Fearing traffic and security nightmares, people steered clear of Chicago's downtown area Monday, and the protests were smaller and more peaceful than those that occurred over the weekend. NBC's John Yang and Chuck Todd report.
Michael Towson
Photo of bomb plot suspect Brent Betterly, 24, taken by a fellow Occupy protester in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Friends of three activists charged with plotting to hurl firebombs during the NATO Summit in Chicago reacted for the most part with disbelief Sunday, saying that the arrests appear to be an effort to undermine peaceful protest.
Brent Betterly, 24, Brian Jacob Church, 20, and Jared Chase, 24, were charged Saturday with a terrorist conspiracy to firebomb four Chicago police stations, the home of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and President Barack Obama’s local campaign headquarters.
Stephanie Auguiste, a 25-year-old from Hollywood, Fla., met all three of the alleged bombers through Occupy Fort Lauderdale, a Florida offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement. She said the police description of the trio as violent anarchists didn’t match the young men she knew.
Courtesy Stephanie Auguiste
Stephanie Auguiste, 25, met all three of the alleged firebomb plotters through Occupy protests in Florida.
She said that when she spoke with Betterly by phone last week about his time in Chicago, “He was telling me how local police officers were harassing them a lot and how they were pretty violent toward protesters. “ Betterly was “shocked” by the aggressive tactics but didn’t give Auguiste any indication that he was planning to strike back with force, she said.
Auguiste also said she found it hard to believe that Church -- who she knew by his middle name, Jacob -- is the same person described in charging documents as remarking about the sight of a “cop on fire.” Rather, she remembers Church as a soft-spoken artist who liked making still-life sketches and opposed the National Defense Authorization Act on constitutional grounds.
“He’s not the kind of person who had the desire to commit violent acts toward anyone,” Auguiste said of Church. “He believed in peaceful protest.”
Both Church and Betterly had lived in South Florida. Their friend, Chase, was from New Hampshire. Auguiste said she only met him once but found him to be “extremely friendly, very warm.”
Chase and Betterly have had brushes with the law. According to a Reuters report, Chase was charged with attempt to commit assault and reckless endangerment in June 2003, after he pulled a knife in a fight with another man. The report also detailed an incident a month later where Chase was in another fight, after which he hit a man with his car. The man wasn’t injured, but Chase was reportedly found guilty of assault.
(Chase’s uncle, Michael Chase of Westmoreland, N.H., told the Union-Leader newspaper that his nephew had only become politically active when the Occupy Wall Street protests bloomed. Of the charges, he said, “Seems outrageous and completely out of character for him. … He’s no angel. He’s not happy with the economy. Nobody is.”)
Last October Betterly was charged for burglary of an unoccupied structure, grand theft and criminal mischief when after a night of drinking, he and two friends broke into an Oakland Park, Fla., school to swim in the pool, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Those felony charges are still pending.
Olivia Ferguson
Olivia Ferguson, 36, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said she believes the charges against Betterly "about as much as I believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy."
Olivia Ferguson, 36, said she often shared a tent with Betterly on the plaza adjoining the Fort Lauderdale City Hall during the Occupy protests. An electrician, Betterly would sometimes visit the encampment overnight after having worked 16 hours that same day, she said.
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“I believe Brent is a terrorist about as much as I believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy,” said Ferguson, from Fort Lauderdale. Recalling Betterly’s fondness for drinking, she believes that the home-brewing kit allegedly being used to make Molotov cocktails was probably just for making beer. Recalling his blond dreadlocks and goofy charm, Ferguson said she gave Betterly the nickname “Spicoli,” after Sean Penn’s party hearty character in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
At one Occupy Fort Lauderdale meeting in October led by Ferguson and Betterly, a man in the group spoke up to advocate more forceful forms of protest – spray-painting and property destruction. “Brent and I said absolutely not,” Ferguson said. “We were totally against that.”
Another Occupy activist, Mike Howson, 25, said he was “really surprised” to see Betterly’s name surface in connection with a terrorist act. “Like most of us, there were political things you’d bitch about, but he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would actually go through with something like that.”
Michael Howson
Mike Howson, 25, of Sunrise, Fla., said Betterly "didn't seem like the kind of guy who would actually go through with something like that."
Howson, who resides in Sunrise, Fla., remembered Church being more reserved than the outgoing Betterly-- the type who “observes before he interacts with people.”
One activist who met Betterly and Church in Florida, and spoke about them on condition of anonymity, was not as surprised as their other fellow protesters, saying they were more inclined than most to push the limits of peaceful protest,
“Jacob (Church) was immature and he was angry -- that’s a dangerous combination,” the activist said.
The same activist was more surprised that Betterly was implicated in the plot, but recalled his increasing frustration when the Fort Lauderdale movement cleared out its camp in December.
“He went to Washington, D.C. for that national Occupy convention,” said the activist. “He then stayed near McPherson Square, and I can only surmise that he became somewhat radicalized by people he met there, because when he was here he was very much committed to nonviolence.”
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Evan Rowe said suspect Brent Betterly "didn't seem to have a coherent ideological motivation, but he was tactically eager to pursue actions which might get him arrested in the pursuit of the Occupy cause."
Evan Rowe, 34, who met Betterly through Occupy Fort Lauderdale, answered questions via email. “Brent was always super-eager and hard core,” he said. “He didn’t seem to have a coherent ideological motivation, but he was tactically eager to pursue actions which might get him arrested in the pursuit of the Occupy cause.”
In Rowe’s opinion, the arrests were a “public relations exercise” by law enforcement agencies that need to invent sophisticated terrorist plots to justify their out-sized budgets, he said.
In a statement to reporters Saturday, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said that the investigation of the NATO bombing plot had been going on for weeks and that the Chicago Police detectives were assisted by the FBI and U.S. Secret Service. Alvarez called the men “domestic terrorists” who had come to Chicago “to hurt people.”
Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the National Lawyers Guild, which is representing the three accused bombers, said Sunday that prosecutors have yet to show evidence to support police claims of terrorist acts. “This is a direct attempt to stifle protest and to turn the public opinion against peaceful protesters.”
Defense attorneys hope to learn more about the state’s case at a court hearing Tuesday. “We strongly believe that undercover cops in this case were manufacturing crimes,” said Hermes. “They were provoking these guys to do things that they would not have otherwise done -- and it’s not even clear that they did engage in any criminal activities.”
Hermes said that the same two undercover cops who busted Betterly, Chase and Church were behind the bust of Sebastian Senakiewicz and Mark Neiweem, both of Chicago. Senakiewicz was charged with falsely making a terrorist threat while Neiweem stands accused of attempted possession of an explosive device. Police have said the two plots were unrelated.
Sunday afternoon, thousands of protesters marched from Jackson Drive and Columbus Drive, near Lake Michigan, to McCormick Place, the setting for the NATO Summit. Some 60 countries are sending delegations to the event, where diplomats are discussing the war in Afghanistan and missile defense in Europe.
There were reports of clashes between protesters and police at the conclusion of the march, but it appears that the demonstration was largely peaceful.
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Jared Chase, Brian Church, Brent Vincent Betterly, Sebastian Senakiewicz, Mark Neiweem were charged in Cook County Court for preparing explosives or making threats during the NATO summit this weekend.
Updated at 4:55 p.m. ET: CHICAGO -- Prosecutors said Sunday they have charged two more people as part their investigation into activists who planned to take part in demonstrations at the two-day NATO summit.
The Cook County State's Attorney's office said Sebastian Senakiewicz, 24, a native of Poland who lives in Chicago, is charged with falsely making a terrorist threat. Mark Neiweem, 28, who authorities believe to be from Chicago, is charged with attempted possession of explosives or incendiary devices.
Senakiewicz had bragged about having explosives, a prosecutor told a judge, claiming that he hid them in a hollowed-out Harry Potter book. But searches did not find any explosives, the prosecutor said.
The men were scheduled to make an initial court appearance later Sunday, when prosecutors were expected to offer more details about their allegations. Also expected in court Sunday is a third man, Taylor Hall, who was arrested during protests on Saturday night and is charged with aggravated battery to a police officer. Authorities did not immediately release Hall's age or hometown.
Three other activists appeared in court and were accused of manufacturing Molotov cocktails and having plans to attack President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters and other targets during the NATO protests.
Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the National Lawyers Guild, which has represented many of the activists pro bono, said the new charges were an "effort to frighten people and to diminish the size of the demonstrations."
Hermes said dozens of lawyers had donated their time over the weekend and that hundreds had called the guild's hotline. By Sunday morning, they had represented 37 people who had been arrested.
He said one man was clubbed over the head, causing heavy bleeding, and that another was transported to the hospital after being run over by a police van. That man, Hermes said, was shackled to his gurney during the four hours he was at the hospital.
Hermes said that while the five cases may not be related, his group believes the same police informants turned them in.
The trio charged Saturday are Brian Church, 20, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Jared Chase, 24, of Keene, N.H.; and, Brent Vincent Betterly, 24, of Oakland Park, Fla. They were arrested on Wednesday and face felony charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism, material support for terrorism and possession of explosives.
Senakiewicz was arrested a day later and there was no immediate indication that he had links to Church, Chase or Betterly. It also wasn't clear when Neiweem was arrested and if he had any links to the other charged activists.
Defense lawyer Michael Deutsch on Saturday accused police of setting up their clients in an attempt to frighten peaceful protesters. He said undercover officers brought the firebombs to a South Side apartment where the men were arrested.
Critics say filing terrorism-related charges against the protesters is reminiscent of previous police actions ahead of major political events, when authorities moved quickly to prevent suspected plots but sometimes quietly dropped the charges later.
"Even if charges are dropped or reduced later, they will have succeeded in spreading fear and intimidation," Hermes said.
Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy on Saturday flatly dismissed the idea the arrests of the initial three suspects were anything more than an effort to stop "an imminent threat."
Prosecutors said Church, Chase and Betterly used fuel purchased from a Chicago gas station for makeshift bombs, pouring it into beer bottles and cutting up bandanas to serve as fuses. If convicted on all counts, they could get up to 85 years in prison. They are each being held on $1.5 million bond.
Msnbc.com's Isolde Raftery contributed to this report.
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Nan Wigmore, 75, brought a walker and a sign to Chicago to protest at the NATO summit.
CHICAGO -- Nan Wigmore brought her walker and packed her sign, “Grateful Great Grandmas Circle The Wagons, Support Occupy,” and rode on a bus for some three days, sleeping in the same clothes, to make it to the NATO protests in Chicago.
The 75-year-old from Portland, Ore., says she couldn't imagine being anywhere else despite the discomfort of her journey.
“My feelings are too deep to keep me in my old comfortable place, so I had to learn some new things and that means to move out of my comfort zone,” Wigmore said as she sipped a hot chocolate late Friday after a few hundred protesters met at a downtown Chicago plaza in the lead-up to the two-day summit that begins Sunday.
She was one of hundreds of demonstrators who got free bus rides from National Nurses United, a coalition of nurses unions that held a rally earlier Friday in Chicago calling for a transaction tax on Wall Street. But Wigmore stands out from the crowd with her sign and walker.
A few protesters at the plaza greeted her and shared laughs amid the thunder of helicopters clattering overhead and people playing drums.
After one man told her she was “amazing” and a “force to be reckoned with,” she later said: “I’m a woman walking with a sign, period … I’m following the heroics, the courage of generations back really, you know, we’re just continuing what was going on.”
Wigmore, who was an anti-nuclear activist, said she got involved in the Occupy movement as it picked up steam back home.
A great-grandmother to “less than 15,” grandmother to 12 and mother of five, she said her youngest child called her “hero” but there were others in her family who had differing points of view.
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For her, there was nothing more important than being in Chicago protesting against NATO, calling for money to go to health care, for example, and not to war. She said she was “very serious” about her protesting and did not intend to stop.
“As a matter of fact, if I lose my life in the process of all this, it’s the best way I would let myself go,” she said.
And to those who may wonder why she is out on the streets protesting, she has a question of her own in turn: “I’d say, ‘Are you certain that everything is the way you want it?’"
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A group of demonstrators are handcuffed after refusing to leave the lobby of President Obama's Chicago campaign headquarters as they kick off a movement called "Week without Capitalism." Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
Dozens of demonstrators calling for an end to war rushed into President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters in Chicago on Monday morning, and eight were arrested, NBCChicago reported.
The protest, led by a group associated with the Catholic Worker movement, was the first of a series of planned demonstrations and marches by groups highlighting poverty, environmental, and education issues during the May 20-21 NATO summit in the city and the May 18-19 G8 summit at Camp David in Maryland.
"We are here today to boldly proclaim our desire to live in a world where we say no to NATO and yes to community," said Chantal de Alacuaz from Chicago in a release by the Chicago-based White Rose Catholic Worker posted late Sunday night. "As Catholic Workers, we serve the poor by practicing the works of mercy — feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, taking care of the sick and the works of war are directly opposed to that."
The plan, according to the release was to “invite Obama and other NATO leaders to break bread over a symbolic meal to discuss how to transform NATO from an instrument of war and empire into an instrument of peace and love that embodies the biblical works of mercy instead of the works of war.”
About 100 people took part in the demonstration, according to the Chicago Tribune. As eight protesters were led out of the building in handcuffs, other demonstrators danced and sang folk songs and gospel, and handed rolls to commuters, it said.
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A protester is seen being taken from President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters in Chicago on Monday.
"We see NATO as using up a lot of resources in the city and the world," said Jesica Arents, a member of the group speaking to the paper.
She said some of the demonstrators had come from across the Midwest and would be joining NATO protests throughout the week, the Tribune reported. The group was committed to remaining non-violent, she said.
Those arrested were charged with criminal trespass, according to NBCChicago.com.
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Supporters of Occupy LA march through downtown Los Angeles marking International Worker's Day on May 1, 2012.
Los Angeles officials say the costs of police overtime and cleaning up local parks due to the Occupy protests have nearly doubled to $5 million, as cities across the country continue to tally the protests’ price tag.
City officials initially said the cost would be $2.6 million, but Los Angeles Councilman Mitch Englander told NBC Los Angeles the figure had grown, with the bulk of the cost attributed to overtime for law enforcement.
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The two-month camp in the city closed Nov. 30.
Other events in the city also racked up millions of dollars in cost: the 2010 Lakers Parade was estimated at $1.8 million and the Michael Jackson funeral came in at $3.2 million in 2009, NBC Los Angeles reported.
Other cities have spent from tens of thousands to millions of dollars in police overtime and cleanup costs. In New York, the tally reached $17 million through mid-March, DNAinfo.com reported, citing police testimony at a city budget hearing. In Oakland, the city had paid $3.7 million through Feb. 27, according to a report by Oakland Local.
Of the money the cities said they spent, Justin Wedes, of Occupy Wall Street, noted: "America doesn't need to spend millions of dollars on a paramilitary response to citizens exercising their First Amendment rights in public space."
Most of the Occupy camps across the country were shuttered over the winter, but protesters continue to hold marches and demonstrations against income equality, corporate greed and political corruption. Their latest national action, held on May Day, brought thousands of people into the streets.
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Jim L., left, and other members of the Occupy Mile End protest group at their camp in east London on Thursday.
LONDON -- An eviction notice has been served on dozens of Occupy protesters who have set up camp in a park next to Team USA's Olympic track and field training base.
About 50 demonstrators are occupying Mile End Park – two miles from the main London 2012 site and next door to a sports stadium where American athletes will prepare for events in July.
The park is also visible from the priority traffic lanes that will be used to whisk VIPs and other participants from central London to the Olympic Village, which is located to the east of the U.K. capital.
The protesters say they are part of the anti-capitalist Occupy movement, which has seen sit-ins and clashes with police in cities including New York, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Oakland.
An Occupy London camp was forcibly removed from the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral by police at the end of February, resulting in 20 arrests.
Local authorities have now secured a court order to close down Occupy Mile End, which began five weeks ago and includes about a dozen tents, a campfire and makeshift toilet facilities.
Police evict Occupy London protesters from camp
Tower Hamlets Borough Council applied for the order following complaints from local residents. The manager of a nearby nature reserve also accused camp members of damaging important trees by taking branches for firewood, according to a report in the East London Advertiser newspaper.
One of the protesters, who gave his name as Jim L., told msnbc.com the group had agreed to leave the site voluntarily on Sunday.
"This is one of Britain's poorest boroughs and we don't want to take council resources away from things like schools and hospitals so we have agreed to vacate the site without costing the council a penny," he said.
Mark Taylor, spokesman for the Mile End Residents' Association, said locals were "looking forward" to a "constructive and companionable relationship with Team USA."
He said: "We are very pleased that the council has secured a possession order to reclaim the park for its intended purpose. It's very sad that trees had to be pulled down for firewood and children's activities disrupted before the council acted."
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Council officials insisted that nobody from the United States Olympic Committee, Team USA or the London 2012 organizers had expressed concern about the Occupy protest on their doorstep.
A spokesman for the council told msnbc.com: "The USA track and field team will be training at Mile End Stadium during the Olympic Games. They have funded extensive improvements to the stadium, and will be providing a variety of community benefits including free coaching sessions and opportunities to watch the team training.
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"We are working with the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) on security issues, understandably these issues are sensitive and therefore we are not able to comment in detail, but we do not anticipate that these will impact on the local community."
The council said it would go to the High Court to have the protesters moved if they did not leave the site, which is owned by a private trust on behalf of the council for use as a public park.
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Jim L. said the Occupy camp would move to a new, unidentified, site on Sunday. He added that there was little chance of protests targeting the Olympic Games.
"It would be impossible because of the security, in my own view," he said. "We're not against the Olympics as everybody likes a bit of sport, but I believe it is just one big advertising event for the benefit of corporate sponsors."
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He said the camp location had been chosen to highlight the issue of poverty in Tower Hamlets and not because of the proximity to Team USA's stadium.
Oda / Getty Images
From Wimbledon to Wembley Stadium to The Dome, a look at the venues for the 2012 London Olympic Games.
"There are huge problems here -- lack of affordable housing, unemployment and poverty," he said. "This is not so much a protest as a process, which is why we've come here – to listen to people and gather support. There isn’t much point in trying to occupy private land in order to disrupt the institutions of capitalism.”
American competitors at the Games will have several bases across London for different sports. Other sites include the University of East London campuses in Docklands and Stratford.
Langdon School, in the nearby Poplar area, will be home to the Canadian Olympic team.
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Occupy Wall Street protesters are planning coast-to-coast demonstrations Tuesday in honor of "May Day" or International Workers' Day. The protesters are calling for a general strike and are encouraging workers to stay home. The Morning Joe panel discusses.
As Occupy protesters hit the streets for a nationwide general strike on Tuesday, some in the movement fear the emergence of two new activist outfits made up of "old left" advocacy groups and unions is an attempt to turn them into a "pet" for the Democratic Party and President Obama’s reelection effort.
The new groups, 99% Power and 99% Spring, include backers such as MoveOn.org, Rebuild The Dream, AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, and The Ruckus Society. The groups bring money with them – something in short supply for Occupy – but their efforts are being eyed warily by those who helped launch the Occupy movement.
Adbusters, the Canadian magazine that made the initial call for people to Occupy Wall Street on Sept. 17 of last year, has been running a blog series on their website, "Battle for the Soul of Occupy," in the last few weeks. In it, the publication has decried attempts to "neutralize our insurgency with an insidious campaign of donor money and co-optation."
"This counter-strategy worked to kill off the Tea Party’s outrage and turn it into a puppet of the Republican Party. Will the same happen with Occupy Wall Street? Will our insurgency turn into the Democrats’ Tea Party pet?" Adbusters wrote in an April 12 post. "Will you allow Occupy to become a project of the old left, the same cabal of old world thinkers who have blunted the possibility of revolution for decades? Will you allow MoveOn, The Nation and Ben & Jerry to put the brakes on our Spring Offensive and turn our struggle into a ‘99% Spring’ reelection campaign for President Obama?"
Skepticism of electoral politics runs deep in the Occupy movement and it could affect the ability of Democrats to mobilize activists during the 2012 campaign, despite attempts to appropriate the "99 percent" rhetoric. But Todd Gitlin, a former leader of the 1960s group, Students for a Democratic Society, who has just published a book on Occupy, believes the concerns of some in the movement are "outlandish."
Protesters hit the streets for May Day rallies
"It was inevitable that there would arise political actors that want those same reforms, although they don’t necessarily share the real-time spirit of the movement. These are the membership organizations, like the unions and MoveOn … who did turn out for the big marches in October and November, and who are numerically very large but were always from the beginning being met with suspicion on the part of the Occupy movement," said Gitlin, a professor of sociology and journalism at Columbia University.
"This represents actually a misunderstanding on the part of some of the Occupy people who feel weak, so they’re afraid of co-optation because they feel that the co-opters have the power to puncture their balloon," he added.
Still, the new groups don’t sit well with Charles M. Young, a writer at thiscantbehappening.net and a 1960s-era activist. He attended one of the mid-April training sessions held by The 99% Spring on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, which he said was led by representatives of the Democratic Party and Wall Street lawyers, and where Obama buttons were offered for sale.
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Young, 61, feared that Occupy could be "pulled to the right" by partnering up with them and felt the effort was part of a bid to keep the "Kucinich Democrats" from leaving.
"It looks very much like what they call an AstroTurf movement, you know, something from the top down," he said, noting he left the meeting "disillusioned." "I don’t remember anybody saying that there was a need for the 99% Spring before it came out."
"It does seem to be mostly the Democratic Party trying to keep the left in line for Obama and keeping things obedient, and that’s just not enough given the issues involved," he added.
In an email statement, Justin Ruben, MoveOn's executive director, said his group has electoral goals, but that his organization has "zero interest in trying to alter [Occupy] in any way."
"Growing economic inequality and the increasing influence of 1 percent cash in our political system are huge problems, and problems that MoveOn members care deeply about. Our response includes working to engage more activists in the fight for fairness for the 99 percent and to introduce activists to powerful tactics like non-violent direct action. That's what the 99% Spring is about," he said.
"Regarding elections, yes, there's no question that MoveOn sees elections as profoundly important, and we will be engaged in elections this year -- just as we've engaged in elections since our inception in 1998. But of course we work with lots of allies that don't engage in elections, and we respect that choice," he added.
Dorian Warren, an assistant professor of political science at Columbia University, said schisms on the left today are similar to those during the civil rights movements. There were "intense fights between the old guard" groups like the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the youth-led Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he said. In hindsight, the youth-led group played an important role, serving as "the left flank of the movement," he said. "That’s sort of the role Occupy is playing."
But Occupy should be skeptical and challenge the progressive establishment, he said. "Until September, the strategies of these groups, whether it was ‘inside the Beltway’ game or just traditional interest group politics, that was not working, and so the more radical tactics that Occupy innovated is what shifted the political terrain and they should stay focused on doing that."
The 99% Spring and 99% Power have given a nod to Occupy for leading the way, though they also said they had been drafting plans to engage in more public protest and focus on corporate accountability before Occupy existed. They had targeted the fall for their campaign, but then Occupy took off, which in turn helped them convince others of the viability of their own strategy, said George Goehl, executive director of National People’s Action.
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"It opened up some space for some of the things that we’ve been working on for a long time, and it was really just kind of liberating … in terms of what was possible and also in terms of kind of confirming what we thought," he said.
Goehl said members of Occupy have joined his group’s trainings – or led them – and some consider themselves as part of 99% Power. He said when he was in Des Moines last week at a protest, three of the 12 people arrested were from Occupy.
"I think what we’re seeing is … a growing number of threads that do speak to the need to be fearless truth tellers around what’s truly going on in this country to both engage in nonviolent direct action and to challenge the dominance of the corporate sector both, you know, in our economy and in our politics," he said. "And I think that, you know, Occupy is a thread of that, 99% Spring is a thread of that, 99% Power … it’s all part of the same thing."
He said that the notion that any electoral objectives were part of their strategy was "completely false."
"The organizations that actually started this idea don’t really run big electoral programs. It’s not been that kind of the focus in terms of strategies and tactics," he added.
In the end, Warren, the politics professor, said he thought there could be "too much focus on who’s co-opting Occupy versus Occupy just doing its work."
Success during big events like Tuesday’s May Day actions will actually depend on how many people that the unions, MoveOn and other groups turn out, Warren said. "In that sense, Occupy’s fate is linked to these other groups and these others groups’ fates are linked to Occupy."
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Stephen Lam / Reuters, file
Members of the Oakland Police department form a line during a confrontation with Occupy Oakland demonstrators on January 28, 2012.
Oakland police used "an overwhelming military-type response" to disperse Occupy Oakland demonstrators and fired at a former Marine and Iraq war veteran who was critically injured in the clashes in October, according to a report issued on Monday.
The federal court monitor tracking reforms in the Oakland Police Department came one day before anti-Wall Street protesters plan nationwide rallies on May 1, with Occupy Oakland demonstrators vowing to take over San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate Bridge.
Oakland's police practices came under intense scrutiny last year when former Marine Scott Olsen was critically injured during a demonstration in October. Protesters said he was hit in the head by a tear gas canister.
Iraq war veteran Scott Olsen, injured at an Occupy Oakland protest, gave his first live television interview following the incident to MSNBC's The Ed Show
The report concludes, for the first time from an official source, that police did fire at and hit Olsen that evening. An Oakland Police Department SWAT team member fired a beanbag round at Olsen, striking him in the head, according to the report.
"We have viewed many official and unofficial video clips of the Occupy Oakland-related incidents," the report said. "These recordings lead us to ask additional questions as the level of force that was used by OPD officers, and whether that use of force was in compliance with the Department's use of force policies."
Exclusive "Occupy" interview: Scott Olsen on MSNBC's The Ed Show
The beanbag rounds fired that night leave a green residue, which was found on the hat Olsen was wearing that night, later retrieved by police, according to the report.
The monitor, Robert Warshaw, said the court-ordered reforms, many of them related to how the department polices its officers, have gone backward during the past year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
'Thoroughly dismayed'
Olsen's case reinvigorated the Occupy movement against economic inequality, and the confrontations with police in subsequent protests turned Oakland into a focal point for the movement as demonstrators rallied against what they described as police brutality.
Jay Finneburgh / AP, file
Scott Olsen lays on the ground bleeding from a head wound after being struck by a projectile on October 25, 2011.
The Oakland Police Department has been subject to court-ordered external monitoring and review since the 2003 settlement of what was known as the Riders case, in which four officers were accused of planting evidence, fabricating police reports and using unlawful force, according to the Oakland police.
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Monday's report was the latest in a series designed to monitor and enforce compliance with the court-ordered reforms, known as the Negotiated Settlement Agreement.
"We were, in some instances, satisfied with the performance of the Department; yet in others, we were thoroughly dismayed by what we observed," monitor Warshaw wrote.
The police department announced last week that it was making significant changes to how it trains officers to control large crowds following criticism over its practices during Occupy Oakland protests that sometimes turned violent. It received more than 1,000 misconduct complaints during those protests.
"OPD has turned the corner," Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan said in a statement upon the report's release. "My vision is to make Oakland one of the safer major cities in California."
The police department's critics of the department said the report brought the force closer to a federal takeover, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
"Stagnation is troubling. After nine years, more progress should be made," John Burris, one of two attorneys who brought a civil suit a decade ago that led to court oversight, told the newspaper. "We must seriously explore the next step."
Reuters and msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.
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The Occupy Wall Street movement is organizing a nationwide strike on May 1st, the International Workers Day. Panelists on "Up With Chris Hayes" discuss the history of worker strikes in the United States, their subsequent decline, and how Occupy plans to revive labor protests.
May Day protests may disrupt the morning commute in major U.S. cities Tuesday as labor, immigration and Occupy activists rally support on the international workers' holiday.
Demonstrations, strikes and acts of civil disobedience are being planned around the country, including the most visible organizing effort by anti-Wall Street groups since Occupy encampments came down in the fall.
While protesters are backing away from a call to block San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, bridge district ferry workers said they'll strike Tuesday morning to shut down ferry service, which brings commuters from Marin County to the city. Ferry workers have been in contract negotiations for a year and have been working without a contract since July 2011 in a dispute over health care coverage, the Inlandboatmen's Union said.
A coalition of bridge and bus workers said they will honor the picket line, which may target an area near the bridge's toll plaza. Occupy activists from San Francisco and Oakland are expected to join the rally.
"We ask supporters to stand with us at strike picket lines on May Day and to keep the bridge open," said Alex Tonisson, an organizer and co-chair of the Golden Gate Bridge Labor Coalition.
Police say they are working with other area law enforcement agencies and have a plan in place for potential disruptions. They would not discuss specifics.
Across the bay in Oakland, where police and Occupy protesters have often clashed, officers are preparing for a long day as hundreds of "General Strike" signs have sprouted across town.
In New York City, where the first Occupy camp was set up and where large protests brought some of the earliest attention — and mass arrests — to the movement, leaders plan a variety of events, including picketing, a march through Manhattan and other "creative disruptions against the corporations who rule our city."
Organizers have called for protesters to block one or more bridges or tunnels connecting Manhattan, the city's economic engine, to New Jersey and other parts of the city.
The Occupy movement began in September with a small camp in a lower Manhattan plaza that quickly grew to include hundreds of protesters using the tent city as their home base. More than 700 people were arrested Oct. 1 as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge.
The city broke the camp up in November, citing sanitary and other concerns, but the movement has held smaller events and protests periodically since then.
Elsewhere on the West Coast, Occupy Seattle has called for people to rally at a park near downtown Tuesday. Mayor Mike McGinn has warned residents there could be traffic delays and has said city officials have evidence — including graffiti and posters — that some groups plan to "commit violence, damage property and disrupt peaceful free speech activity."
In Los Angeles, demonstrators are planning to take to the streets to champion immigrant rights.
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© Jonathan Alcorn / Reuters / REUTERS
Ana Casas Wilson, who has cerebral palsy, sits in the living room of her South Gate, Calif. in December 2011. Wells Fargo has completed foreclosure on the home and eviction could be imminent, but Wilson refuses to leave, and argues that the foreclosure was unecessary.
A woman engaged in a bitter battle with Wells Fargo over foreclosure of her southern California home was arrested late Thursday at the tony residence of the bank's CFO in San Marino, where she and dozens of supporters were protesting.
Ana Casas Wilson, 49, who lives in the working-class neighborhood of South Gate, faces eviction from her childhood home. Like many people who have been through foreclosure, she says that the bank wrongly denied her a loan modification and moved to foreclose even when she was able to catch up.
In an action that is becoming increasingly common, Wilson has taken her complaint public and her protest directly to bank officials. In Thursday’s protest, with at least 80 supporters, she attempted to deliver her mortgage payment directly to Tim Sloan, the top financial officer for Wells Fargo. In addition to protesting the foreclosure, the group was challenging an ordinance created last year making it harder to picket in this wealthy enclave.
Many people are shedding the sense of shame of foreclosure, which kept most people silent in the past, even if they didn’t think they had done anything wrong, he said.
"More and more people are standing up and willing to go public because there is no other remedy and putting public pressure on the bank," said Kuhns.
Wells Fargo did not respond directly to Wilson's situation, but provided a statement in response to queries about her.
"Wells Fargo works very hard to keep customers in their homes whenever possible," said the statement, sent by Jennifer Langan in corporate communications. "We review our customers for a variety of modification options, from HAMP, HARP, HAFA and through our own proprietary programs. Despite these efforts, if a customer is 16 or more months delinquent, it can be extremely difficult to recover."
Some homeowners who have taken this high-profile approach in their fight against foreclosure, enlisting the support of protesters from the Occupy movement and housing activists, are finding success at it.
Occupy movement targets Wells Fargo shareholder meeting
The case of Rose Gudiel, reported by msnbc.com last year, is one example. In October, Gudiel was hunkered down in her home, surrounded by supporters, awaiting eviction. But at the eleventh hour, lender Fanny Mae canceled the eviction notice and offered her a loan modification, enabling her to keep the home.
Peter Kuhns, ACCE
Ana Casas Wilson, sitting, and supporter Rose Gudiel demonstrating in front of the home of Wells Fargo CFO Tim Sloand on Thursday.
Many similar foreclosure battles are under way nationwide, with support from a movement called Occupy our Homes.
Wilson, who has cerebral palsy, lives with her husband, who works as a school janitor, her teen son and her mother, who helps care for her. She has worked as a court reporter, and as an advocate for the disabled.
The trouble covering the mortgage started when she was treated for breast cancer in 2009, and her husband’s income declined as a result of cutting hours to help take care of her. They got behind, but their income stabilized several months later. By then, the bank had moved into foreclosure proceedings and would not accept her payments or discuss ways to catch up, Kuhns said.
The implication in Wells Fargo's statement that Wilson was 16 months behind is misleading, says Kuhns, because for most of that time, the bank refused to take her payments.
Thursday’s protest was on Wilson’s behalf, and it was more generally challenging a San Marino ordinance adopted last November – just a few weeks after a protest of predatory lending practices on Sloan’s front lawn. That demonstration, involving about 100 protesters, was peaceful and ended without incident, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Under the statute, picketers must keep 150 feet from a target residence, or 75 feet from the curb adjacent to the home, whichever is farther.
"The purpose of the ordinance is not to reduce picketing, but to protect the people who are the victims of picketing," police Chief John Schaefer told the Times when it was passed. "We're a prime target. We have a lot of people who fit the profile to be the victim of this type of crime."
Video from the protest posted by the San Gabriel Valley Tribune shows protesters carrying signs and chanting "Wells Fargo, shame on you!" in the street in front of the home.
Wilson is shown crossing a police cordon in her wheelchair to deliver a check to Sloan. She knocks several times, but gets no answer.
"He's embarrassed," Wilson tells the Tribune. "That's why he won't come out. ... He knows that what they are doing is wrong."
Wilson was arrested under the anti-picketing statute, after protesters and police faced off for about two hours. She was released about an hour later and is expected to appear in court in early June.
"The leaders of Wells Fargo and the members of their family should be afforded the right to feel safe in their private residence and we encourage all organizations choosing to demonstrate at private residences to abide by the law for the safety of the general public," the Wells Fargo statement said.
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Hundreds of protesters chant 'Pay your fair share" outside the Marriott Renaissance Center where the General Electric annual shareholders meeting was being held in Detroit, Mich. on Wednesday.
Several dozen protesters who gained access to the annual shareholder meeting of General Electric in Detroit disrupted the start with chanting Wednesday morning before being removed by security. Meanwhile, hundreds more protesters gathered outside.
The protest — coming a day after a similar one at Wells Fargo's shareholder meeting in San Francisco — illustrated one of the new strategies taken by the Occupy movement and its offshoots. The Occupy movement, which set up large encampments in public spaces in cities around the country in 2011, was largely forced to leave those sites in the fall and winter. Many of the same activists are taking part in other types of civil disobedience and protests against what they consider corporate greed, money-driven politics and social inequity.
The protesters in Detroit began shouting "pay your fair share" just after GE CEO Jeff Immelt began speaking, reported NBC affiliate WDIV in Detroit.
The chant refers to the belief that unfair tax breaks had allowed GE to avoid paying the government billions of dollars.
A 2011 report by Citizens for Tax Justice, a left-leaning think tank, maintains that GE had an effective negative tax rate from 2008 through 2010, which the company has repeatedly denied.
After the protesters were removed, Chief Financial Officer Keith Sherin defended GE's tax practices, Reuters reported.
"We absolutely are compliant with every law around the world in how we pay our taxes," Sherin said, according to the Reuters report. "Our U.S. tax expense last year was $2.6 billion. We are a large taxpayer, we pay our taxes and we very much support tax reform."
Immelt resumed his address with these words, according to the Detroit Free Press:
"We're happy we brought jobs here.... we are proud to be in Detroit this morning," he said. A spokesman for GE told the Free Press that the protesters must have been shareholders or they would not have been able to pass through security checks to enter the meeting.
Reports varied on the number of protesters in the meeting. Reuters reported there were nearly 100 who gained entrance while others put the number at 50 or fewer.
One activist who said she gained entrance to the shareholder meeting by buying one share of GE stock was Shyquetta McElroy, who drove six hours to Detroit with nine other protesters from Milwaukee.
McElroy said she was not connected to any organization, and did not take part in the Occupy movement but told msnbc.com she was part of the "99 percent."
"Basically (we are) citizens who are mistreated by corporations, by which I mean corporations moving jobs overseas, not paying taxes ... just so they can get richer." She said such practices were partly to blame for painful cuts in programs from schools to health care.
At a similar protest of the Wells Fargo shareholder meeting on Tuesday, dozens of activists gained access to the meeting by purchasing one share each. About a dozen who protested inside that meeting were removed, and six protesters in the crowd outside were arrested.
Around the country, similar protests are planned to target major banks and other companies, an idea that has been under discussion for months among Occupy movement activists.
"Clearly this is a major project," said Todd Gitlin, professor of sociology and journalism at Columbia University. Gitlin has written a soon-to-be published book about the Occupy Movement and says the idea of protest inside shareholder meetings has been envisioned for months within that movement. "This is one direction for the occupy movement."
Occupy groups have also combined forces with housing advocates and others to prevent foreclosures and agitate for banks to change lending and foreclosure policies.
A new group called 99% Power, which describes itself as a "coalition of workers and retirees, families fighting foreclosure and the unemployed, students, immigrants and environmentalists," said on its web site that it plans actions at dozens more shareholder meetings in the coming weeks. Other companies on their list include Verizon, Bank of America, Sallie Mae and Wal-Mart.
The organization casts itself as representing the interests of the vast majority of Americans, versus the wealthiest 1 percent.
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