Photo by Brent Patterson
You may have heard about retired Philadelphia police captain Ray Lewis who was arrested at a November 2011 Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City. He had been holding a sign in front of New York Police Department riot police that read, ‘NYPD Don’t Be Wall St. Mercenaries’.
Commenting on the New York mayor alleging that Zuccotti Park was not being kept clean by OWS activists, Lewis said, “They complained about the park being dirty. Here they are worrying about dirty parks when people are starving to death, where people are freezing, where people are sleeping in subways and they’re concerned about a dirty park. That’s obnoxious, it’s arrogant, it’s ignorant, it’s disgusting.”
On February 17, Captain Lewis was among the estimated 50,000 people gathered in Washington, DC to rally against the 850,000 barrel a day Keystone XL bitumen pipeline. Climate justice activists have warned that if US President Barack Obama approves the pipeline, their task will be to prevent its construction as is happening now with the tree-sitters participating in the Tar Sands Blockade near Winnsboro, Texas. At last Sunday’s protest, Lewis held a sign that read, ‘Warning: Massive Civil Disobedience Is Next’.
