POLICE ARRESTED at least 150 people from the Occupy movement in Oakland, California, and Atlanta, Georgia, overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday.
Clashes between police and demonstrators turned violent in Oakland, where the authorities had broken up an encampment in front of City Hall earlier on Tuesday. Police said they intervened after a rape, a severe beating and a fire occurred in the camp. They cited “frequent instances of public urination and defecation” and “improper food storage” that aggravated the “rodent problem”.
Demonstrators repeatedly attempted to retake the square, which they call Oscar Grant Plaza after a young, unarmed black man who was shot by a white officer in Oakland in 2009. In the first counter-offensive, the crowd dispersed after police fired tear gas. The second time, around 9.30pm on Tuesday, hundreds of people holding peace signs and chanting slogans confronted police in full riot gear and gas masks, across a metal barricade.
Police warned they were about to use “chemical agents”, then fired tear gas canisters. Some of the demonstrators also wore gas masks, and continued to throw rocks, bottles and fire crackers at police. Protesters posted photographs on the internet of injuries which they said were caused by “beanbag guns” and rubber bullets.
Local television station KTVU posted footage of a loud pop and flash, followed by a protester falling hard to the ground. The San Francisco Chronicle said protesters threw paint at the heads of riot policemen and chanted “This is why we call you pigs”. In Atlanta, which played a historic role in the civil rights movement, the African-American mayor Kassim Reed sent religious leaders to plead with protesters to leave a downtown park. When police arrived to make arrests after midnight, the protesters gathered in the centre of the park, linked arms and sang the civil rights-era hymn We Shall Overcome as they were led to buses.
Authorities in Providence, Rhode Island and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, want to disperse protesters in those cities. Residents of lower Manhattan have asked for off-site portable toilets and limits on noise.
Yet despite such problems, the Occupy movement continues to enjoy significant public support. In a CBS-New York Times poll, 43 per cent of respondents agreed with the aims of the movement, while 27 per cent disagreed. Sixty-nine per cent said Republicans in Congress favour the rich. An earlier poll showed that more people support the Occupy protests than the right-wing Tea Party.
The Occupy movement is roiling US politics. The Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich told CBS yesterday that there was “a frightening level of anti-Semitism in some of these gatherings”. Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who has done ground-breaking work on consumer debt and who hopes to take Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat back from the Republicans, told the Daily Beast: “I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do. I support what they do.”
Democrats want to channel the enthusiasm of the Occupy movement without being associated with scenes like the riot in Oakland. "Look, people are frustrated," President Barack Obama told Jay Leno on the Tonight Showon Tuesday. "And that frustration expresses itself in a lot of different ways. It expressed itself in the Tea Party. It's expressing itself in Occupy Wall Street. Everybody needs to understand that the American people feel that no one is looking out for them right now."
President Obama seems reinvigorated since proposing the American Jobs Acts. He conveys energy with oft-repeated, short slogans such as “Pass this Bill now” and “We can’t wait”. The measures he announced over the past three days, to help avoid mortgage foreclosures, create jobs for war veterans and ease the burden of student debt, address grievances raised by Occupy protesters. The death of Muammar Gadafy and President Obama’s announcement that all US troops are leaving Iraq also improved his image.
The BBC North America editor Mark Mardell likened Mr Obama to someone who “has been reading some advice column about ‘how to rekindle your marriage’.” Talk show host Leno told the president: “The bad news is your approval rating is 41 per cent. The good news is that you’re three times more popular than Congress.”