As Chicago OWS Protests Heat Up, MTV Plots NYC Reality Show
Nurses union pickets outside Chicago mayor's office after weekend arrests.
| Posted Monday, Oct. 24, 2011, at 3:03 PM
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.
Rahm has incurred the wrath of the nurses.
More than two dozen nurses and union members picketed outside Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office Monday, protesting a slew of arrests at an Occupy Chicago demonstration Sunday, the Chicago Tribune reports. “Arrest the 1 percent!” they chanted.
About 130 people were taken in by Chicago police early Sunday after they refused to leave Grant Park by its 11 p.m. closing time Saturday. Among those arrested, apparently, were two nurses, who claimed they had come to the protest in case any protesters were harmed. Both said they were held in jail for about 24 hours, according to the Tribune.
Emanuel defended the decision to arrest protesters, saying, “I have to enforce the law as well as respect peoples’ First Amendment rights.”
It was the second straight weekend that the city arrested large numbers of demonstrators for refusing to leave the park. About 3,000 people had turned out for a demonstration earlier in the day. From the Tribune:
As the 11 p.m. park closing approached, more than 100 people decided to stay in Congress Plaza in the park as several hundred more moved onto a nearby sidewalk or across Michigan Avenue, off park district property. Police announced several times that anyone still in the park would be arrested, and by midnight, about 100 people remained in the plaza, which had been cordoned off with police barricades.
Meanwhile, MTV is planning to capitalize on the New York protests with a reality show. The station announced on Monday that True Life: I’m Occupying Wall Street will air on Nov. 5. From the MTV website:
The special episode will take you to the front lines as MTV cameras follow four young people who get swept up in the political movement that has quickly grown into a global phenomenon. Viewers will be introduced to Bryan, one of the leaders of the Occupy sanitation team. You'll watch as he steels himself against a potential fight with the city when he fears that their request to clean the park is an excuse to evict the protesters.
"This needs to happen now, or it's over," Bryan is seen telling his fellow protesters about cleaning up the park before the city's mandatory deadline, which helps motivate them to collect trash, sweep up and scrub graffiti from the ground with hand-held brushes.
Should make for some arresting footage.
