Economic protesters target Washington lobbyists
Police arrested 62 economic protesters in Washington on Wednesday as they blocked streets and disrupted traffic in an area famous as a center for the offices of lobbyists.
The demonstrators said the lobbyists represent the corporations that — along with the country’s richest people — they think have too much of the nation’s power and wealth.
The Washington actions came as elsewhere in the country authorities continued to move against encampments of the Occupy movement that seeks major change in the U.S. economic system.
Police dismantled a tent city of Occupy protesters in downtown San Francisco early on Wednesday, arresting 85 people, according to police spokesman Sergeant Carlos Manfredi, as they shut down the largest remaining Occupy encampment on the West Coast.
Protesters there briefly heckled the police at a public plaza, chanting “SFPD off our streets.”
San Francisco authorities had repeatedly warned Occupy protesters to move from the plaza at the foot of Market Street in recent weeks and tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a move to another location.
San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr said there were about 100 people in the camp when the police moved in early on Wednesday, and about 100 officers took part in the action.
Authorities in many U.S. cities, often citing health and safety conditions, have dismantled protest camps that sprang from the first Occupy protests near Wall Street in New York.
WASHINGTON AN EXCEPTION
An exception has been Washington, D.C., where Occupy encampments have remained in place and on occasion the protesters have been joined by other groups with similar aims.
This week union and church organizations, among others, were participating in a “Take Back the Capitol” effort marked by sit-ins at Congressional offices on Tuesday.
Undeterred by sporadic rain, the protests concentrated on K Street, where many corporate lobbyists have offices.