Occupy Wall Street Protester, Arrested and Jailed for 30 Hours, Tells Her Story for the First Time

On Saturday, October 15, I went to Washington Square Park to take a closer look at the Occupy Wall Street movement. There were many young people who could be my children or rather grandchildren, but many older people, too, all generations united, it seemed, under the banner: "We are the 99 percent."

Different groups decided to go to a bank. I joined one that went to Citibank at La Guardia Place and Bleecker Street. As we entered, there were a couple of customers and a few banktellers inside. A teach-in ensued. The story the students told, surprisingly calmly and politely, was shocking.

The ride to Central Booking in the paddywagon was an ominous beginning. Either New York’s potholes are beyond repair or the shock absorbers of that car were non-existent. With our wrists handcuffed behind our back, there was no way to hold on to anything as we were thrown off our seats into the air during that ride in hell. After hours of “booking procedures” -- standing in line, being handcuffed, getting uncuffed, backpacks, wallets, phones and any other object, even a single tissue, taken from us, our names shouted as we were inspected and lined up spread-eagled across a wall – we were finally led into three cells, allowed for the first time to sit down. It was early evening by now but we were not allowed an extra piece of clothing for the cold, just a T-shirt or whatever first layer of clothing we wore.

During an inordinately lengthy fingerprinting procedure, with the male officers operating the machines and the female officers locking and unlocking our cells as we were called out one by one, it sometimes seemed the police outnumbered us. But still, it took what seemed like hours.

Barely back in our cells, we were taken out again, handcuffed again, this time with a chain between our cuffs, and led “upstairs.” But there had been some mistake. A female officer told "our" officer that, no, she couldn’t process us. Some paperwork was missing, some order, some stamp. Time to cuff us again and go down the stairs back into our cells. How many more instances of handcuffing, uncuffing, leading us up and down stairs and long hallways, waiting, returning, repeating what seemed nonsensical procedures and reversals then followed I do not know and did not count. But a deep sense of disorganization, competence fighting incompetence, if not chaos, reigned. It seemed as if, in the name of bureaucratic rules and regulations, in the name of "security," we were witnessing a dysfunctional institution and people not used to daylight shining in; people generally accountable to no one but themselves.