New York: Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street encampment marched again in New York City on Sunday, tromping through the streets of the financial district to protest the role that big banks played in the US financial crisis. And marchers emulated them in protests in cities across the US and abroad.
As many as 1,000 protesters in Manhattan paraded to a Chase bank branch, banging drums, blowing horns and carrying signs decrying corporate greed.
“Banks got bailed out. We got sold out,” the crowd chanted. A few protesters went inside the bank to close their accounts, but the group didn’t stop other customers from getting inside or seek to blockade the business. Police told the marchers to stay on the sidewalk, and the demonstration appeared to be fairly orderly as it wound through downtown streets. There were reports of at least some demonstrators being detained by police Saturday afternoon at a Citibank branch during the march.
The march came a day after protesters at the heart of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in New York exulted Friday after beating back a plan they said was intended to clear them from privately owned Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan where they have slept, eaten and protested for the past month. They said their victory will embolden the movement across the US and abroad.
Across the Atlantic, hundreds of people packed into a plaza in Toronto’s financial district, near the Toronto Stock Exchange and the headquarters of major Canadian banks.
Protests were also held in other Canadian cities, including Montreal and Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the US, among the demonstrators in New York withdrawing their money from Chase was Lily Paulina, 29, an organizer with the United Auto Workers union who lives in Brooklyn.
She said she was taking her money out because she was upset that JPMorgan Chase was making billions of dollars, while its customers struggled with bank fees and home foreclosures.
The weekend brought out protesters in other parts of the country as well, and more rallies were planned in such cities as Little Rock, Arkansas, Providence, Rhode Island, and Seattle. (AP)
