Late Night Breaking: Police Buses head to Washington Square

Protesters in Times Square.Mario Tama/Getty Images

The Occupy Protests in New York City have been spreading out towards Times Square and into Washington Square. Seventy people were already been arrested earlier today trying to close their accounts at Citibank. Here’s a few links to keep you updated but the Twitter Stream is the thing to really follow.

This is the latest update from New York Magazine:

New York’s Alex Klein reports from Times Square: The crowd is now chanting “who are you protecting,” as police on horses tussle with protesters. Police with batons approaching, grabbing protesters around me. Someone has been hit, another thrown to the ground and taken away. A chorus of boos are ringing out and a man in gold spandex on top of a trash can is grabbing his junk, yelling “I love you police!” The cops also have scooters and riot shields.

The Wall Street Protests have spread globally to Rome, Madrid, Athens, Santiago, Sydney and here in New Orleans. This is amazing. It is estimated that as many as 600 cities around the world had Occupy related protests.

The protests against corporate greed born last month on Wall Street spread across the world Saturday, with fed-up demonstrators marching in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

In London, placard-waving protesters, watched by scores of vigilant police, gathered on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral, then moved toward the London Stock Exchange building nearby.

“We are here in solidarity with those protesting in the United States,” said Sean Murray, an engineering student at London University. “The problems we face are exactly the same — a system in which a financial crisis was caused by bankers and people who make money, and people who don’t make money have to pay for it.”

This is truly amazing.  People are finally fed up with austerity programs that hurt that majority of people while  protecting the benefits of the few.  I dare any one associated with the Tea Party to compare the size, scope, and level of independence shown in this movement to their own.  Clearly, this is not being orchestrated by genuine outrage against the excesses of the modern financial system and the few people that are rewarded by the funds it leeches from the real sector of the economy.

Here is information on the folks arrested earlier today at Citibank trying to close accounts.

Around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, the Occupy Wall Street Livestream captured about 20 people being arrested outside a Citibank at La Guardia Place in New York. A protester announced via human mic that people had gone inside Citibank to close their accounts. They were asked to leave and complied, he said, but the bank’s security guards locked them in until the N.Y.P.D. arrived.

“Some wanted to close their accounts with Citibank,” he read from a cell phone. “When asked to leave, they began to exit but were locked in by security. When cops arrived, Citibank security came outside and dragged two individuals back inside to hold them under arrest.”

The protesters were loaded into the back of a police van as the crowd shouted, “Let them go! Let them go!” as 10,000-some people watched the scene on Livestream. “Liberate the unlawfully arrested!” one man shouted.

Here’s a video from outside the bank.  Both were posted down thread earlier today by RSM.