Occupy Wall Street 2011:
The fun is over for a hippie mother who left her husband and four children to travel 1,000 miles and join the Occupy Wall Street protests.
Stacey Hessler, 38, swapped the comfort of sunny DeLand, Florida, for the squalor of Zuccotti Park, New York, after following the protests online.
But dramatic photos showed how she was hauled away by police from the protests in Manhattan yesterday – her dreadlocks flying everywhere.
Hessler, who admitted her mother said she was ‘very selfish’ for leaving, was arrested for blocking a road near the New York Stock Exchange.
‘What did I do? What did I do?’ she shouted as she was taken away in plastic handcuffs by three police officers, reported the New York Post.
She was charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct for blocking vehicles and pedestrians after she refused to move, police said.
The unemployed mother, who left behind four children aged seven to 17, is a Long Island native and had said she would be at the camp ‘forever’.
Protesters singled out officers as another enemy, saying their crowd control tactics were an excessive, chilling use of force against free speech.
At least 300 people were arrested in New York and dozens were arrested elsewhere, including five on charges they assaulted police officers. Via: Daily Mail
The mom who left her family in Florida to become part of the raggedy Occupy Wall Street crowd has sued the city over her 2011 arrest — testifying Tuesday that she’s an innocent victim of police brutality.
“Somebody grabbed me by my hair and dragged me . . . behind the police officers,” said Stacey Hessler, 42, in Manhattan federal court.
But city attorneys said in their opening statements that Hessler had blocked pedestrian traffic during the November protest, then refused to move when cops politely asked her to make way. She also allegedly tried multiple times to escape when they finally moved to arrest her. Via: NY Post
