to react to what was happening and that they were not being allowed back into the park. I was getting great answers until some fresh, newer protester (who maybe did the later morning marches, not the major overnight one) decided to get snippy with me. She yelled at me 'maybe you should join us and not just stand there recording us!'. I shot back "I don't know where you have been, but I have been marching all night!" and had some of the other protesters jump in and backing me, yelling 'Yeah! she has been here all night'. They were defending me against one of their own. I must say I enjoyed that moment. And yes, that also illustrates that no, I do not know how to keep quiet, even when in an angry mob.
Katie and my coverage should have already ended, and we were getting tired. So, we started to leave.... Ok, to be honest, it took about an hour to leave. We kept being pulled back in by things going on and not wanting to miss history in the making...
But eventually, better judgment made us realize an 11 hour day was enough and it was time to let someone else take over. I will mention here, we were the ONLY radio reporters who did all the marches. Others were stationed at the parks and meeting points points, but were not in the midst of all the mobile protesting that was going on. I really feel they missed out. The energy and emotion was in being apart of the moving and breathing protest. The stopping points were not nearly as intense or alive-feeling as the marches.
That said... on my damage report is shin splints from running too many blocks in shoes that were not made for running and a bruised shin from the tumble over the chair in the police vs protester tumble.
Tomorrow I am going to wrap this up with a few more thoughts and give you a chance to hear what it sounds like to be in the crowd, in the march, in the melee...
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