‘Media!’ See the Moment the Friday Protests Turned Violent in NYC

We already mentioned that the protests turned violent this morning in New York after protesters, emboldened by the decision not to evict them from their home base, marched on the New York Stock Exchange. In our previous story we had video catching the tail end of an incident involving a protester and police on scooters.

(Related: Bloomberg says park owner received "threatening" calls from politicians)

Now we have more video showing what that appears to show the actual moment the clash began -- or at least a similar incident -- courtesy of the New York Post:*

The protester can be heard screaming for the media as he is being arrested.

WCBS-TV explains what happened:

Police urged protesters to stay out of the street and stay on the sidewalk.

Police scooters were shaped like a V and moved toward the protesters in the standoff. One man lost his balance, and was run over by a police scooter. Police descended on the protester and got him out from under the bike. Some witnesses tell Sandberg the man was beaten during the arrest.

“We had somebody knock over a scooter, there were some arrests here — I don’t know what the charges were — there were people in the street the police officer was trying to get them out of the street, this was down near the exchange,” New York City Police Department’s Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Paul Browne said.

First Precinct Commander Ed Winski checked a protester who refused to stay on the sidewalk. When the protester came back into the street, Winski hurled his megaphone down and wound up rolling around in the street with the protester, throwing punches. Other officers surrounded the two, throwing punches. The protester was arrested.

[...]

Police say the protesters were throwing bottles and bags of garbage at officers, triggering the police response, Sandberg reported. Police say they were trying to control the situation when it got out of hand.

*UPDATE:

More video of the incident has surfaced showing a clearer picture of what happened. It shows the incident captured in the AP photos. However, it also appears to be a separate incident than the one mentioned in our earlier story and shown in the NY Post video (content warning for graphic language):