Morgan Gliedman (Photo: Facebook)

Occupy Wall Street doesn't want to be associated with the young West Village couple who were allegedly busted over the weekend with a houseful of explosives, weapons and a bomb-making guide. Morgan Gliedman, 27, and Aaron Greene, 31, were arrested Saturday after police reportedly found seven grams of highly explosive HMTD powder, a flare launcher, a shotgun, ammo, rifle magazines and instructions on making bombs, including a printout entitled "The Terrorist Encyclopedia," at their home. An early report from the New York Post identified Mr. Greene as an "Occupy Wall Street activist," but this afternoon the movement's public relations arm said there is no evidence to support links between Mr. Greene and Occupy.

"There is nothing in the news stories to support a link between OWS and the individual arrested; his name is unfamiliar to many OWS activists," the statement posted on the Occupy Wall Street Press Relations Working Group page said. "A very large number of people came through Zuccotti Park, and there are countless Occupy-related groups nationwide, so it is very difficult to ascertain if one person participated in anything related to OWS."

The Occupy Wall Street statement on the arrest of the young bombers described attempts to link the movement to the incident as part of an ongoing police smear campaign.

"Since its beginnings in September 2011, Occupy Wall Street has vigorously used its Constitutional rights to protest Wall Street greed, and is firmly committed to non-violence," said the statement. "Nonetheless, Occupy has been subjected to extensive surveillance and repression, and the NYPD takes every opportunity to link OWS to crime."

Back in July, Occupy Wall Street was publicly linked to a 2004 murder case after unnamed sources said DNA from the scene of the brutal killing of Juilliard student Sarah Fox matched a chain protesters used to hold open the entrance of a subway station to give free rides. The link was soon chalked up to a "laboratory error."

According to the Post, Mr. Greene was also a Harvard alum who also did graduate work at the university's Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Greene reportedly had "five prior run-ins with the police" on charges including assault and weapons possession.

Despite Mr. Greene's troubles with the law cops reportedly arrived at the couple's West Ninth Street home because Ms. Gliedman was wanted for credit card theft. The house is just two blocks from the street where three young activists affiliated with the Weathermen died in 1970 when a bomb exploded in their makeshift townhouse lab.

Politicker hasn't found any public materials linking either Mr. Greene or Ms. Gliebman to Occupy Wall Street. As of this writing, the NYPD has not responded to a request for comment about the couple's connection to the group.

More is known about the background of Ms. Gliedman, who is reportedly nine months pregnant, than the history of her male companion. Her father is Dr. Paul Gliedman, the director of radiation oncology at the Brooklyn Division of Beth Israel Hospital, and her mother is a real estate agent, Susyn Schops Gliedman. Ms. Gliedman graduated from Dalton in 2002. According to a Facebook page for "Morgan Gliedman" that was recently deleted, she went on to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A "Morgan Rose Gliedman" wrote for a monthly journal at that school, F Newsmagazine, in 2009. That January, she penned a piece for the paper with tips for "enjoying life as a starving artist."

A still from the Occupy Wall Street raid video released by someone claiming to be affiliated with Anonymous. (Photo: YouTube)

On Sunday, someone claiming to be affiliated with the hacker activist group Anonymous, released a two minute clip containing footage of last November's eviction of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park that they said was obtained from the NYPD's Technical Assistance Response Unit. While the clip has widely been covered as having been "leaked" from the police, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Paul Browne told Politicker the clip was 'not 'leaked'' and may have been a combination of footage from television news cameras, public court records and even possibly from the occupiers themselves.

Reporters were infamously prevented from getting behind police barricades during the eviction of the Occupy encampment. In Anonymous' footage of the raid, a narrator said "the authorities made all media leave the scene and the only images of what happened came from one livestreamer who stayed in the center of the park until his arrest and one other citizen journalist" and described the footage as "a trove of video shot by the NYPD itself from 14 different angles including surveillance cameras." A statement accompanying the clip also said "much of the video" was "edited by the NYPD," which they accused of "covering up their attrocities [sic] committed November 15th in Zuccotti park."

Mr. Browne disputed all of these claims.

"It was not 'leaked,' and does not show any misconduct by police. Contrary to the narrator's account, there were scores of protesters who took video with no attempts by the police to confiscate it," Mr. Browne said. "I saw one protester standing near me who videotaped the same opening scene in the youtube video of officers sawing a chain that two protesters used to chain themselves to a tree in the park. Further, the west side of Zuccotti Park on Church Street was lined with television news personnel and satellite trucks, many of whom filmed events that night."

The footage released by Anonymous doesn't appear to show any instances of police brutality or excessive force. Anonymous' clip does include some footage that appears to have been taken by surveillance cameras as well as audio of a man identifying himself as a detective with the TARU unit. Mr. Browne suggested the surveillance footage and the audio may have come from court records from some of the many lawsuits related to the eviction.

"The TARU's detective voice, if genine, sounds like it may have be taken from material turned over to plaintiffs who are suing the police. It was not 'leaked' by the police, but possibly by someone suing us, and not much of a leak since it's part of the court record," said Mr. Browne.

Update (9:02 p.m.): Mr. Browne told us he believes the detective's voice heard on the video was actually recorded by occupiers who were near him at the time of the eviction.

"We think the detective, as he was making the statement into his own equipment, was taped by a protester standing nearby. In other words, they got his voice, but not his videotape," he said. 

Anonymous' clip begins with footage of someone wearing what appears to be an NYPD uniform and Anonymous' signature Guy Fawkes mask. To avoid any confusion, Mr. Browne made clear this was not an actual police officer.

"Also, the video suggests that the image at the start is an actual officer in an NYPD uniform, in addition to the anarchist mask," Mr. Browne said. "The problem is that the collar brass doesn't comport with his claimed assignment, and the patch over his right shirt pocket is in the wrong place. It's a shoulder patch not worn on the shirt. The 'badge' on the left shirt pocket is clearly bogus."

Watch the video in question below.

Jumaane Williams being pushed with a baton at an Occupy rally Monday night.

Councilman Jumaane Williams has been a proud supporter of Occupy Wall Street since the early days of the movement last year. He proudly pins his Occupy button on his suit even for formal interviews and rather freely shouts "All day, all week! Occupy Wall Street!" when around activists. However, the Occupy movement isn't what it once was. Notably, the crowds are far smaller while the movement's message still remains muddled to many outside observers. We asked Mr. Williams about the state of Occupy after he hosted a press conference earlier today on voter confusion.

"I actually think they've done a lot more than they get credit for," Mr. Williams replied. "But I also think they've got to try and remain as focused as possible on the core issues that they started with so I'm a little concerned about that."

Given Mr. Williams' concern, Politicker asked the councilman if he still identifies with the movement and how long he will continue to be broadcasting their message by wearing his Occupy button.

"I don't know, I still identify with it, hopefully I can continue to," Mr. Williams, who is still sporting the pin, said. "I want them to get more focused. ... I think they get a little sidetracked at times."

Additionally we asked Mr. Williams--who has had multiple unpleasant encounters with the NYPD since being elected--about a police officer forcefully shoving him at the latest Occupy rally. The councilman said he's not exactly sure why he continues to be on the receiving end of this kind of undesired police attention, but vowed to continue attending protests if he supports the cause.

"I don't know, I've been to many protests including Occupy and I've been able to observe without incident," he explained. "I'm looking forward to continuing to do that as we move forward."

Steve Lonegan speaking at the Americans For Prosperity anti-Occupy Wall Street rally.

One year after it began, the Occupy movement appears to be waning, but Americans For Prosperity, the conservative economic activist group founded by the notorious Koch Brothers, held a rally near Rockefeller Plaza this morning to "stand up to Occupy Wall Street." The event included comparisons between President Barack Obama and Fidel Castro, and several heated exchanges between the AFP contingent and Occupy Wall Street sympathizers who showed up to mock and infiltrate the rally.

This morning's event was part of AFP's "Obama's Failing Agenda" bus tour and the group arrived in a large bus emblazoned with a photo of the President accompanied by his infamous quote, "You didn't build that." The bus remained parked on the curb on Sixth Avenue throughout the rally. All in all, there were about thirty people in attendance including those who were there to oppose AFP and a large contingent of media.

One of the first speakers at the rally was an older black woman who identified herself as "Barbara from Harlem." When Politicker asked her last name, she told us it was simply, "Harlem." In her speech, Barbara articulated AFP's view that free markets and entrepreneurship are far better for society than the social welfare and redistribution they say the occupiers and President Obama are pushing for.

"Like I tell people all my life, I have never been employed by a poor person," she said. "I didn't stay home, I didn't watch television, I didn't slide around in slippers. I worked and I was able to buy homes. No one stopped me and I did do it, by the grace of God Mr. Obama, don't tell me, 'You didn't build that.' Don't tell anybody they didn't build that."

After Barbara spoke, Steve Lonegan, director of Americans for Prosperity’s New Jersey branch, took the microphone and compared President Obama's "agenda" to Cuban Communism.

"We've seen an agenda similar to this in the world. ... It started in Cuba in 1953 under a man named Fidel Castro," Mr. Lonegan said. The mention of Mr. Castro's name provoked loud boos from the AFP activists in the audience. "Now, Fidel Castro didn't believe the wealthy paid their fair share. He wanted them to pay more. Fidel Castro said, you know, you guys didn't do that yourselves, you need to share that with the rest of us. ... And now the people in Cuba live under a pall of darkness, under a dumbed down economy and only wish they could live like Americans."

To further illustrate that point, the next person who spoke at the rally was Matt Perez, whom Mr. Lonegan identified as "a refugee who escaped Fidel Castro."

"It is incomprehensible that any leader of our great nation would contemplate changing our prosperity and successful two hundred plus year model into a similar model, which will only bring chaos to our country and suffering for our people," said Mr. Perez.

When Mr. Lonegan returned to the microphone, he addressed the impression that Americans For Prosperity is not as "grassroots" as it claims to be due to its ties to the billionaire Koch Brothers.

"Every reporter said to me, 'Well, aren't you funded by the Koch brothers?' Are all the reporters listening? Are all you reporters listening? The answer is, Americans For Prosperity is funded primarily by thousands of donors across this country that give to Americans For Prosperity," Mr. Lonegan said. "People donate to AFP because they believe in freedom and liberty and no other reason, and they expect nothing else than that. And I want to thank Charles and David Koch for their support and I hope to get more of it."

After the rally, we asked Mr. Lonegan whether there was any way for us to verify his claim Americans For Prosperity isn't primarily funded by the Koch Brothers.

"No, they don't disclose donors," he said of the group. "Just like the NAACP, they don't disclose their donors."

Throughout the event, the AFP supporters argued with Occupy Wall Street sympathizers who showed up pretending to be part of AFP by holding mocking signs that said things like "I'm Dreaming of a white president...just like the ones we used to have" and "Thank You Koch Brothers."

One AFP supporter, who said her name was Joan, repeatedly chased a woman holding a "Let Them Eat Cake" sign around the sidewalk. Joan said she wanted the other woman to "know my story."

"I ate oatmeal because we couldn't afford to eat, my mother worked!" Joan shouted.

The woman with the sign kept attempting to walk away, but Joan continued to follow her. Michael Hundemann, another AFP supporter, who said he worked as an accountant nearby the Plaza, encouraged Joan to ignore the AFP opponents in the crowd.

"She's addicted to welfare, she wants food stamps for everybody," Mr. Hundemann said of the woman with the sign. "She's a Kool Aid drinking freak!"

"I do want food stamps for everybody! Everybody! I don't want everybody to be hungry," another one of the AFP opponents said to Mr. Hundemann.

Mr. Hundemann let out a sigh and began to walk away.

"Don't even let people take pictures with her. Get in front of her. Block her. Block these losers," he said to the other AFP supporters.

We asked Mr. Hundemann whether he felt the Koch Brothers' involvement with AFP compromised the group's claim of being a "grassroots" activist organization.

"Absolutely not. Whether it's the Koch Brothers or, then you have the people like George Soros or Michael Moore on the other side, there are millionaires and billionaires that fund both sides," he said. "It basically neutralizes itself."

Another woman named Laura Prochaska was arguing with a group of occupiers nearby. She carried a sign with a picture of her dog decked out in patriotic, red-white-and-blue puppy clothes that said, "My VET CARE is BETTER Than OBAMACARE." The sign was autographed by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Ms. Prochaska said she got the former presidential candidate to autograph her sign when she attended a "Hands Off Healthcare" rally in Washington.

After about an hour, the crowd began to disperse and Mr. Lonegan and the other AFP speakers headed back on board their bus. On the way, he was stopped by an occupier with a livestream camera who asked why he was mounting a "challenge" to Occupy Wall Street rather than having "a conversation."

"Look at how good it did for our turnout here. I used the free market to turn out the crowd and the media and it worked," Mr. Lonegan said making a sweeping gesture.  "We used Occupy Wall Street to get our message out and it worked very well. It's a counterpoint right? Why not take advantage of any opportunity?"

Police arresting Occupy Wall Street protesters during Monday's anniversary demonstrations. (Photo: Getty)

According to multiple people who have been involved with planning and executing Occupy Wall Street protests the New York City Police Department targeted key organizers for arrests in advance of Monday's Occupy anniversary demonstrations. These arrests may have prevented the movement from, for the first time, presenting a focused, single message at the center of the protests.

Though Occupy Wall Street has long resisted identifying any leadership, there are core members of the movement who have been instrumental in guiding its path thus far. One man, who Politicker has witnessed organizing several major Occupy Wall Street actions and coordinating with other political figures, said he was arrested over the weekend and prevented from participating in the Occupy birthday bash. The Occupy Wall Street organizer, who requested his name be withheld due to his legal situation, said his arrest prevented him from executing plans to focus Monday's demonstrations on campaign finance reform.

"I had thousands of signs printed with messaging on them...having to do with voter rights suppression and money out of politics," he told Politicker.

The organizer we spoke with said they decided to try and focus Monday's demonstrations on campaign finance reform, because it connects to many of the disparate concerns raised by occupiers throughout the past year.

"It is the issue everything relates to; the housing crisis, tax and income inequality, prison industrial complex, name an issue," he said. "As long as our electeds are taking corporate and private money, special interest money, it's going to be hard to get anything done in this country. Simply, we need to get money out of politics and stop suppressing people's right to vote, stop rigging the electoral process."

He also said he believed the Occupy Wall Street had become overly concentrated on physically taking over Zuccotti Park, which was the home of the movement's original protest encampment.

"This was never about occupying the park, it was about the issues and when people become a little more concerned about what plot of space they were going to get in the park and where their tents were going to go, I think a lot of people lost interest,"  said the organizer.

However, the Occupy organizer told us, if they had not been arrested, they believe Monday's protests would have been a chance for the movement to present a cohesive call for campaign finance reform.

"A large group of us were already coalesced and there were other groups that were going to participate in it with us. That message would have been visible," he said. "The visibility would have been overwhelming. You have 1,000 people holding up signs about voter suppression and money out of politics, people tend to notice and that's the narrative on the six o'clock news--all these people are down there and they have messaging. ... Having those signs and having a large unified group of people holding them up would have said that this is an issue that were really concerned about and a lot of us are pushing this. It says that we're not just people occupying a park."

Along with his own arrest, the organizer also identified the arrests of several protesters with the activist group Code Pink as an effort to hurt the movement's leadership ahead of Monday's demonstrations. Jodie Evans, co-founder and co-director of Code Pink, told us at least five members of the group were arrested in conjunction with the Occupy Wall Street anniversary protests.

"They were swooping in and taking anyone who looked like they were leading an action," Ms. Evans said of the police.

According to the Occupy Wall Street organizer, though Code Pink is its own group, their work has been essential to the Occupy protests and they were involved in crucial planning for the anniversary events.

"There are many different groups and people that are part of this movement to bring about systemic change and I think Code Pink is definitely a vital piece of that," he said.

Ms. Evans told us that campaign finance reform was a main focus of Code Pink's involvement with Occupy Wall Street.

"Money out of politics is definitely one of our issues," said Ms. Evans.

Though they were unable to participate in Monday's protest, the Occupy Wall Street organizer we spoke with vowed to coordinate future actions that will be focused on campaign finance reform.

"I want people to be able to understand this issue, and I want to simplify the message and I want it to be something that isn't second fiddle to everything else," he said. "I don't know how to say this, but I'm overwhelmed and extremely reluctant to be a leader. I never wanted it. I never said I was one. There are no rules in this movement, things just happen."

Protesters at yesterday's Occupy Wall Street anniversary. (Photo: Getty)

By this afternoon, Zuccotti Park was deserted. Approximately 12 hours after hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters gathered in the birthplace of their movement to mark its first anniversary, the space was vacant apart from the regular afternoon crowd of office workers and construction crews, who sat on the stone benches eating their lunches.

Prior to yesterday's anniversary celebration, the occupiers vowed to stage “mass civil disobedience around the Financial District in resistance to economic injustice.” Indeed, according to the NYPD, there were 185 arrests in conjunction with the protests. However, in spite of the mass detentions, the simple narrative that is rapidly becoming conventional wisdom in the wake of yesterday’s protests is that Occupy Wall Street is finished.

While the large number of people who took to the streets yesterday would seem to contradict this take on the movement’s anniversary, which could have been an opportunity for the occupiers to rebrand themselves with a more focused message or capture widespread public attention, their birthday bash was instead a display of the same Occupy Wall Street that has been steadily diminishing in impact over the past 12 months.

Occupy’s anniversary passed without any of the large-scale violent clashes that occurred in Oakland, on the Brooklyn Bridge and during the eviction of the protesters’ encampment in Zuccotti during the final months of 2011, all of which made international headlines.

Tuesday’s festivities began with the promised “civil disobedience” in front of the Stock Exchange. Though there were several people arrested, by and large, the protesters who showed up in front of the financial markets were obedient, scattering each time the police ordered them to move. The Observer witnessed one group of five occupiers who sat down cross-legged on Wall Street and began chanting “Om,” seemingly preparing to remain there until they were forcibly removed. When a group of NYPD officers approached on scooters, the five occupying yogis quickly scattered. Similar scenes played out all morning.

In the evening, the ranks of participants in the anniversary protest swelled and descended on Zuccotti Park. As the NYPD surrounded them with officers in riot gear and floodlights, the stage seemed set for
another violent eviction. Shortly before 11 p.m., a large group of helmeted police entered the park accompanied by several higher-ranking officers. Though the police gave no order to disperse and did nothing rather than appear among the crowd, about half of the occupiers in the park vacated the area immediately.

Tim Pool, one of the livestreamers who has made a name for himself by tirelessly chronicling the protesters with a backpack-mounted video camera, remained in the park, shaking his head at the scene.

“They came in and said nothing; people left anyway,” Mr. Pool said incredulously to one of the other protesters.

We met a young man named Mickey in Zuccotti Park last night who said he believed the protests have successfully increased awareness of the problems caused by Wall Street, which he described as “making sure
they stop stealing peoples’ money and homes, et cetera, et cetera.”

“I’ll leave it to the historians to say what our impact really was, but you know, definitely we wouldn’t be talking about it with all the media here today if we didn’t do something, whatever it was,” Mickey
said.

Occupy Wall Street clearly initially succeeded in this goal of consciousness-raising. Politico published a chart Tuesday documenting how mentions of the phrase “income inequality” in the media increased three-fold in the movement’s first four months last fall. However, the site’s research also indicated coverage of “income inequality” has since dropped almost to pre-Occupy levels.

One consistent criticism levied against Occupy Wall Street is that the movement hasn’t had a single set of focused demands or messages. The crowds that gathered in Zuccotti Park and outside of the Stock Exchange yesterday showed no sign of having heard this critique. They carried signs and pamphlets advocating for, among other things, fighting the controversial natural gas drilling procedure known as fracking, eliminating student debt, ending all wars, stopping white supremacy and enacting campaign finance reform. In his hands, Mickey held a sign that exemplified the movement’s somewhat schizophrenic status as a generalized expression of societal dissatisfaction.

“SHIT IS FUCKED UP AND BULLSHIT,” it said.

On the morning after, Wall Street seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as it moved into a new, unoccupied year. Workers for Brookfield Properties, the commercial real estate company that owns Zuccotti Park, were dismantling the barricades they had erected to prevent protesters from bringing in supplies and re-establishing their encampment. A lone police officer stood at the southeast corner of the park surveying the sparse crowd of tourists and office workers inside. He told us there had been no sign of protesters after eight in the morning.

“You think it’s over?” we asked.

“Fingers crossed,” he said, with a gesture of the same sort. “Fingers crossed.”

(Photo base: Getty)

On his weekly radio show with John Gambling this morning, Mayor Michael Bloomberg equated two prominent movements that may not see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues: Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. The comparison came about after Mr. Bloomberg lamented the difficulty of getting Congress to do the right thing on issues like reforming immigration laws to keep international students in the United States after they graduate. He suggested the Tea Party provides a model for pressuring politicians before pivoting to discuss activist irrationality.

"They care about getting elected and reelected, so you have to go and say, 'If you don't do something that's good for this country, or good for this city or this state, we're going to elect somebody else,'" Mr. Bloomberg explained of federal lawmakers. "And that's a hard thing to do and it involves a lot of people."

"You can see it working, in some senses, the Tea Party is exactly that," he argued, surely referring to the conservative movement's success in the 2010 elections. "The Tea Party I've always thought is very much like Occupy Wall Street."

The mayor next explained what he feels to be the mindset of both groups.

"They say, 'We don't want it any more. We want to stop it,'" he said. "And you say, 'Oh good. What do you want to stop?' And they can't answer it."

(Of course, members belonging to either movement are unlikely to be especially fond of the billionaire mayor with a penchant for the policies of micromanagement.)

"Both are groups of people who think that we're going in the wrong direction," Mr. Bloomberg continued. "They may not have answers as to where to go, or their answers may be not-too-smart and not work and not be practical or whatever, but they are people who are not happy and they want to protest. Which is the American way, there's nothing wrong with that. The trick is to not listen to people who have irrational ways to deal with the problems."

Mr. Bloomberg used a recent example regarding foreign policy to conclude his point.

"None of these problems are simple," he said. "I saw somebody said today, 'Oh, we shouldn't be giving foreign aid to Egypt.' We've got to keep the whole world from blowing up here and American foreign aid does that. Do we buy peace? Yeah, some. Total peace? No. We don't need the world blowing up and if anybody thinks we can survive if there's chaos elsewhere just doesn't understand. The oceans may be big, but they're not that big."

Joseph Smith arguing with a protester outside the DNC. (Photo: Hunter Walker)

CHARLOTTE, NC -- So far, the street protests at the Democratic National Convention seem to be much larger than anything seen at the RNC last weekin Tampa. This afternoon, streets had to be closed and checkpoints were moved when a group of protesters took to the street on Stonewall Street a couple of blocks from the site of the convention. Politicker came out to see the protests and so did Joseph Smith from Port Hueneme, California, who was wearing an "Obama" basketball jersey and said his wife was a delegate. Mr. Smith got into shouting matches with several of the protesters, many of whom were cursing the president. Mr. Smith told Politicker he thought the protesters were being "disrespectful" and he suggested the protesters, who were mostly white, were working against minorities.

"I think it's disrespectful in general for people," Mr. Smith. "You're talking about Obama did this and did that. George Bush did it, Senior and Junior, but they seem to forget. ... If you really want to know what it's about, it's black and white."

One of the protesters bristled at this characterization and pointed the minorities in the protest group out to Mr. Smith who dismissed this by saying, "You always had Uncle Toms in slavery."

"You had two kinds of slave. You had slaves in the field who were working and suffering and you had those in the house with their masters and they loved their masters more than they loved themselves," Mr. Smith said. "You'd think in 2012 this wouldnt exist, but this is really 1864 and 5."

One of the protesters informed Mr. Smith he was "offending" her.

"I don't care," he snapped back.

The tension between Mr. Smith and the protesters wasn't the only sign of discord at the demonstration. This afternoon's protest contained contingents from several different groups including Occupy Wall Street, Yippies and Veterans For Peace. Many of the disparate groups who filled the ranks of the protests had different concerns.

Vermin Supreme, the presidential candidate known for wearing a boot atop his head was there with a group of his supporters who carried signs saying "TEETH" and "PONIES." For his part, Mr. Supreme said he was simply protesting to make himself heard.

"I'm here today to peacefully assemble, to exercise my free speech and free assembly rights, to communicate with my elected representatives in government," shouted Mr. Supreme through a megaphone. "I just want to say, 'Hello, how are you? 'It's good to meet you, good to greet you.'"

We spotted a young couple who was laying on the asphalt a few feet away from Mr. Supreme. They wouldn't give their names, but they said they planned to remain on the ground until they were allowed to enter the convention center.

"We're waiting for them to let us go to the convention center so the veterans can take their message to the Democrats," the male half of the pair explained.

The man said he was "not a vet" but was "marching in solidarity with the vets." We asked him what he believed the veterans' issues were.

"The issue that the veterans are brining up is anti war and 'Free Bradley Manning,'" he said referencing the soldier who is currently imprisoned for allegedly leaking classified information to Wikileaks.

His female companion said it was "difficult" to explain who they were there protesting with.

"There's different organizations; there is Occupy Charlotte, Occupy Water Street Occupy DC, Alliance DC, then you have the unions, the vets joining us," she said. "All that we want to do is just use freedom of speech."

Nearby, we spotted another man named Bob Andre who said he was there with Occupy Wall Street and that he had also protested the RNC in Tampa. Mr. Andre said the DNC protests were "better" and said the purpose of the protest was "to expose how fake and how lawless Obama is."

As the protesters argued with Mr. Smith, a man with a beard tried to stop them by shouting "This is ridiculous!" He told us his name was Brent Lengel and that he was there on behalf of "Occupy Wall Street and the Yippies."

"This march is about Bradley Manning. This is done by Veterans For Peace. This is ridiculous getting into it about Obama, it's absolutely insane," said Mr. Lengel. "There are some belligerent people who have a lot of very high emotions and are mad about a lot of things. They're arguing with each other....They're saying stupid shit like, 'Fuck Obama.' That's not helpful, we need to stay focused on the issue here. We need to stay focused on the fact Bradley Manning is still in jail for exposing a war crime."

At the moment, the protesters, who would like to get to an intersection one block closer to the convention center, are still involved in a standoff with a line of policemen who have blocked their path. As we left to file this story about an hour-and-a-half ago we spotted the young couple we spoke with getting up off the ground.

Fiddler on the $treet, the Occupy Judaism logo. (Photo: Twitter)

September 17 is the anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street protests, but it is also Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, a day when observant Jews are supposed to go to temple and refrain from a whole host of activities. Because these religious obligations might prevent Jews from participating in the protests planned for the Occupy-iversary, a group called Occupy Judaism is planning an Occupy Rosh Hashana service in Zuccotti Park on September 16. According to the Facebook invite for the event, Occupy Rosh Hashana will include, "a potluck dinner," a "nondenominational holiday service" with "Occupy Torah" and, of course, the requisite apples and honey.

"Using Jewish holidays as a way of calling for social and economic justice is in line with what the prophets envisioned, as far as what an act in the service of God is," Occupy Judaism founder Dan Sieradski explained to Politicker. "God wants you to pursue justice, not to talk about it in a book, to go out and pursue it."

Last year, Occupy Judaism hosted a Yom Kippur service that attracted hundreds of people to Zuccotti Park. Mr. Sieradski said the Occupy services are organized so that attendees do not have to violate any of the religious laws, which include prohibitions on carrying things during a holiday.

"They're not required to bring anything with them, there's no violation of a biblical precept that they will have to commit in order to participate," said Mr. Sieradski.

In spite of this, Occupy Rosh Hashana is taking place on the 16th, the eve of Rosh Hashana and the Occupy-iversary, because Mr. Sieradski thinks some highly observant Jews might not be comfortable attending services in Zuccotti on the day istelf.

"We're only doing a service on the night before the S17 day of action, Erev Rosh Hashanah, so observant Jews can participate in that as a way of participating in the day of action and then go to shul the next day," he said. "And for nonobservant Jews, they can attend the Erev Rosh Hashana service and then participate in the protest the next day.

Though he has planned Occupy Rosh Hashana to accommodate Jews who might not feel kosher protesting on September 17, based on his interpretation of religious law, Mr. Sieradski believes they shouldn't be reluctant to join the day of action.

"If they're participating in a protest, it's questionable whether they're breaking any Jewish laws," Mr. Sieradski said. "There's nothing saying that you can't march and shout."

Times photographer Robert Stolarik and a police officer at an Occupy Wall Street protest last December. (Photo: YouTube)

According to the NYPD, New York Times photographer Robert Stolarik "violently resisted" being arrested Saturday night and "inadvertently struck" an officer after he got too close to police who were dealing with another suspect. Mr. Stolarik and Times attorney George Freeman dispute this account and claim he was kicked and beaten by the police after simply attempting to do his job. After a long winter that was filled with clashes between New York City's press and police at Occupy Wall Street, Mr. Freeman told The Politicker this incident shows the NYPD has failed on its promise not to interfere with those who cover the news on city streets. As for, Mr. Stolarik, he just wants to get his cameras and press pass back.

Mr. Stolarik was arrested at about half past ten on Saturday night while helping two Times reporters cover a story on Sheridan Avenue and East 167th Street in the Bronx. He told us they were "doing street interviews with people" for a story that involves "the neighborhood, and crime rate and things like this." He declined to go into further detail since the assignment was for a "pending story." When they heard an altercation in progress nearby, Mr. Stolarik said he crossed the street to get pictures of the police handling the situation.

"There were a decent amount of people in the street. I didn't even see the actual fight, it seemed like there was tension. Cops showed up, I crossed the street. I went to go shoot it," said Mr. Stolarik.

This is where the accounts of Mr. Stolarik and the NYPD begin to diverge. According to Mr. Stolarik, when he approached the scene the police grabbed his camera before pushing him to the ground.

"When I went to go shoot it, a cop grabbed my lens and shoved it down. I said, 'Don't touch my lens.' Another cop came to her rescue, if that's what we want to call it. He grabbed the camera, pushed it into my face. They both told me to 'get the fuck out of there' and I continued to shoot and asked for their badge numbers," Mr. Stolarik said. "When I asked for their badge numbers, they turned violent, they surrounded me, they knocked me to the ground, dragged me while I was on the ground. There were like six or more....One of which was kicking me in the back. They were not cuffing me and taking a real long time stepping on my head."

Inspector Kim Royster, a commanding officer in the NYPD's public information division, said she "spoke to the arresting officer and the lieutenant on the scene, as well as the command's executive officer who conducted an investigation" and received a far different version of events. Ms. Royster said the officers arrived on the corner after responding to a call reporting shots fired. When the police arrived, they determined the "call was unfounded," but they encountered a woman who had been assaulted.

"The photographer was a foot away from a police officer who was attempting to make the arrest of a young woman who had assaulted the female victim, and who tried to flee. The young woman was resisting arrest and the officers were attempting to handcuff her," Ms. Royster said. "There was a crowd control situation, about 100 onlookers at the scene. In the attempt to disperse the crowd, the photographer and other onlookers were given numerous lawful orders to move back. While the others in the group complied, Stolarik refused, in fact, he tried to get closer to the officers making the arrest."

Once the woman was handcuffed, Ms. Royster said "the officer was inadvertently hit in the face, not resulting in an injury, by Stolarik's camera."

"Upon being struck in the face, the officer attempted to place Stolarik under arrest. He refused and violently resisted being handcuffed. An additional officer received a cut on his hand while attempting to subdue Stolarik," Ms. Royster said.

Mr. Stolarik described the story that he was violently resisting arrest as, "the most absurd thing I've ever heard in my life." He said the claim an officer was hit by his camera "is also an untruth." He said he displayed his press credential and verbally identified himself as a member of the press. According to the Times' attorney, Mr. Freeman, Mr. Stolarik was a reasonable distance away from the officers and "the police didn't want him taking their picture and there didn't seem to be any reason for that other than to block photos of what the police were doing."

"He was grabbed, he was hit, he was surrounded, he ended up on the ground, he was kicked and, frankly, injured, so any notion that he could be the instigator is artificial, is made up," said Mr. Freeman. "The very notion of basically cursing at him to get away was unwarranted and, further, the notion that he was then surrounded, and cursed at and that physical contact was made of him by the police was totally unjustified."

After his arrest, Ms. Royster said Mr. Stolarik was taken to the 44th Precinct.

"EMS responded to the precinct and he refused medical attention," she said.

Mr. Stolarik said he went to the hospital following his release shortly before five on Sunday morning, which was about six hours after his arrest.

"I went to the hospital yesterday. I don't have any broken bones, but I'm hurt," he said. "I mean, I was beaten by grown men and I'm hurt."

Mr. Stolarik, who was charged with obstructing government administration and resisting arrest, said having his camera equipment and press pass taken by the officers was worse than any physical pain he may have suffered.

"I'm a freelancer for the Times. I've been there over a decade--been there for 12 years and I don't have cameras right now. I don't have a press credential. This is how I make my living and it's like I don't have any of those things," said Mr. Stolarik. "The police department has used this as their personal way to kind of take away my livelihood."

Mr. Stolarik said he believes the Times' lawyers are "trying to deal with" the situation with his cameras and credential, but as it stands, he will be unable to retrieve his equipment until his court date, which is November 26. He also believes the fact he was charged with anything "is ridiculous to begin with."

"This is my living. This is how I survive and I did nothing wrong. All I did was try to do my job. It's like, I show up to take pictures, do my job and the next thing I know, I have no equipment, no press credential," Mr. Stolarik said.

Mr. Stolarik doesn't know yet whether he's going to pursue a civil lawsuit.

"My main concern at this moment is, I'd like to get my press credentials and my cameras back," he said.

Mr. Freeman said he wrote a letter and email to the NYPD requesting the return of Mr. Stolarik's equipment and credentials, but he has yet to receive a response.

Both Mr. Stolarik and Mr. Freeman played roles in the many conflicts that occurred between the NYPD and the media during the Occupy Wall Street protests last winter. Multiple reporters claimed they were arrested or otherwise prevented from covering the raid on the Occupy Wall Street encampment in November. Officials have since disputed those accounts. Due to the issues that arose during the clearing of the Occupy Wall Street, Mr. Freeman and other representatives of media outlets in the City requested a meeting with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. Following that meeting, Commissioner Kelly sent a memo to his officers reminding them not to interfere with reporters covering news events. In December, footage of Mr. Stolarik being blocked by police officers while covering an Occupy Wall Street protest at the World Financial Center attracted a great deal of attention on the internet. Mr. Stolarik told the Village Voice it seemed like one of the cops in the clip "didn't follow the departmental directive from Kelly."

Despite the tensions last winter, back in March, Commissioner Kelly told The Politicker he believes the NYPD has "a good relationship with the press." We asked Mr. Freeman whether he felt the latest incident with Mr. Stolarik showed the police have failed on the promises made to the representatives of media outlets who met with Mr. Kelly back in November. He quickly answered in the affirmative saying that, though he felt the press had "achieved an understanding with the brass," Commissioner Kelly's orders about respecting the media have seemingly gone unheeded.

"That, to me, is my main point," Mr. Freeman said. "We've been working with the NYPD. I think we've achieved an understanding with the brass. Commissioner Kelly reissued his finest a message that made clear that photographers doing their jobs shouldn't be interfered with or intimidated and that's exactly what happened here."

Mr. Stolarik was hesitant to say whether the overall relationship between the police and the press has improved.

"I don't know....I think there are different times. Sometimes, it's absolutely fantastic when you go to a scene, we're able to all work together and say, 'OK, you know, we're going to stand here.' Everyone tries to accomodate the other even though we have two different jobs to do," said Mr. Stolarik. "Things like this, it was not that at all. It was an attack."