Police arrested dozens of protesters downtown Wednesday during Occupy D.C.’s “day of action” after they blocked traffic on K Street for three blocks, laid down in the street and refused to move even when threatened with arrest.
Protesters had planned the event on K Street for some time, intending to protest lobbying firms and corporate influence in politics. After a march to the Podesta Group, a lobbying firm run by the brother of a former Bill Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, Occupiers poured into the streets outside McPherson Square, set up several tents in three intersections and blocked traffic for hours.
Protesters removed newspaper boxes from sidewalks and upended them in the street and formed human chains across intersections as cars were brought to a standstill by the protest.
“It’s good to be in the intersection,” said Alec Kerestesi, a member of Occupy DC’s action committee. “But we have to strike a careful balance between making our presence known and just being jerks.”
The Metropolitan Police Department formed police lines around the intersection at 14th and K streets at about 2 p.m. and warned protesters that they would be arrested if they did not leave the intersection. Most moved to the sidewalks around the square, standing in the pouring rain, chanting “Shame!” at police as they arrested protesters who stayed and linked arms across the intersection. Police were sometimes forced to drag protesters away when they refused to walk to waiting police vans.
Lying down next to other Occupiers waiting for his arrest, Wesley Brockman, who’d come to D.C. with a group from Kansas City and St. Louis, said he was protesting lobbyists’ influence in politics and didn’t mind getting arrested.
“I want to stand up for something I believe in,” he said, blinking rainwater out of his eyes. “I have two daughters and I want to make a better world for them.”
Police did not have updated arrest numbers by press time — a police spokesman said 11 arrests were confirmed. Police arrested at least 30 additional protesters at the intersection of 14th and K streets who laid down in the street, requiring police to carry them off the premises.
Occupy DC’s wasn’t the only protest that flooded the streets downtown. Take Back the Capitol, a tent city on the National Mall backed by major unions and liberal advocacy groups, brought about 3,000 protesters into the intersection at 16th and K streets. Several were arrested, organizers said.
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Tension flared between both groups at some points during the protest, with some Occupiers accusing Take Back the Capitol members — many of whom had come from other Occupy movement across the country — of being motivated by money from big unions.
The protest was Occupy’s second major incident involving police this week, following 31 arrests on Sunday after Occupiers erected a structure in McPherson Square and refused to leave after a building inspector declared the structure unsafe and police ordered them out.
Updates from the Examiner’s Aubrey Whelan on the latest from the protests:
