( 4UMF NEWS ) Protesters Mark Occupy Wall Street Anniversary:
Protesters and cops swarmed the Financial District Monday morning during events marking the one-year anniversary of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.
Demonstrators planned to shut down the New York Stock Exchange by lining the streets and then sitting down en masse to create an occupied zone.
The goal — one supporter told the crowd Sunday night at a Foley Square “Occupy” gathering — is to “shut down the Financial District.”
Some Occupiers celebrated Monday with party hats and noisemakers as cops erected barricades around Wall Street and demanding ID cards from workers trying to get near the NYSE. About 8 a.m., a number of protesters were arrested near a barricade across the street from Trinity Church.
Jami Montano, a homeless 21-year-old, questioned the heavy police presence.
“It’s expensive,” she said. “They’re spending a lot of money and where is that money coming from?”
Montano said she was taking part in the anniversary actions — dubbed “S17” — “to represent myself because everyone who’s trying to represent me is doing a poor job.”
“I want people to start questioning the way their government and the way their system is run,” she said. “I want them to question their daily lives.”
Shiloh Coral, 22, is also homeless as of about two months ago, but the “Occupy” movement has been “the most supportive place.”
“When people from the middle class are becoming lower class, and people from the lower class are becoming homeless, no one seems to be gaining anything but the absolute richest,” she said.
