>>supposed to be a temporary autonomous zone>>

According to who?

I overheard the Chief of Police speaking with two legal observers. He said that the people were walking abreast down the sidewalk, obstructing pedestrians, and I believe he claimed even "assaulting" pedestrians by pushing them, and that then they "assaulted" a police officer by pushing him so that he fell down. He said "We don't like doing this, but we had no choice." I noticed many hats and gloves and bagels and coffee cups all over the street and sidewalk. How did so many people lose their clothing and food?

police means brutal
police has nothing to do with upholding of the law
police is the corporate watchdogs.....
I could go on but,just a few words

i was on 11th st. and second ave. sunday at around 2:30. police sectioned off and arrested a bunch of people
but it was impossible to tell how many because of the method they used. there was a wall of cops three deep,
in full riot gear around the people sectioned off. there was also a wall of riot cops on the corner of 2nd and 11th
and on the corner 2nd and 12th st. also, police had "frozen" the opposite side of the street...so there was no way of knowing what was going on from that direction. all that could be seen was cops...i knew there were protesters in there but they were concealed from view by the police. i witnessed one reporter, from chicago, approach the police to ask what was going on only to have them check his press pass then rufuse to return it and tell him to "move on"or get arrested.
he asked several times for his pass back but was refused. police started bringing protesters into paddy wagons but this was also difficult to witness because the police set things up so they were blocking the view of people watching. there was a gathering of about 30 neighborhood people and folks walking by who stopped to try to find out
what was going on. the police were not really communicating with the crowd except to tell them they couldn't walk through that block, they'd have to go around.
lots of neighborhood folks were freaked out by all the cops, sirens, and helicopters circulating in the area all day.
although i'm down with direct action and reclaiming the streets i kinda feel it would have been better if a different neighborhood was choosen for this action. for one reason...because this has traditionally been a liberal/radical
community (going back for about 100 years) so doing anti-capitalist action here is a little like preaching to the converted. and secondly, this neighborhood was in the "frozen zone" in the week that followed 9/11. we saw more than our share of cops, army dudes, helicopters, morgue trucks etc. yesterday i saw genuine fear on some of the faces of the people of my neighborhood as they watched dozens of cop vans and motercycle cops screeching around with their sirens blaring. i heard a few people say "oh god! what now??" and stopped to talk to them and explain what was going on ( and that this is what "free speech" looks like in this day and age).
personally, i feel that chelsea, which is a highly capitalist area, would have been a more logical place to hold this action.

sincerely,
kate huh

a friend of mine was pepper sprayed for jumping over the fence of a penn at the protest, and someone standing on a desolate street corner giving out vegan pizza was threatened with arrest for blocking pedestrian traffic

Um, I came over to this part of town to visit a friend at cooper union, and the direction invoulved counting how many starbucks i passed (3), and her building was right next to the McDonalds. When we went to check out the Action down the street, all the NYU students were whining about how the activists had litterted, leaving all their bandanas, hats and gloves on the ground, as the activists where being dragged away by the police. While talking to the people from this neighboorhood, who were trying to see what was going on, I had to explain why peoiple were protesting, what the WEF was, why people were opposed to capitalist globalization, what a snake march is, and why police would arrest people for marching. some kids my age laughed as police roughed people up. This the vibe I got was that this neighboorhood was composed of kids who have their heads in books to much to realize that their streets have been taken over by mega-corporate stores, and people wsho the more class war oriented activists call "Yuppie Scum", I satumbled upon the action by accident but think that this part of town was a good place to challage a lot of people, and hopefully get them thinking about where they stand.

Ante Su Milagro Neoliberal,
Rechazo, Resistancia Y Lucha Total!

It is intresting to note that non of the mainstream media in the UK has reported on the events in NY of this weekend.
As usual state violence goes unreported as many innocent people are attacked by the apparatus of the state.Unless people physically protect themselves this will continue.
Bring on the Black Bloc!!!

Touching him/her, touching his/her dog, touching anything attached to his/her body. TOUCHING, just stick out one finger and put the tip on his/her _____ and the f'er may well decide you assaulted them. Better be careful to quelch that instinctive reaction of sticking out your hand when something suddenly grabs you and starts to pull on you....

Reality Check: Andy Griffith may still be out there somewhere, and there are good and decent and even idealistic folks in police duty ~> BUT the job tends to attract militaristic/violent thugs and people who crave 'power-over'; they, too, lie and do immoral and illegal things and tend to cover for each other; I'm convinced that you'll find more criminals per 100 heads in any police force than you will in a cross section of the general population.

got arrested in police sweeps two blocks from this action. apparently i must have been one of those people who were supposedly walking down the sidewalk and attacking pedestrians. what i saw was more like 7 or 8 kids (including me) standing in front of a verizon building trying to figure out what the hell was going on. we couldn't even see the march. cops swept by and arrested everyone, then obstructed pedestrian and automobile traffic for 2 hours, which we never could've accomplished even if we wanted to. very impressive, nypd. they then detained us for 48 hours, originally only charging us with disorderly conduct. we had to be finger printed twice because they upped the charges against us, probably to justify the absurdly long holding times.

in the prison, there were actually quite a few decent cops who tried to help us out. but it came down the chain of command, you know? cops get fucked by the system too, you know.

was there. kids got arrested for singing in the streets. crowd broke into chants of shame as cops kicked submissive protesters into unconcious states. beating up girls young enough to be wearing braces is not courtesy, professionalism, or respect. one guy was targeted by the undercovers (you can tell them because they're twice our size and badly dressed, didnt get a fashion memo) but never touched them. a few minutes later I was talking to this guy and a cop threw me to the ground and jumped on top of the kid punching. that was some messed up street action.