NY protesters join forces in march

A day after Mayor Michael Bloomberg hinted that the city was going to take a tougher line with the Occupy Wall Street movement, protesters made sure that yesterday's march through lower Manhattan went peacefully.

March organizers and police officers worked to keep marchers together and moving as they began at Union Square, where they joined members of the October 22 Coalition, an advocacy group that has called for an end to what it says is police repression of minorities. The combined groups then marched through Tompkins Square Park to the Lower East Side.

"It's fascinating to see a protest against police brutality with hundreds of police officers protecting them and guaranteeing their right to assemble and protest," said one onlooker, Murray Cahn of San Francisco, who was visiting his daughter at New York University.

An NYPD spokesman said no one had been arrested Saturday as of 9 p.m.

Angel Seda, one of the march organizers, said he was proud of the protesters.

"It was challenging and stressful at times," he said. "People were very cooperative. If people aren't met with force, the police department is not going to receive any force."

Still, Seda said he was frustrated that the event was "overpoliced" in light of good planning and a security discussion that organizers had with police a few days ago. "Police overexerted authority and should have blocked off lanes to provide more space," he said.

Earlier in the day, Dylan Spoelstra, 24, of Toronto, was taken into police custody after he scaled a 40-foot-tall steel sculpture near Zuccotti Park.

A number of demonstrators expressed displeasure over the stunt, saying it was an unfortunate distraction.

Police said overtime costs for officers working at the protest, which enters its sixth week, have reached $3.9 million.