NYC Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez Detained in Zuccotti Raid, Urges Mass Involvement in OWS

www.democracynow.org - One of the factors that fueled Thursday’s huge march on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City was the dramatic surprise police raid on Zuccotti Park earlier in the week. Among those arrested in the raid was New York City Council Member Ydonis Rodriguez. He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and then held in a police van alone for two hours. Rodriguez’s arrest came just a week after he helped organized an 11-mile march from the his district in the Manhattan neighbhorshood of Washington Heights, a largely immigrant community, to Occupy Wall Street. He describes his ordeal in police custody and why the experience has only emboldened him to continue his involvement with the Occupy movement. “We wanted to bring more black and Latino participants to the movement because we believe that this movement is not only for the college students, this movement is not only for the unemployed, it is for the working class, it is for the middle class,” Rodriguez says. “A block before I was arrested, there was a large number of demonstrators and I saw a potential conflict that could happen. So what I did, I moved to the east side of Broadway, where there wasn’t any demonstrations going on, any rally. It was when I walked to the next block — I believe it was two blocks before the park — that’s where I was stopped. I said, "I am Councilman Rodriguez and I would like to keep going, walk to the park. I was pushed back, I was thrown on the floor, a police officer came from the middle of the street, he jumped on top of me.”

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