Video- American Awakening: Occupy DC protests police excesses
The Occupy DC movement is fresh off of its latest Occupy action at the Franklin school where members broke into a city-owned building and temporarily reclaimed it to give back to the community.
The group unfurled a banner on the outside of the building and chanted: “We are the 99 percent.”
The group supported by at least 60 demonstrators protested the lack of housing for homeless people until police showed up and made 11 arrests, which included eight men and three women.
They were carried off in police vans. They were charged with unlawful entry.
The Franklin School is an historic landmark in the district and was once used as a homeless shelter. DC police say the building is now boarded up and welded shut. There’s an investigation on how protesters gained entry. The building has been vacant since 2008.
Arrests were made without incident. A sharp contrast to a tense standoff between police and University of California protesters. Occupy demonstrators there were doused with pepper sprayed as they sat in protest over police treatment of occupiers in New York. Spectators shouted at police as they made 10 arrests.
There is an investigation into the use of force by police and many are calling for the resignations of the University of California Davis School Chancellor and the police involved in the incident.
Despite the brushes with the law over the weekend, both Washington and California protest groups say they will remain defiant and continue demonstrating.
