Protester Ranks Grow on Wall Street

(Newsroom America) -- Vowing to turn Wall Street into their "Tahrir Square," swelling ranks of protesters who are opposed to U.S. social and economic policies say their morale is high, despite mass arrests by NYC police Saturday.

Guy Stewart, in an interview with the amNew York newspaper, said the Occupy Wall Street movement's ranks have grown since protests began last week, though police arrested about 80 people over the weekend as they marched from a nearby park to Wall Street, then on to Union Square about three miles north of the financial district.

Officials with the National Lawyer's Guild, which is providing free legal services to the protesters, said about half of those arrested have already been released and the rest should be by Monday.

Some charges of police abuse have been leveled. The New York Daily News quoted witnesses who said they saw at least three women collapse after they were sprayed in the face with pepper spray.

The New York Times reported that some videos show police using the spray. The paper quoted one of the victims, Chelsea Eliot, 25, as saying she was temporarily blinded by the spray, though she acknowledged to the paper that "there were some rough people out there" at the protests.

Paul J. Browne, a spokesman for NYPD, said spray was used "appropriately."

"Pepper spray was used once, after individuals confronted officers and tried to prevent them from deploying a mesh barrier — something that was edited out or otherwise not captured in the video," Browne said, according to the Times.

Protesters, who were promoted by organizations including AdbustersMedia Foundation, a Canadian advocacy group, and local groups called the General Assembly and the 99 Percent, said they were prepared to remain in nearby Zucotti Park, near the World Trade Center, for weeks or months if need be.

© 2011 Newsroom America.

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