(AP)
–
New York City police say about 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested after they swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down a lane of traffic for several hours. Police say some demonstrators spilled onto the roadway after being told to stay on the pedestrian pathway. The majority of those arrested were given citations for disorderly conduct and were released, police said. The group Occupy Wall Street has been camped out in a plaza in Manhattan's Financial District for nearly two weeks staging marches to protest corporate greed, global warming, and social inequality, among other grievances.
"We were supposed to go up the pedestrian roadway," Robert Cammiso, a 48-year-old student from Brooklyn told the Daily News. "There was a huge funnel, a bottleneck, and we couldn't fit. People jumped from the walkway onto the roadway. We thought the roadway was open to us." Several videos taken of the event show a confusing, chaotic scene. Some show protesters screaming obscenities at police and taking a hat from one of the officers. Others show police struggling with people who refuse to get up. Nearby, a couple posed for wedding pictures on the bridge.
