Protesting Citizens United, Occupiers Rally at Supreme Court, White House, Capitol
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The three branches of government—Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House—were taken over by about 1,500 protesters earlier this week who occupied the locations as part of a week-long demonstration.
Dubbed #J17, the Tuesday night event marked the four-month anniversary of the Occupy movement and was scheduled to be an “Occupy Congress” rally; the latter two stops were spontaneous, and an orderly procession of police cars always flanked the marchers.
Despite it being illegal to demonstrate on the Supreme Court plaza facing the Capitol, the few dozen officers there could only watch as a thousand-person-plus throng took over the Court steps. Though the action was largely peaceful, things became tenser towards the end of the demonstration when officers chased one protester and allegedly beat another who was arrested for assaulting a police officer.
For the decentralized Occupiers, the message seemed surprisingly unified: Get corporate money out of politics.
Numerous signs referenced the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allowed corporations to donate unlimited funds to campaigns on free speech grounds, and protesters chanted “Money is not free speech” on the Court steps. Another sign endorsed “Colbert 2012”—likely another dig at Citizens United, since the comedian’s Super PAC has drawn satirical attention to the ruling’s impacts.
Chants spurred the crowd to move the protest to the White House, where things got a little surreal.
As the giant Lady Liberty puppet from Occupy Halloween danced through the crowd and people tied paper hearts, marked with their requests to the U.S. government, to the White House fence, someone in the crowd threw a smoke bomb onto the White House lawn.
You may have heard about that part.
“Tear gas!” people shouted. Then a group mic check clarified that, no, it was not tear gas. Repeat: Not tear gas.
Some thought police had thrown the smoke bomb, but it quickly became clear that someone from the crowd was to blame, as the police were a few hundred feet away.
The White House went on lockdown and the Secret Service investigated the incident, though you wouldn’t have known it standing in the crowd of protesters at the time. No police swarmed in to break up the gathering, and everyone seemed to shrug it off and move on.
Occupiers also had some tense moments with police forces earlier in the day on the Capitol’s west lawn.
Retired Philadelphia police captain and Occupy activist Ray Lewis was detained on suspicion of impersonating a police officer, which caused protesters to swarm outside their designated area and push for his freedom. Lewis was ultimately released, but the incident led to protesters playing a sort of “Red Rover” with a line of officers, testing their boundaries and jumping over fences.
Part of the day was set aside for occupiers to meet with their representatives in Congress. While many activists were turned away or avoided, some got a meeting and shared their concerns.
Approximately 2,000 people rallied at the Capitol for the day’s events, less than the maximum of 10,000 that the organizers’ permit would have allowed.
For the activists, a major point of the action was the first-ever multi-occupation General Assembly—bringing occupiers from across the country together to one place and reinforcing the connection between them.
It was, in a sense, Occupy United.
Emily Crockett is a staff writer with Campus Progress. Follow her on Twitter @emilycrockett.
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