An Occupy Wall Street walks with a painted face on May Day in Union Square In New York City on May 1, 2012. UPI/John Angelillo |
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NEW YORK, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Occupy Wall Street organizers said three people were arrested Tuesday as demonstrators gathered in New York on the second anniversary of the protests.
The Occupy protests that began Sept. 17, 2011, in Zuccotti Park near the New York Stock Exchange, eventually spread to scores of other U.S. cities and many cities overseas -- resulting in some clashes with police and large numbers of arrests. Organizers said the protest is intended to draw attention to "the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations."
OWS said three protesters were arrested in New York for infractions including wearing masks.
Police made 185 arrests during last year's first anniversary of the protests against corporate greed and inequality.
WCBS-TV, New York, reported demonstrators marched down Broadway toward Wall Street Tuesday before the opening bell at the stock exchange, as a half dozen police officers on horseback monitored the event.
"Thank you for letting us have the First Amendment," a protester told a police officer.
The Occupy movement began to fragment after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg directed police to evict protesters from their encampment in November 2011, but OWS organizer Harry Waisbren told WCBS the "separate offshoots all are very impactful on their own."
He said Occupy organizers have "picked up all sorts of skills and tactics and strategies on the way and the whole key is figuring out how to evolve with the times."
"Two years later the world is very different, the movement is very different, we ourselves are very different," Waisbren said.
Plans called for events in New York to support higher wages for fast-food workers, a rally in Washington Square Park and a rally to support a proposed 1 percent tax on most Wall Street transactions.