A festive and celebratory mood quickly turned tense and angry Saturday as New York police arrested about 50 Occupy Wall Street protesters at a church-owned lot demonstrators had hoped to use as a camp site.
A dozen or so protesters climbed a wooden ladder into the fenced lot at Duarte Square, according to J.A. Myerson, a writer with Truthout.
He said George E. Packard, an Occupy Wall Street supporter and retired Episcopal bishop to the Armed Forces and Chaplaincies, was among those who had used the ladder to enter the site.
About a thousand people gathered across the street, where dozens of police tried to clear sidewalks as people shouted and screamed at them. Protesters chanted obscenities and screamed: "Make them catch you!"
After the arrests, about 300 protesters made a blocks-long, late-afternoon march to the church rectory.
Earlier in the day, demonstrators played drums, cymbals and trombones, held group meetings and waved signs with a variety of messages -- "Disobedience is civil" and "Sorry to inconvenience your apathy" -- as they marked the completion of three months with a major direct action that could give them a new home as authorities continue to shutter camps nationwide.
Protesters -- flanked by police officers -- coalesced on a nearly half-acre plot about one mile northwest of their former camp at Zuccotti Park. But their potential new landlord at Duarte Square, Trinity Church, has voiced strong opposition, and the move by Occupy is seen by some as applying strong pressure to them to cave in and let the protesters install themselves.
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