Charged with interference with the duties of a public servant, the five, along with other occupiers, were near an open-air adobe structure close to the Tower of the Americas in HemisFair Park.

San Antonio Park Police officers informed the group about 8 a.m. that Downtown Operations workers were going to clean the area due to its “unsanitary condition,” a San Antonio Police Department report stated.

The occupiers, who were handed notices of violation of the city’s no-camping ordinance a week ago, were given 15 minutes to remove their belongings and then got a 10-minute grace period before Park Police officers surrounded the building with yellow caution tape, Commander Steven Baum said.

While most of the dozen protesters there moved their things and stepped away, Robin Canter, 42, a medic for Occupy S.A. since it started Oct. 6; and Kristopher Wettstein, 26, who had just joined the night before from out of town; refused.

They were arrested about 8:30 a.m. and also cited for camping, said Baum, who until Monday had commended the group for being well-behaved.

Lambert Campbell, 27, who joined a couple of weeks ago from Los Angeles, jumped inside the tape and was arrested on the same charge as well as disorderly conduct with language.

“He was outside and for some reason… came in and began to yell obscenities and ‘I’m ready to go to jail,’” Baum said.

Shortly before 11 a.m., occupiers Caleb Powell, 19, and Robert Wilson, 21, crossed the tape in front of half a dozen Park Police officers guarding the building.

“I’m inside the tape, I’m outside the tape,” Wilson said, jumping back and forth. The San Antonio College student and GameStop cashier was one of at least three occupiers ticketed Sunday for camping. He and Powell were arrested.

About noon, more occupiers surrounded the prohibited area and taunted police. Sharon Young, who has protested since nearly the beginning, was driven away in tears, arrested on a charge of interfering with duties of a public servant.

Police Chief William McManus said that as the police car pulled away, Carlos Villalobos, 35, a visitor from Occupy Houston, “threw himself in front of the police car as it was pulling up, but it did not make contact” with him.

Villalobos said the car clipped his leg and that police ignored his request to call EMS and file a police report, so a friend took him to Christus Santa Rosa Hospital for what he said was a concussion.

Hospital officials said he was in stable condition Monday afternoon.

Occupiers used the incident and complaints that restrooms no longer stayed open 24 hours a day to claim there was police wrongdoing.

But McManus said the restrooms had been left open “as a courtesy,” and damage to them, including a fire, resulted in closing them overnight, which was the practice before the occupiers arrived.

By nightfall, police had taken at least two other women into custody, and the enraged occupiers marched to City Hall and then around downtown.

“I sure hope a judge gives us an injunction to be here for six months — we will laugh every time the police try to come tell us something,” said John Meadows, 47. “It will just make the thorn at their side bigger.”

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Three Occupy San Antonio members got tickets early Sunday, two days after relocating from the entrance of HemisFair Park to a spot near the Tower of the Americas.

San Antonio Park Police officers approached eight occupiers around 8 a.m. where they had their protest material set up at an adobe building.

They issued camping without permit tickets to Jovanie Ortiz, 19, Robert Wilson, 21, and Steve Haskell, 43, with court dates in February.

“I was just lying down for a bit and I guess I kind of dozed off,” said Wilson, a San Antonio College student and cashier at GameStop. “I heard someone say, ‘Cops are swarming in!’ and … I didn’t even have time to get up.”

Wilson also got a ticket for failure to identify himself.

Police officers have maintained a 24-hour presence by the group since they were handed notices of violation of the city’s no camping ordinance on Dec. 12 and asked to move away from their original spot where New Year’s “Celebrate San Antonio” event is being set up.

The group’s lawyer, Roxana Orrell, advised a few dozen occupiers at their new location at the park Sunday evening to fill out a petition requesting a meeting with the mayor and other city officials. She also told them to fill out arrestee intake forms should citations occur.

“We’re probably going to expect more pressure come Monday morning,” Orrell said. “Don’t get behind the 8-ball trying to do survival stuff — keep up the political part of the protest.”

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]]> http://kwonglede.com/2011/citations-issued-at-occupy-s-a-site/feed/ 0 http://kwonglede.com/2011/protesters-nudged-from-park-by-the-city/ http://kwonglede.com/2011/protesters-nudged-from-park-by-the-city/#comments Sun, 18 Dec 2011 08:00:28 +0000 http://kwonglede.com/?p=227

For 2 1/2 months, the Occupy San Antonio protesters at HemisFair Park discussed the news — from the comfort of their sleeping bags and bedrolls — of police forcefully evicting and arresting occupiers in other major cities.

They prided themselves on being an exception. A sort of unwritten memo of understanding existed between them and police officials. They complied with traffic, noise and parade ordinances while demonstrating against inequality and corporate power.

Officers, for their part, tacitly allowed what San Antonio Park Police Commander Steven Baum called “temporary living quarters” for a group of permanent park occupiers whose numbers have dwindled to about a dozen.

Last week, however, city officials began preparing to remove them, citing a string of crime reports and complaints from neighbors. Baum and his officers handed out notices that they were in violation of a no-camping ordinance.

By Friday morning, the protesters had cleared out most of their stuff — tarps, bedding, food, a small library. Baum was satisfied. And once again, occupiers here had distinguished themselves from their counterparts nationally.

They had been in violation “probably since Oct. 6” when they began staying at the park, but back then “it was manageable, fresh and new,” Baum said. By December, officers were dealing with health and safety issues daily, and “it grew to a point where it had to come to an end,” he said.

The Police Department released 10 incident or arrest reports that it linked to Occupy S.A., among them theft, damage to restrooms, a break-in at an unoccupied building and a domestic assault.

“We discovered drug paraphernalia, syringes around the camp area, and that became a concern,” Police Chief William McManus said, although officers were careful to note those items could not be conclusively linked to protesters.

Occupiers, told to congregate away from the gazebo near the park entrance that had been their headquarters, will be allowed back after the Celebrate San Antonio event for New Year’s — as long as they don’t camp.

“We welcome them to be where they want to be, but they cannot break the law in their doing it,” McManus said.

He said complaints from businesses and the San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau stepped up a few weeks ago as clutter grew around the area.

“It’s a handful of complaints, but I normally don’t get any,” Downtown Operations director Paula Stallcup said.

The Magik Theatre, a youth education outfit near the gazebo, complained about the protesters using its commercial garbage pickup service, but its executive director, Richard Rosen, said his main worry was his teachers’ concerns about students seeing the eccentrically dressed group.

“This has nothing to do with political views — I find some of them right — but it does impede some of the things we do as a business, so I’m kind of conflicted,” Rosen said. “They’ve all been very nice. One guy said, ‘I’ve been a mechanic for 18 years and can I help you get your car started?’ So that was great.”

Across the street, guests at the Fairmount Hotel and its restaurant also have complained, sales director Jessica Vargas said.

“It’s just been obnoxious more than anything,” she said. “I just feel like these people don’t know what they’re protesting, and people are walking up and down the street and they’re in their face causing all kinds of craziness.”

But the activity has drawn more business, she said, with people inquiring about what was going on and then staying for lunch.

Occupiers debated the post-encampment future of their movement and decided to work in shifts to keep a 24-hour presence at the park while a committee looks for office space to house their operational side.

“It is making my world difficult because I am homeless, but in a way, I’m glad it happened because it brings up the fake occupiers,” said a 34-year-old protester who goes by “Joker.”

The turn of events “is following somewhat of an expected trajectory” because it’s difficult for social movements to maintain aggressive protests over time, said Gabriel Acevedo, associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

“In six months, Occupy S.A. will be completely off the radar, or they could become well organized, well structured, and less of a protest movement and more of a political action group,” he said.

City Council member Diego Bernal said the city was forced to stop the camping because occupiers lost control of safety and sanitation at the park.

“They were unable to hold up their end,” he said, though he added that Occupy S.A.’s relationship with City Hall is “the best of any major city in the U.S.” where the movement has appeared.

Whether that continues “remains to be seen,” he said. Protesters, for their part, are wary of further city action.

Stopping by to watch them dismantle their camp at midweek, Baum, the police commander, said of the reported crimes: “Y’all are the ones who called in 99 percent of the incidents.”

“Sorry to make more work for you,” joked construction worker Joe Ballard, 27.

“If someone dozes off, will we be arrested?” asked Lewis Williams, 43, who is unemployed.

“We’ll probably do a welfare check,” Baum said, playfully shaking Joker’s shoulder to demonstrate. “And make sure you’re OK, not having a seizure or anything.”

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Monday afternoon, San Antonio park police – who have been permissive and in some instances supportive of occupiers’ activities – approached with notices foreshadowing what could be a different chapter for them.

Each occupier got a copy of the municipal code’s camping in public section. Printed at the very top, in bold, was: “You must dismantle and remove your shelters and structures; and collect and remove your personal belongings. Continued violation will subject you to citation and possible arrest.”

“Y’all can’t camp here anymore,” Park Police Commander Steven Baum announced. “You’re making this your temporary living quarters. That is in violation of the rules.”

Baum, who in the past had nothing but praise for the “very orderly, very compliant” protestors, didn’t give them a clear-out date.

“I would move them as soon as possible,” he suggested. “All I’m trying to give you is ample warning that you are in violation.”

Frustrations ran high but were kept in check as occupiers reminded themselves that they were not being evicted but simply asked not to camp. Their consensus was to stop sleeping at the park and instead take shifts to keep it covered 24 hours a day.

“Downsize,” advised a 35-year-old occupier who goes by the name Joker. “I’m going to make it so that in less than two seconds, I can roll up and move.”

By nightfall, occupiers were taking down tarps and loading piles of everything from first-aid kits to electronics into a few vehicles. Some occupiers offered to keep the group’s belongings – including dogs – at their homes for the time being.

“It just seems like it’s going in the direction of trying to kick us out,” said construction worker Joe Ballard, 26. “How do you occupy 24 hours without sleeping?”

Camping violators will be subject to prosecution for the class C misdemeanor and a fine of up to $500, the notice stated.

Occupiers took stabs at what may have led police to crack down.

Some brought up the lack of cleanliness in their area and the bathrooms. John Meadows, 42, who said he has no other occupation, thought it may have been a few members who had erected cardboard and plywood structures when rain fell and temperatures dropped to freezing.

“They said they’d put them up in inclement weather, but it’s not that right now,” Meadows said on the 50-something degree evening. “It’s aggravating because we’ve covered that in General Assembly – we’re here because cops have been nice to us. Period.”

Meanwhile, a 30-year-old occupier who calls himself Shadow didn’t see it as a turn for the worse.

“We need to restart our movement, start protesting again,” he said. “It isn’t that Occupy gave me a park to live in; Occupy was nice enough to let me stay here while I’m working toward the betterment of our country.”

Eddie Gall, 44, a newspaper hawker on Sundays, piggybacked on the need for more action. Having 30 people at the most occupying the park at a given time is unacceptable, he said.

“We ain’t done nothing yet,” Gall said. “It’s a movement, not a stagnant.”

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“You’ve got two Coca-Colas,” the protester, Shamus McWright, added casually.

“Anyone want one?” the officer said. “Whoever can get it first …”

A few occupiers got up and teasingly ran for the soda, but let McWright, 24, limping a bit from an all-day march, claim it.

It was just another night in San Antonio’s starkly different version of the nationwide movement against concentrated wealth and power.

In other large cities, Occupy encampments and marches have sparked confrontations and arrests, concerns about trash and sanitation, occasional crime and all-around civic frustration.

Here, the protesters have bent over backward to keep peace with the city and law enforcement.

“Police have been fully cooperative, so that is why we’ve been fully cooperative with them,” said Joe Ballard, 26, a participant since the local occupation began more than five weeks ago. “That is also why, when we have extra food, we offer them something to eat.”

The occupiers that night had feasted on donated leftovers from the Diwali San Antonio Festival of Lights across the park — Indian curries, naan bread and even pizza — whose remains lay on a table at the gazebo the group uses as its pantry and People’s Library.

A garbage truck drove by and stopped in front. Occupiers gathered to dispose of their trash bags.

“Thank you, thank you very much, gentlemen,” John Simpson, 53, said, handing workers on the truck some bottled water.

Simpson, who served in the Marines, stayed up until 3 a.m. sweeping the gazebo and picking up trash, even the litter outside their area. He was awake by 7 a.m. to set up fruit, oatmeal, hot water and coffee for breakfast, and spent the next couple of hours holding signs and getting cars to honk for the cause.

Meanwhile, everyone else sat around, “chilling.” Sure, they clean the bathrooms regularly and it was a Sunday morning, but, Simpson groused, he was tired of “people just raiding food, the way people sleep like bums. If I was a tourist walking by, I’d think, ‘What a mess.’”

Simpson has had his moments — he almost took off on a walk to Oakland, Calif. — but the group itself has also come close to losing its cool.

Irked by later-than-usual notice of an event that required them to move to the other side of the park, protesters last week almost reached a consensus to stay and risk arrest.

“All I see is San Antonio sitting on its ass,” cried a 30-year-old occupier who calls himself Shadow. “There’s 20 of us here every day out of the entire city. Let’s stand up and do something!”

An hour later, though, they began moving their belongings — a decision reached through their majority-rule system. The next morning, Park Police Commander Steven Baum visited and had a very civil exchange.

“They’ve been real good,” Baum said. “They don’t disrupt traffic, they don’t disrupt any events here. You can’t really complain about it.”

City Councilman Diego Bernal said city officials don’t want conflict and, for the most part, neither do the occupiers.

“One thing that really sets this group apart is, I think, they have the best relationship with city government of any Occupy group in any major city in the U.S.,” he said.

Individual flare-ups bother him — they’re not representative of the entire group, he said.

“They’re presenting a situation like impending war,” Bernal said. “If you want Oakland, go to Oakland. This is not Oakland.”

Since the near-encounter, police have been “a lot more lenient,” acknowledged occupier Jeremy Lockridge, 32, a medical assistant at Girling Health Care.

Temperatures down to the mid-30s have been bearable so far, Lockridge said, but with colder weather, the group may decide to tarp off the gazebo. City ordinances forbid camping there — meaning personal belongings, cooking, and yes, tarps — but Baum says “it’s a discretionary deal.”

But they’re not welcome everywhere.

When two dozen occupiers and veterans marched to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Friday, some vets who were already there, including Stan “Doc” Sellers, 64, who served as a U.S. Navy medic, didn’t want them around.

“You beat the drum when you come and we’re holding a quiet moment — you all are disrespectful!” said Sellers, raising his voice. “You all want to protest, go somewhere else!”

He flagged down a passing police car and Officer Trey Turner stepped in: “I don’t care, as long as we all get along. Why can’t we all just get along?”

The dust-up ended like others have. The Occupy S.A. delegation stood on the sidewalk quietly and finally left without a sound.

“We have to be able to have a strategy of calmness and peace — that is why you have mediators,” said one of them, G.M. Briggs, 63, a former military nurse who cooks for occupiers on weekdays. “You can’t do things without leadership.”

Since Oct. 6, the group has been led by “facilitators” who, for all their insistence that they are not leaders, have gotten things done.

But the core group has dwindled from a peak of about 80 a few weeks ago to half that number, said Andrew Duran, 21, who takes calls at a Pizza Hut.

“A lot of people left because of contention within the group, and because it’s disorganized,” he said. “We’ve had meetings about it, about getting organized, but the meetings themselves have been disorganized.”

Indeed, organization appears to be the biggest difference between Occupy S.A. and sister movements — aside from the obvious, size, said Gabriel Acevedo, a University of Texas at San Antonio associate professor of sociology.

Occupy S.A. is “much more grass-roots and seems to be less orchestrated” than the movements in New York and Oakland, he said.

“Most social movements start out small and if they’re successful in mobilizing, can have greater impact on social change,” Acevedo said. “History has shown us you can’t count them out.”

Occupy S.A. may have made history in one way, with a wedding last week. The bride and groom, both 19 and occupiers since day one, gathered the guests together in Occupy fashion: “Mic check! … Mic check! We’re about to cut the cake … we’re about to cut the cake.”

The newlyweds spent the night at their apartment, but came back the next day.

“We can’t stand to be away from everybody; everybody is like family,” said the bride, Victoria Rodriguez. “Family is going to have bumps on the road, but we get through them

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After a month of complying with law enforcement requests in the name of keeping their protest peaceful, Occupy San Antonio members came close to joining other movements nationwide that have a record of arrests.

In the end, most of the several dozen protestors decided to comply with an order by two San Antonio Park Police officers delivered around noon Monday to move their stuff from the gazebo area at HemisFair Park by 5 a.m. the next morning so it could be power-washed for an event.

Police usually show the occupiers an event permit and give them 48 hours to vacate. More than a handful of occupiers at HemisFair Park made a cry to stay put and risk arrest instead of move near the playground as they have a few times before.

“I’m only leaving in handcuffs in a police car,” shouted an occupier who goes by the name Shadow, 30.

By midnight, however, the group had reached a 90 percent consensus to move their things. A few occupiers still refused and the rest maintained a physical presence, prepared to confront police with signs and chants.

They grew more irritated when they found out the event, starting at 6 a.m., was an hour-long 5K run for the Texas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers annual conference.

Nobody was arrested. Park Police Commander Steven Baum showed up at 7 a.m. to say there had been a miscommunication he hoped to avoid in the future.

“I have nothing but praise for you — you have been very orderly, very compliant,” he said. “When there’s an event, you respect the rights of others. I appreciate that.”

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Several generous globs of rice, Creole seafood gumbo, dipping biscuits, fresh salad and oh, don’t forget dessert — caramel-coated popcorn balls, a Louisiana delicacy.

Never mind that they’re served on disposables and utensils are scarce. Sitting cross-legged on the ground in HemisFair Park at Occupy San Antonio’s encampment, Marty “Mac” McMillan pronounced it “delicious!”

“It’s warm, home-cooked food made with love,” the 41-year-old disabled U.S. Navy veteran said, putting his lips to the foam bowl and scooping some up with a crab leg. “She wants to do this, and you can taste it, so we’re very lucky.”

“She” is G.M. Briggs, owner of Variety Fine Foods & Caterers, the self-appointed chief cook for the group that formed here one month ago as part of a nationwide wave of protests against America’s growing inequality of wealth and power.

The several-dozen permanent occupiers now expect Briggs to show up almost without fail on weekday evenings. They hustle to carry and help set up her two rice cookers and trays of Creole fare.

She’s hard to miss, but even so, they spread the word in their systematic way: with the words “Mic check!” cueing all to carefully repeat what is said so all can hear it.

“Mic check! … Mic check! If you haven’t gotten food … if you haven’t gotten food. Come over here … come over here.”

Clad in an “Occupy S.A.” apron and chef’s hat, Briggs, 63, said she was “here for the long haul.”

“They hug me, they kiss me, they treat me like gold and make me feel a part of this very important cause,” she said.

Dinner at the encampment, as a result, is often a gourmet affair. Breakfast and lunch, on the other hand, are rarely hot meals. The donations come mostly from nearby independently owned restaurants and occasionally from franchise operations, said John Simpson, 53, who’s taken it upon himself to coordinate food.

It might have something to do with the movement’s often-articulated fight against the nation’s wealthiest 1 percent, but Simpson said corporations tend to refer his requests to their central offices and so far haven’t donated a single ice cube.

“That is pretty much what we’re fighting against — the money doesn’t filter down to the people,” Simpson said.

Simpson will give a snack to stray homeless people, but he sleeps next to the food supply to keep gluttons out.

“I get up at 7 a.m. and don’t get to bed till 3 a.m. — and keep one eye open,” he said.

Always up for grabs, though, are items he puts out on the refreshment table, like peanut butter and jelly for sandwiches and produce from places like Green Vegetarian Cuisine.

“It’s better than what I normally would be eating at home because it’s fresh vegetables and fruit,” said Blake Markgraf, 21, unemployed since his seasonal job ended at 13th Floor Haunted House. Others, like retired electrician Julio Gonzales, 59, retreat to McDonald’s for comfort.

“If we were allowed to cook here, that would be great. I’d make egg benedicts for everyone,” he said, settling for a slice of vegan cake. “I just saw my doctor, and he said I lost eight pounds.”

What’s available in the pantry is a matter of concern for Briggs, a retired military nurse who is determined to upgrade the stock.

“I’m gonna make sure they get a bottle of multivitamins,” she said. “Because a lot of them are vegetarian, and I’m sure they’re not eating properly.”

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To an outsider, the self-proclaimed “leaderless” Occupy San Antonio protesters are a highly structured community, with a list of rules, an insistence on obeying the law and a twice-a-day schedule of general assemblies and marches that start on the dot.

This local incarnation of a now-international movement denouncing Wall Street and economic injustice has maintained a zero arrest record for the two weeks and three days since its members started an encampment at HemisFair Park.

A handful of protesters spend nights there. Some 150 or so gather during the day, and hundreds more turn up for occasional larger protests.

“I feel good about the rate of growth — it’s similar to the interest and penalty fees that banks charge, and we’re paying it back in people,” said Meghan Owen, 30, who runs some of the meetings and is on worker’s compensation. “It’s my long-winded way of saying we’re growing exponentially.”

While Occupy movements in Manhattan and other major cities have generated some unruliness, there has been nothing of the sort here.

“They have been doing really well with following all of the park guidelines as well as traffic and pedestrian laws,” San Antonio Police Department spokeswoman Sandy Gutierrez said.

The group’s self-discipline and unity were on display Wednesday night during a “peace and drum” circle and march to Alamo Plaza that went from shouts to a hush exactly at 10 p.m., in compliance with the city’s noise ordinance.

But if verbal altercations have been rare between protesters and police, government officials and passersby, they have become apparent within the group itself, where some of the rank and file have chafed under the non-hierarchy of non-leaders.

Some of these frustrations came to a head Thursday night as the group moved to another side of the park because an event had been reserved at their spot.

“This is probably the third to fourth time I’ve been told I should not bring things up during the general assembly,” said Jamie Pantazi, 26, who was frustrated to tears. “I’m being told to shut up, and that is not OK.”

Writing on a Facebook thread, DeAnne Cuellar, 36, executive director of the Media Justice League, questioned the group’s attempt to register its name as a “doing business as” entity so it could accept checks.

The group decided not to pursue DBA status, but meanwhile, Cuellar said, she was shunned, accused of trying to commandeer the local movement.

“I don’t understand where that was coming from, like how does someone take over something that doesn’t belong to anybody?” she said.

Owen called the DBA attempt “a very short-lived mistake” and insisted that decisions are made by a consensus vote or put on hold.

“Everybody gets to have their say,” she said.

Occupy San Antonio’s impact so far pales in comparison to that of the movement’s larger groups, which have more resources and access to progressive colleges and working professionals with the “luxury of protest,” said Gabriel Acevedo, associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

“My feeling is that what is keeping the San Antonio movement from really rising up is not about people feeling less marginalized,” he said. “We have some of the poorest ZIP codes in the U.S., and I don’t think it’s a surprise that a blue collar-type city is not going to be this hotbed of protest.”

Still, some local participants like Daniel Brown, 25, a server at a restaurant, say the effort is about social change, not socializing or posturing.

“We’re not here to party and do drum circles,” he said. “We have a big problem with outreach right now, where we haven’t been able to reach out to various communities in our city and show we’re on the same side.”

City Council member Diego Bernal, whose district includes HemisFair, said he checks in with the group to ensure their First Amendment rights are protected. But he also warns them against holding “a built-in hypersensitivity” toward city officials. Some seem to expect their relationship with police will suddenly deteriorate, “and that’s just not on the table,” he said.

It’s a paranoia that extends to the group’s attitude toward news media. All participants who talk to reporters record the conversations, following the group’s “protocol” for such interaction.

Eric Fahrenthold, 24, a sales representative at Texas Imaging Systems, did not deny that some of the more permanent occupiers are homeless, hippies, jobless — or some combination of all three — but stressed that students and workers like himself swell the crowd in the evenings.

“The fact of the matter is that people out here were affected, or heard one or two points that drove them to come out,” Fahrenthold said. “And while they’re here, I believe they educate themselves on things going on around the U.S. and the rest of the world.”

But he also thinks the meetings are run too efficiently and abruptly — he got cut off when he tried to bring something up at Wednesday’s assembly.

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Gathering in solidarity with ongoing anti-Wall Street protests in New York, a group of mostly young people, numbering about 200 at its peak, brought San Antonio onto a national bandwagon Thursday.

“Occupy San Antonio!” the group shouted from dawn to dusk. “We are the 99 percent!”

Members repeatedly decried concentrations of wealth and power at a morning assembly in Travis Park and during a scrupulously well-behaved sidewalk march to the Alamo, the Grand Hyatt, CPS Energy offices, federal offices, Main Plaza and City Hall.

The group, like others that began popping up in many major U.S. cities this week, was piggybacking on Occupy Wall Street.

That campout by the young and disaffected started Sept. 17 in Lower Manhattan and eventually drew support from more organized groups and labor unions, whose members have swelled the protesters’ numbers into the thousands.

The concerns over Wall Street practices and economic inequality reverberated up to the White House on Thursday, with President Barack Obama saying the protesters are expressing the frustrations of the American public, the Associated Press reported.

Los Angeles police arrested 11 demonstrators who entered a Bank of America branch during a downtown march by hundreds of people Thursday.

San Antonio participants said the discontent is driven by a belief that corporations, financial institutions and a small handful of people control too much of the country’s resources and direction. It differentiates this protest from others in the past, said Meghan Owen, 30, who’s on workers compensation.

“We need to cut off the head of the beast in order to succeed,” she said. “We’ve always been told to work from the bottom up, but it has never worked in the past. This time, we’re going to take it all at the same time.”

The protest “was extremely peaceful” and the marchers didn’t interfere with traffic flow, San Antonio Police Department spokeswoman Sandy Gutierrez said.

“Peacemaking Committee” members made sure of that, said Vaughn Tangero, 28, who is unemployed and homeless. Though meeting for only a week, the group formed transportation, medics, legal and food committees.

“We’re leaderless but we’re organized,” Tangero said.

And it doesn’t counter the spontaneity that sparked Occupy Wall Street, said Rosa Martinez, 25, a digital design student at San Antonio College.

“We have a general assembly here; everyone votes,” she said.

Conflicting views were occasionally expressed, however. Stopping by to get a feel for the movement’s mentality, Vietnam veteran David Fasci, 60, said it was an insult to see a University of Texas at San Antonio student wearing nothing but fake marijuana leaves and a U.S. flag.

The history major, Vonia Smith, 27, said she wore a flag diaper to demonstrate “that the government is full of crap.”

It started with a Facebook page that local musician Bryan Hamilton, 28, created Sept. 28 for a few friends who wanted to join Occupy Austin. Then it snowballed.

“We thought, ‘Why should people have to go to Austin? We have problems here in San Antonio,’” he said.

About 30 protesters planned to spend the night at HemisFair Park, where the chants and cheers continued past sundown.

Though the fervor in San Antonio paled in comparison to the protest in New York and those she witnessed as a little girl in the 1960s, Evelyn Adamo, 51, said she still saw a “reawakening of a consciousness” in Thursday’s event.

“They started seeing the troubles around them and they realized they have the power to change that with love,” she said of past demonstrations. “That is what is happening today — things are not working, and people are waking up.”

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Cries-of-Occupy-San-Antonio-ring-throughout-2205816.php#ixzz2FKu1SuLI