The peaceful Occupy Wall Street protest march turned violent on September 24, 2011 as the NYPD corralled and pepper sprayed the participants (the officer accused of using pepper spray on a protester, Antony Bologna, can be seen in picture 3). Mass arrests were made and loaded onto a NYC bus further locking traffic.
The protest march took a route from Zuccotti Park to Union Square on East 14th Street. The protesters were marching back to Zuccotti Park when the NYPD turned violent. Hitting, arresting and forcing protesters into a small area. At that point an office fire pepper spray into the eyes of a half dozen protesters when they had nowhere to go. One supervising officer was seen laughing after the arrests while looking at his text messages.
The peaceful protest march started at 250 participants but rose to over 1,000 as the event stopped traffic in lower Manhattan. People spontaneously joined the march over a 2 hour period.