By Hunter Walker 12/31/12 8:11pm

Law & Order

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Occupy Wall Street Denies Link To Young Couple Busted With Bombmaking Materials

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.” Read More

By Hunter Walker 9/24/12 1:09pm

Law & Order

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

NYPD Says Anonymous’ Occupy Raid Footage Was Not Leaked From the Department

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. Read More

By Hunter Walker 9/20/12 1:26pm

Rumble in Rock Center

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Activist Group Founded by Koch Brothers Takes on Occupy Wall Street in Midtown

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. Read More

By Hunter Walker 9/19/12 10:33pm

Law & Order

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

Occupy Organizers Say NYPD Targeted and Arrested Key Leaders Before Anniversary Protest

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. Read More

By Hunter Walker 5:53pm

The Hangover

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

Unoccupied: The Morning After in Zuccotti Park

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. Read More

By Hunter Walker 9/04/12 3:42pm

Culture Clash

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

Obama Supporter Gets in Racially Charged Skirmish With Protesters Outside DNC

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.” Read More

By Hunter Walker 8/30/12 11:03pm

Party Crashers

Mitt Romney (Photo: Getty)

Protesters Briefly Interrupt Mitt Romney’s RNC Speech

TAMPA, FL — Mitt Romney is currently on stage at the Republican National Convention. During his speech, a group of protesters attempted to interrupt the proceedings by shouting from the seats above the convention floor. Audience members drowned them out with chants of, “USA! USA! USA!”

Politicker was unable to hear the protesters from our spot on the convention floor, but, according to journalist Andrew Coyne, they were waving pink banners and shouting, “People over profits!” The protesters were quickly removed by security personnel. Dan Libit of the Daily said the protesters were affiliated with the activist group Code Pink, which staged a similar interruption during Paul Ryan’s speech yesterday. Read More

By Hunter Walker 8/17/12 3:26pm

Chutzpah

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

Protest and Party Like It’s 5773 at Occupy Rosh Hashana!

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.” Read More

By Hunter Walker 7/02/12 4:39pm

Fast and Furious

One of the "Fire Eric Holder" protesters standing outside the White House. (Photo: CampusReform.org/Josiah Ryan)

Secret Service Shut Down ‘Fire Eric Holder’ Protest For ‘Safety Reasons’

The Secret Service stopped a group of about 50 college students who were leading a protest demanding President Barack Obama fire Attorney General Eric Holder in front of the White House today.  Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan told The Politicker the protesters were removed because there was a suspicious package.

“There was an unattended package left in proximity to the fence line which resulted in the sidewalk being cleared for safety reasons until the owner could be located,” Mr. Donovan said.  Read More

By Hunter Walker 1:29pm

investigations

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Jerry Nadler Says Feds Didn’t Give ‘A Satisfactory Response’ To His Call For A Probe Into NYPD’s Handling Of Occupy Wall Street

Congressman Jerrold Nadler was one of the politicians who attended yesterday’s protest march against the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy. He told The Politickerhe believes stop and frisk is “terribly violative of civil liberties” and, like other elected officials, he hopes the Department of Justice will investigate the policy.

However, Mr. Nadler is not optimistic about the possibility of a federal investigation because he said the DOJ didn’t respond to his call for them to investigate the NYPD’s conduct towards protesters and journalists during the raid on the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park last November.

“I must say, the Justice Department has not been terribly responsive when some of us have asked for investigations for various things,” Mr. Nadler said.

Mr. Nadler went on to say one of the requests he was referring to was his push for a probe into the NYPD’s handling of the Occupy Wall Street eviction.

“We never got a satisfactory response,” he said of his call for an Occupy investigation. “I think we got a response, it was not satisfactory.” Read More