I Think We Have Our Answer

Brook and George Packard loading water as in earlier days for Zuccotti Park.

After the arrest we were released about 9 hours later, a little before midnight. For me it was a long day of relatively perfunctory--but efficient--police procedure at One Police Plaza for which I complimented the cops. That remark wasn't popular with fellow arrestees, but, hey, my arresting Officer, Vernelly, was a regular guy and a good cop. Another cop even confided in me that they sympathized with what we were doing for conscience sake; but they had to do their job. These are the kind of guys who helped me unload water at Zuccotti Park in the early days unlike my infamous run-in with Officer Byron. Brook's day and that of hundreds of bystanders whose only preoccupation was that they were staring, was far more perilous. In Brook's case she wanted to sing to me through the fence because she worried I would be afraid during my arrest.

The big show started with uncovering a collapsible staircase carried surreptitiously in the midst of the crowd. I was just stupidly first in line; I've learned when catching transportation in the military not to dilly-dally. Shuffle to the door, exit a chopper, humvee, or troop carrier quickly. Of course I wasn't wearing a cassock then. All the while, I was fully aware of what senior bishops pleaded for--no violence and I was more than resolute that we were committed not to waste any time with disruptions: Cross the fence, sit down, get arrested. I thought then (and do now) that a trespass was a pretty benign thing to do and the ingenious, collapsible ladder (hidden in the mob of the march) seemed a bright way to avoid vandalism. All was going well inside the perimeter of the property as the number swelled to over 300 protesters inside.

Uninvolved spectators began to sit down outside the fence and then the police entered and made arrests...many inside protesters lost their nerve realizing that the police were indeed sent there to arrest and ran for cover.

I recall sitting with my group, handcuffed, and watching the NYPD deploy a maneuver outside the Trinity property, on the street, which must have a name: the rear of a group was now defined by a quickly assembled perimeter of cops, sort of rear guard. But then an odd thing happened: the contingent of police inside the property where I was, pressed the cyclone fence in the opposite direction making a spectator sandwich. Keep in mind these people--not the arrestees--were growing uneasy as the fence started to squeeze them more and more like the Edgar Allen Poe short story, "The Pit and the Pendulum," even to lower onto their noses. Little did I know my wife was in this crowd.

This became an opportunity for individual and gratuitous violence by policemen. The simple arrests were done, why were they messing with these people? Which brings me to the melodrama of the day and the forecasts by our leaders. The only "force or arms" present on Saturday was not in (or at) the hands of demonstrators. Such a statement is woefully out of touch with what Occupy Wall Street stands for. It is the corporate culture which employs these means either grossly or through manipulation of money and power. So much so in this case that the NYPD was called out as gendarmes for the latest corporate client, Trinity Church. We avoided any real tragedy in the midst of peaceful protest, but barely. Should this have really unravelled I would not have held the NYPD accountable as much as those who brought this bizarre, and needless, construct into being.

The cop who kneed my wife in the chest three times and threw her into other demonstrators was the same Officer who walked me harmlessly to the paddy wagon.

Here's a question I have for anyone so free with advice on what conduct OWS should employ at a protest--please answer it honestly. "What would you have done if it was your loved one who had gotten beaten after you had behaved so decorously, and non violently, in the course of your arrest?" Spare me your lectures on non-viloence; we're already well-versed in the discipline.

We must not be so committed to order that we have to step over innocents to keep this point in tact but we will point to its dark and ugly face. And that's why Occupy Wall Street will be around for a long time.