Video: NYPD White Shirt Uses Baton To Beat Occupy Wall Street Protesters

The big Occupy Wall Street march which drew thousands to lower Manhattan ended calmly, but things between the protesters and the NYPD have escalated in the past hour or so: Occupy Wall Street spokesman Patrick Bruner says, "Reports of our medics treating several pepper sprayed protesters. Mounted police officers. Barricades block Broadway and Liberty." And then there's this video of a high-ranking NYPD official (wearing a white shirt) batoning protesters who are trying to breach a barrier:

Here's video from another angle, via The Awl:

MyFoxNY reports, "Fox 5 photographer Roy Isen was hit in the eyes by mace from a police officer and Fox 5 reporter Dick Brennan was hit by what he believes was an officer's baton." Both were okay and continued to report:

Occupy Wall Street Protest Arrests; Fox 5 Crew Hit by Mace, Baton: MyFoxNY.com

And here's video of one cop he hoped his nightstick would get a "workout" tonight.

Police apparently started to pepper spray protesters when they tried to cross over to Wall Street. While some protesters returned to Zuccotti Park, others remained and tried to pass the police barricades. Police also kettled protesters there. The Daily News reporter Christina Boyle Tweeted after 10 p.m., "Helicopter hovering overhead as crowd go east on Platt St then south on Pearl. Don't think it's more than 200 walking. Majority are young."

Earlier in the evening, Bucky Turco Tweeted, "Crowd surrounding Michael Moore at #occupywallst. He walked over and thanked a group of NYPD officers. Asked them to join the movement." Here's video of Michael Moore addressing the demonstrators, and a full photo feature on yesterday's march.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on October 5, 2011 10:11 PM

Comments [rss]

Bill sgarrini

Police should be arresting the CEOs and actual theives inside of Wall street. This is ugly and I think sooner than later guns will be used on both sides. I salute the protesters

Jeffery Roan

I say pepper spray the cops! Have a pepper spray fight. Kinda like a water ballon fight but for adults.

Guest

I really hate to say this but a few cops need to get their heads bashed in at this protest. Treat the cops like they treat the public.

Investigate-NWO-globalists

White-shirt needs to be charged with assault & battery!!!

uponfifth

Where the hell is Bloomberg in all this? He has nothing to say about the NYPD beating people up in our streets? This is as bad as Chicago with Mayor Daley.

Ladder157

Bloomberg, just like Kelly, could not give one damn about the abuse by the NYPD.

Nebulous Rekaburb

FUUUUCK YOOOOOUUUUU, --->Officer Connolly!!!!

Ladder157

I usually don't like when people use expletives but in this case I salute you. I'd like to say that to this slops face.

PubliusC

He looks like a thug.

bobbyjfromtheuk12

The "scrum", I think you added an r by mistake

edgie168

did i make 2hard4uc delete his account? his comments are showing up as "guest"

edgie168

this is how you fight with sticks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

lol

NYU2

Don't wake up the sleeping giant!!!!!! The minute Bloomberg gives the order to get his city back (Tompkins Square Park/Crown Heights) these midwest hippies aren't going to know what hit them!!!! Let's just say I wouldn't want to be anywhere near these crazy cops when that happens. I've been a New Yorker my whole life and during college did some journalism following the NYPD. They aren't the best for no reason. This isn't Seattle Washington. You've been warned!!!!!

mikecherepko

You engage in a lot of regional contrasting for someone who admits to have never lived anywhere else.

GalBklyn

meanwhile in LA, the (very popular) mayor is handing out ponchos to protect the protesters from the rain...

http://www.dailynews.com/news/...

this is getting interesting. Looks like bloom and kelly might just be at the wrong end of the stick...

i > u

Interesting how cops tend to crowd together. Let's hope nobody decides to throw a nice pipe filled with match heads and crushed glassed into that crowd...

LICnative

Good thinking. Every cause needs a martyr. They write songs about them, think Horst Wessel with a grunge feel.

Would you mind not tossing those weapons and hiding behind peaceful protesters? They might not want to go down on your ship.

whitecastlerock

More cop violence porn

Dana

Everyone who posts on here is always right. No one can ever be wrong.

Gothamist_Cynic

These videos are always one-sided. Why don't they have footage of what happened leading up to the cop beating the crap out of the protestors?

i > u

Maybe because there isn't anything?

Gothamist_Cynic

Or was edited?

randomtransplant

What exactly would justify hitting unarmed people in the back?

jacqueline66

I would hate to think the cop was just freaking out for no reason, it is possible. If so he will have to pay his dues but it seems that some large groups of protesters seem to think it's okay to outnumber,intimidate and defy the police and that's dangerous for everyone.

Gothamist_Cynic

Being pushed? So the cop just out of nowhere decided to randomly baton people?

randomtransplant

A smarter man would watch the video's before commenting.

Gothamist_Cynic

I did watch it. All I saw was a huge crowd surrounding a cop beating the crap out of anyone who came close. I want to know what happened leading up to the beat down.

randomtransplant

I've noticed you've been getting deliberately provocative by playing dumb lately, but if you are sincerely curious, (and therefore sincerely dumb) you could get on twitter & see video of Connelly wading 4-5 bodies deep and swinging blindly, while blue-shirts behind him are spraying pepper spray as cover.

BKExcuse

Did you watch some of the other videos? If you're trying to say they people weren't trying to push past the officers you're the one playing dumb.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/st...

randomtransplant

How can you watch that video and not see something wrong?

What is broken in your head?

ocm123

Out of curiosity, how would you have stopped this charge shown in the video first linked by BKExuse?
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

randomtransplant

I wouldn't have blocked off the public space to begin with. If the public wants to march in protest of a building, I wouldn't set up an illegal enforcement catch-22 to begin with. It adds fuel to the fire and risks public safety in ways the unimpeded marches haven't.

No need to re-link, I watched it when I first asked what was broken in the comentors head.

If you want a fence, build a fence and keep the public away. Picking and choosing when and who is allowed to walk down a closed street clearly doesn't work.

ocm123

Sorry for the re-link

Ok, but the Lieutenant who was forced to swing the baton did not have that option at that point. Let's not blame him.

It really shows how edited clips can sometimes misportray what actually happened.

BKExcuse

Rosa parks didn't throw a white lady out of the seat and sit down. Attacking the police is never the answer when they are doing something 100% reasonable. Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean it's wrong. Ask the majority of New Yorkers if they would rather the police let the protesters run amok or try to contain them.

randomtransplant

Cracking random heads over something which can only be charged with a violation penalty is wrong. I think you need professional psychological help - you missed the emotional point the footage you linked was trying to make.

ocm123

That was assault, not a violation. Also, as per procedure he didn't hit anyone in the head. If you notice the blows were directed to the arms and back.

Realistically, there was really no other way to stop these people from continuing to assault his fellow officers.

randomtransplant

He wading like 5 people deep into the crowd and cracked onto the backs of people in the process of submitting to his authority. Under cover of in-discriminant pepper-spray administered by others. Without waiting to see if these prior actions had the desired effect.

Are you saying that's procedurely sound?

ocm123

Yes, the guys he was hitting were the same people who were pushing into him a second earlier. Even the youtube commentators who are often the first to yell police brutality agree with what he did.

randomtransplant

You arn't going off of one video, are you? One time-edited video?
He had to travel into the crowd to strike at people who couldn't reach him. They had not 'assulted' him. He was not simply holding the line.

ocm123

The only reason there a space was because he was swinging his baton. This was an extremely dangerous situation for the cops. The crowd could have trampled them.

How would you have moved the crowd away?

randomtransplant

You are going in circles.

I would have fired Kelly a long time ago and tried for leadership who wasn't arrogant enough to try and shut down an entire public street, thus justifying the (very necessary) reason to march in opposition down the street to begin with.

Also in interest of future public safety a controlled withdrawal would have shown some humility in front of a lot of angry people who are beyond the point where they will back down. Olive branch, or tactical decision, it would have preserved security and avoided conflict.

Alot of the people marching yesterday on Foley square had already been arrested on the bridge. These tactics loose their effectiveness as people go through them, realize it isn't the end of the world to take a blow for something important, and look around them seeing exponential amounts of support in answer for their sacrifice.

randomtransplant

I'm done with this. I didn't march on Wall St last night but my level of engagement is proportional to the perceived need for my taking risks. It seems like 20,000 people felt the same way yesterday.

randomtransplant

He broke the line of scrimage, in his zeal. He compromised his own defensive line to take an agressive posture.

There are alot of ways you could attack his actions - because they were balls to the wall wrong.

BKExcuse

I'm sorry but the law does not recognize "emotional points" as a defense for breaking a law. How else were the police to repel the people? I also watched a protester assault a smiling officer who was doing nothing but trying to hold them back. Assaulting an officer is a little more than a "violation penalty" and what they did was basically mass assault. I didn't see them cracking anyone's heads either.

randomtransplant

No, im saying you should be concerned. The emotional evaluation was about you.

The people have a right to peaceably assemble in public. The people are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Do you have a link to this supposed "assault"? I'd like to see it. That ISN'T a violation, its a crime.

Or are you bullshitting? Or are you claiming you (hypocritically) participated? Or are you a police officer who is talking about an open matter?

ocm123

Was anyone in the crowd making contact with a police officer and pushing? If you answered yes, that's assault

randomtransplant

One person hit him. He lashed out at several people. Not right.

ocm123

The whole crowd pushed into the police, it wasn't one person

ocm123

They were all pushing into the cops a second earlier.

BKExcuse

What do you think it's called when you push a cop? Assault on an officer. You can also watch the video I posted and see the officer who's just doing his job and holding the barricade while smiling be struck in the head by a protester. You have a right to peacefully assemble, you don't have a right to peacefully assemble wherever the hell you feel like it. It's clear the protesters are aggressive first and the police were forced to defend themselves and uphold order.

randomtransplant

One person hit him. He lashed out at several people. Not right.

Pierce Inverarity

So it's a movement and a group when it is convenient, but an individual when it becomes inconvenient. Not right.

randomtransplant

First of all, I'm not your freaking semantics professor nor your civics teacher.

Second of all, check out some of the film from the FOX reporter.

This gorilla walks up and caps him in the knee when he's holding a big freaking camera and the crowd has dispersed.

Whats that look like to you? (rhetorical question. I'm so sick of being obvious)

randomtransplant

Well, yes, that was the point of that particular action.

To assert their right to a public street.

Kinda like Rosa Parks, when she knew she shouldn't have to give up a public space just because an authority was wrong, and forceful.

Gothamist_Cynic

Wow you must be a moron because ABC news is showing the same exact footage.

BKExcuse

Did you even watch the whole thing? Did you hear them count down and push? Why don't you jump to :33 and see video which isn't shown here. Here's another angle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Moron.

ocm123

Now the person who initially posted that video on youtube, edited out the sequence of the events that led up to the officers' reaction. He/she also posted the officers personal information including phone number on youtube. This is really starting to piss me off.

BKExcuse

It's really disgusting how far some of these people will go. It's laughable when they try to blame the media for being one sided then pull shit like this.

ocm123

It also shows how Gothamist picks and chooses what angles to show in order to rally up the commentators.

Gothamist_Cynic

I just watched your alternate angle. The cop didn't start swinging until the crowd pushed forward. LOL at the kid trying to grab the cop's hat. Yeah man these idiot protestors don't deserve to batoned. Morons.

Sugarbop

I'm on the cops side with this one. These m-f's are making life downtown a freakin mess. arrest them all and send them on their merry way, anywhere but here.

PubliusC

Wow that is shallow. Thay are not really bothering anyone. It's the cops with their cordons that make it hard to get around.

Bronxalien2013

Paid security guards for the rich.

Konrad_Lorenz

At first I didn't even realize at first that you were putting up a reductio ad absurdum there...

I think there are plenty of people who would say that, yes, you have every right to march on the White House.

diablofreak

So, has anyone here ever been to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC? (I'm not talking about the White House itself, I'm referring the street Pennsylvania Avenue, between 15th and 16th Streets) That whole block is cordoned off by Secret Service. Can I still stroll in there, have a sleepover, and exercise my right to scream that my President is a no good global war criminal masterminding multiple illegal assassinations of people abroad in Pakistan and Yemen and should be tried for war crimes? After all, I'd just be exercising my First Amendment rights. And if I happened to have a firearm with me, as long as I have a permit, I'd just be exercising the 2nd. Secret Service can't touch me.

All of you, just stop and think for a minute on what you're saying when you say the NYPD has no rights to block off the New York Stock Exchange.

Politburo

Actually, yes, you can do most of that. There's a woman that lives in Lafayette Square and has been protesting for 30 years. On most days you can walk right up to the White House fence.. occasionally the whole area is shutdown, but that's usually because a foreign dignitary is staying in Blair House.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

It's not easy to get a carry permit in DC, so that other part isn't gonna happen.

lexluthor666

I agree that many of the OWS protesters seem regrettably ignorant of 1st Amendment restrictions. They're probably putting themselves in harm's way in some misguided assumption they're following the law.

But Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House is a bad example. Wasn't it just closed off after 9/11, and hasn't the closure remained controversial despite an obvious terror threat?

guestymcspanky

That block of Pennsylvania Ave was closed off during the Clinton Administration, after a guy pulled out an assault rifle and shot up the front of the White House.

Luke

holy shit!

joeyrobots

easy solution. every protestor carries a water bottle full of gasoline. cops start macing, start dousing them in gas. see what happens. cops start hitting, light em up.

LICnative

Sounds like a plan. A plan to get shot.

ConradBain

there's something happinin here
what it is aint exactly clear
theres a man with a gun over there
tellin me i got to beware

i think it's time we stop, children
what's that sound
everybody look what's goin down

there's battle lines being drawn
nobody's right if everybody's wrong
young people speakin there minds
getting so much resistance far behind

it's time we stop,
hey what's that sound
everybody look what's goin down

what a field day for the heat
a thousand people in the street
singin songs that they carry inside
mostly say hurray for our side

it's time we stop,
hey what's that sound
everybody look what's goin down

there are lawyer strikes deep
into your life it will creep
it starts when your always afraid
step out of line the man come and take you away

you better stop
hey what's that sound
everybody look what's going down

bigmikebrooklyn

singing songs and carrying signs.
also, paranoia strikes deep.
(and i'm pretty sure the resistance is from behind, but not positive)
T,FTFY ;D

Wilhelm Kein

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
This the same guy?

ADM

In the Fox 5 video, you can see Kurt Cobain Jr. and John C. Reilly trying to break down the barrier and then getting wacked by Connolly. Luckily, Cobain's backpack shielded him from the full impact of the blows.

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/new...

m015094

Someone should tell them that Steve Jobs died. They would be so grief stricken that they would collect up their iPhones and iPads and leave.

Elderta2

I was down there up until about 8:00 and it was totally peaceful but hectic. I guess the protesters started going places that the cops didn't want them to go. I was only there for about an hour, so I don't know exactly what was going on everywhere.

seattlesnow

I just think its all funny these folks are protesting the banks while being funded by the same banks to protest

edgie168

break it wide open with your scoop of the week, jayson blair.

StarryGordon

Do you want to be specific? Which banks are funding which protesters? How do you know? Please tell us.

Konrad_Lorenz

Banks are responsible for all economic activity. Before banks, there were no houses, no production, and no trade.

economatronic

Hahahahahahahahahaha, you're an idiot.

Gepap

There was economic activity, including long range trade, long before the idea of a bank came into being, so, NO.

Konrad_Lorenz

lexluthor666 has already demolished this argument, see http://gothamist.com/2011/10/0...

Gepap

He did no such thing, and you are a fool if you think his statement somehow backs up your intial statement, or what is implies.

What he pointed out is banks and joint stock corporations allow for the pooling of capital, which allows for more capital intensive enterprises. So your initial point that all economic activity requires this remains wrong.

All his point states (which I agree with) is that creating a system by which capital can be aggregated is great. The issue is the manner and nature of that capital aggregation, and the current system of large privately held banks is not the only configuration possible to aggregate capital in large enough pools to allow for greater improvements. Neither is the current form of the joint stock corporation as has been developed over the last century.

Konrad_Lorenz

I couldn't help but notice you're typing that on a computer made by a joint stock corporation...

Gepap

yes, a coporation that exists only because it was granted a government charter and benefits such as limited liability.

lexluthor666

There definitely weren't a lot of things. We're talking about centuries ago. I don't think many people would prefer to go back to a time when there weren't institutions for the raising and provisioning of capital. The widespread dissemination of every advance since is largely a product of access to large capital outlays facilitated by banks and stock purchases.

StarryGordon

These remarks seem devoid of significance. The original statement was that the protesters were being 'funded by the ... banks to protest'; in other words, the protesters were being paid by the banks for their activities. So now one must decide whether you all are trolls, or simply don't know how the English language works. What a waste of time.

Konrad_Lorenz

The protesters have money, don't they? Where do you think that money came from? Banks.

Gepap

And banks have the ability to create money only because of the legal system created by the soverign, as the "money" they create has worth only because it is considered legal tender.

Are you therefore saying that it is infact the government that makes banks possible, and thus all "economic activity" is possible only because of government?

Konrad_Lorenz

No, because it's the banks and corporations that create all the wealth for the government to tax, that makes government possible.

shawn begley

wow everything translates back to gross national product and the amount of energy expended by the people working. if it wasn't for that there would be no banks and no capital and no government.

Gepap

Actually, it is LABOR that creates wealth, so it is the employees of corporations and banks that allow those instutitions to do anything, but those insitutions exist only because of the LAWS on the books, and only the soverign creates laws.

Government predates written history, which is 5500 years old. Banks and joint stock corporations have existed only for 600 years, tops.

Your statement is demonstrably wrong. Not that this is a surprise.

StarryGordon

You're wasting your time. KL is hopelessly ignorant. Saying that money comes from banks, or that wealth comes from corporations, is like saying that milk comes from the supermarket. Hopeless.

I was interested in the message at the top, which seemed to promote a conspiracy theory -- that the protests were funded by the banks which are partly their target. But the author seems to have absconded. Wisely, perhaps.

Konrad_Lorenz

Yeah, because I'd so like to live 5500 years ago.

Gepap

Your statement remains demostrably false. Have any other false statements to make?

Konrad_Lorenz

All you do is point out the exception to the rule. The widespread dissemination of every advance since the founding of the first bank is a product of access to large capital outlays facilitated by banks and stock purchases. In other words, banks are responsible for all progress.

Before banks and corporations, lives were nasty, brutish, and short. There was no economy to speak of. Yes, TECHNICALLY there was still economic activity, but hardly enough to count.

Gepap

More false statements from you.

What I point out is historical facts. That those facts contradict your theology is your problem, not mine.

And you are again wrong at claiming that banks and joint stock companies were the key to everything good that happened since they were founded. They were NOT key in coming up with the scientific discoveries that made much of our advancement possible, nor where they the sole agents of the spreading of those discoveries. They were not responsible, even in this country, for the colonization of the continent. They did not uderlie ever advancement of infrastructure that was critical to expanding trade or improving daily life. Groups of people were able to gather up capital to do great things long before banks and joint stock companies came into existance or even into wide use.

These insitutions are not the cause but the effects of our growth and development over the last few centuries. It takes a very narrow, myopic view of the world to claim otherwise, but your constant stream of historical innaccuracies shows you have such a myopic view.

And while life was shorter and more brutal at the time these instutitions were first created, it was not they that made life easier or longer. You confuse correlation to causation. A very common logical mistake.