Brooklyn Bridge march didn't reflect Occupy: NY mayor
Brooklyn Bridge: The mayor said in his weekly WOR Radio show Friday that 'a vast percentage' of the marchers were union members who 'had organized signs and leadership.'
Occupy Wall Street protesters crossing the Brooklyn Bridge wave to Manhattan-bound traffic on the roadway below after a rally in Foley Square, on Nov. 17 in New York. Organizers with the Service Employees International Union and progressive groups staged similar bridge marches in several cities in an event that was planned weeks ago, but happened to coincide with rallies marking two months since the start of the Occupy movement.
Henny Ray Abrams/AP
NEW YORK
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is arguing that the several thousand protesters who marched over the Brooklyn Bridge Thursday don't really represent Occupy Wall Street.
The mayor said in his weekly WOR Radio show Friday that "a vast percentage" of the marchers were union members who "had organized signs and leadership."
Bloomberg said the protest "was just an opportunity for a bunch of unions to complain or to protest, or whatever they want to do."
He said, "it really wasn't the protesters that have been in Zuccotti Park or that you see around the country."
The mayor also said that of the roughly 250 people who were arrested in Thursday's protests, three were charged with felonies. He says 80 were charged with misdemeanors and the rest were given summonses or desk tickets.