entrapment

Looking at several eyewitness accounts from yesterday, it's now clear that that the NYPD deliberately laid a trap on the Brooklyn Bridge into which about 1000 of the 6000 or so Occupy Wall Street protesters were drawn, then sprang it, arrested about 700, and let the other 300 walk back to Manhattan.

The sequence of events: (1) Police stopped Brooklyn-bound traffic from entering the eastbound lanes of the bridge; (2) Marchers approaching the bridge's narrow pedestrian walkway were brought almost to a standstill, as if the crowd were entering the neck of a funnel; (3) Some protesters began jumping the concrete barrier separating the walkway from the now-empty roadway. Nobody attempted to interfere with them, or told them they couldn't.

Once the police had about a thousand people on the road, they stopped others from jumping the barrier, then pulled their orange nets in front of and behind the protesters in the road.

These sequence accords with the report of an eyewitness who watched these events unfold from her apartment balcony right above the bridge. Mrs. Polly writes occasionally for the Rumproast blog, and her account is here.