Shortly before the ball dropped in Times Square, hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters swarmed over police barricades at downtown Manhattan's Zuccotti Park. As midnight approached, the hundreds gathered at Zuccotti Park shouted "Whose year? Our year!" As they grabbed the barricades, police officers took hold as well, and a shoving match began. At least one officer fired pepper spray into the crowd. Moments later, at least a dozen officers charged into the park, plowing directly into the crowd. One man was thrown down and pinned to the ground by several officers, as protesters shouted "Peaceful!" and "Nonviolent!" After police cleared the park, arresting 68, a small group of protesters gathered on the sidewalk directly across Broadway from the park, where a projector displayed slogans in letters of light on the side of a modernistic sculpture: "We are the 99%" and "Whose year? Our year!" (AP [2], Jan. 1; NYT City Room [3] blog, Addicting Info [4], Dec. 31; World War 4 Report on the scene)
See our last posts on the Occupy movement [5], the global econo-protests [6] and the struggle in New York City [7].
