Tea party arrests: 0
Occupier arrests: 750 and counting
As Guy reported, occupy protestors in Boston held a rally yesterday for accused terrorist Tarek Mehanna, saying he was a victim of Islamaphobia despite evidence showing Mehanna had plans to attack innocent Americans at a shopping mall, members of the U.S. military and two federal officials. Now, 50 of the same occupiers are sitting in jail.
More than 50 protesters from the Occupy Boston movement were arrested early Tuesday after they ignored warnings to move from a downtown greenway near where they have been camped out for more than a week, police said.
Police spokesman Jamie Kenneally said the arrests began about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday and were mostly for trespassing.
The protesters, part of the national Occupy Wall Street movement, had tried to expand from their original site in Dewey Square to a second site across the street, along the Rose Kennedy Greenway. A local conservancy group recently planted $150,000 worth of shrubs along the greenway and officials said they were concerned about damage.
Boston police had warned protesters for several hours that they would have to return to Dewey Square, where a tent city has been steadily growing, and issued leaflets saying protesters could not occupy the greenway.
Early Tuesday, about 10 police officers patrolled the greenway, some with dogs. Protesters who went to a nearby police station to bail people out did not find anyone there, and by 4 a.m. they had returned to their encampment to discuss how to raise $4,000 in bail money.
Keep encouraging these people, Nancy Pelosi.