On Wednesday evening, November 16th, I had an appointment to meet someone at the Starbucks next to Zuccotti Park.
We spent several hours talking. After we finished it was probably around 8 or 8:30, I wandered back to Zuccotti Park. It was raining. Soon there was a big commotion at the tiny little People's Library. This is a photo of the restored 'library' from earlier in the day of the police raid you're about to see.
I immediately saw the reason for the pandemonium and now, so will you. I've been looking all over to find video of what happened next. I watched in horror, chocking back tears, as these books were seized and thrown into a garbage disposal unit.
I spoke to one good officer standing watch on Broadway and witnessing the carnage, and he said, 'yeah, this is bad, this is real bad'.
Here it is, from the You Tube Account of the People's Library. I would have posted this earlier had I found these videos.
The NYPD came in, and in yet another unwarranted and fascistic show of force, took the few books that were neatly arranged on the stone bench.
Have a look if you can bear it.
I submit to you that this is one of the most frightening developments to date in the history of Occupy wall Street.
In the first video, you will see the police move in preparing to seize the books.
In the second video you will see employees in yellow rain suits throwing the books in garbage dumpsters.
One week before ordering the destruction of OWS,Mr. Bloomberg was partying with his girlfriend at a benefit for the NY Public Library. This is an evil little man, if you don't know it already.
This is the final video of the police retreating.
You can read another diary here about Mr Bloomberg destroying books.
I want to move briefly to November 17th. I was marching with the PNHP doctors including our very own DrSteveB.
Let me first describe the conditions of the march.
We started in Foley Square, it was crowded but not claustrophobic. Once the rally ended, the crowd surged in the direction of the Brooklyn Bridge. The police had us fully penned in. This is when it became very, very dense and very claustrophobic. We were corralled by the metal grates. All the protestors were very well behaved but the immense police presence, with almost all of the officers in riot helmets, was very unnerving. If even a single person did the slightest thing out of line, you knew the police would react very harshly. And we had nowhere to run.
When we finally made it to Chambers there were even more riot police and what looked to be at minimum twenty horses lined up in two very menacing columns. These horses can do terrible damage and we were corralled with no means of escape.
At about 11:30 of this video, you can see the wall of horses positioned on Chambers Street, supplemented with cops in riot gear. I was marching with a young emergency room doctor from NYU. I said to him as we were inching through, 'boy this is creepy, and very scary, let's just get past this as quickly as possible'. He said (keep in mind he's a doctor), ' that's the exact correct reaction, I feel the same fear as you'.
We got through and were in City Hall Park, which was more open, so if there were any police riots, there were places to run. During the march, we were penned in, just like sheep to the slaughter. This is no way to exercise First Amendment rights.
I waited a couple of minutes in the Park deciding whether to go across the bridge. Then there was a huge commotion from Chambers Street, exactly where the horses were stationed. People started running in that direction and I became a tad frantic thinking we had just passed through that area, and so many people were penned in at the mercy of the police and the horses.
The screaming got louder, people were chanting 'let them through, let them through'. What I figured out was that the police had blocked the line of march and these poor people were being not allowed to cross the street. It's unimaginable to me how terrifying that must have been.
After all this, I began to lose my nerve to cross the bridge, especially when I saw the huge police presence, which I videotaped.
Earlier in the day, this is what NYPD did.
You can decide if any of this is acceptable. I know how I feel.
For the love of your children and grandchildren, you need to disseminate these images everywhere--the media, your elected reps, friends, neighbors, clergy. When people see for themselves what is happening to our precious 'rights', maybe, just maybe, they will join us. Americans need to stop living in denial about this police state. What would we be saying if these images came from Egypt, Syria, Iran or Libya?