From The Daily Caller:
Occupy DC protesters tried to force entry into the Washington Convention Center on Friday, where Americans for Prosperity is hosting their “Defending the American Dream Summit.” The protesters also formed roadblocks, surrounding the convention center and only allowing non-luxury cars to pass.
Reporter Michele Fields offers her impressions while reporting on the story
While covering Occupy DC’s protest of Americans for Prosperity’s “Defending the American Dream Summit” Friday night at the Washington Convention Center, Daily Caller video reporter Michelle Fields was verbally harassed throughout the evening. In an interview, she tells TheDC about how she felt threatened and how the Occupy DC mob looked anything but impoverished.
What were the protesters protesting?
Occupy DC was at a summit hosted by Americans for Prosperity protesting corporate greed. They targeted the individuals at the event by blocking off all of the exits of the building so that no one could leave and blocked off all intersections around the convention center so that no cars could pass through. It seemed as though most people at the event caught cabs back home, so the people who were hurt the most by the blocked intersections were DC residents — not the people from the AFP event.
Were you afraid they would become physically violent with you? Did they threaten you with violence?
A very large group of male protesters began to surround me and chant “F— Michelle Fields” while others screamed in my face for working at The Daily Caller and being a “right wing extremist.” There were very few female protesters, but they were civil towards me. All of the people who harassed me were male protesters. At one point someone threw water at me so I immediately went to speak to a police officer who then spoke to some of the protesters individually about their behavior. Although the police officer tried to control the situation, the individuals continued to harass me throughout the evening.
How so?
Occupy DC assigned someone to follow me around the entire evening with a camera documenting my every move. He was always a few steps behind me harassing and filming me. I was only able to interview a handful of people last night because Occupy DC protesters would jump in front of my camera and interrupt the interview.
Did any of the protesters try to calm the others down and get them to behave civilly?
Occupy DC was only concerned with trying to get other protesters to behave civilly when The Daily Caller camera was around. If my camerawoman and I were around when someone was doing something that was clearly illegal and out of control, Occupy DC would start screaming “Stop! Daily Caller is right behind you. They’re going to get it on camera.”
Did they seem to have a coherent message?
They had no coherent message, other than to make sure Charles Koch and his friends didn’t get out of the building.
Were they blocking all traffic or just fancy cars?
Occupy DC only allowed non-luxury cars and government buses to pass through. At one point an African American man came by in an SUV and pleaded with the protesters to let him and his 2 year old son get through so they could go home. One of the protesters shouted: “Sorry, but you have no power right now and your son can’t save you.”
I hope they’re preparing felony abuse of the elderly for shoving the old woman to the ground. That is a very serious crime.
Maybe, instead of harassing a female reporter and blocking traffic; these guys should have been taking notes. If I was in a room with several selfmade millionaires, I’d be busy finding out what they know that I don’t.
As for cars, you never can tell. One of my co-workers would always say, “Please don’t judge me because I have a nice car. I’ve been working since I was 12. I’m 62 and still working. This is my first Mercedes.”
Let’s see these OWS protesters put some candidates up for election. If they can’t convince people to vote for them through a vigorous political debate, then their attempt at violent overthrow of the government isn’t likely to be successful.
They already have candidates, they’re called democrats.
Why is it that the only places I am able to find this “news” is on yours or other conservative-fanatical websites? Not even Fox is reporting it. That’s so strange, don’t you think? Or have Democrats taken over the world and are refusing to let it hit the airwaves? That must be it. Now you have to go underground to tell us what’s REALLY going on. Such drama.
Are you really this stupid? The only thing that makes it strange that Fox isn’t reporting this is that you actually believe the lie that Fox is some ultra right wing news channel, it’s not. Let me guess, you actually believe that these protest are really grass roots, unorganized groups of people coming together and not being organized by wealthy leftist, correct?
I suppose you’d be shocked that these protests have been planned out for a few years.
I’m also guessing that you’d be surprised that these protest have been endorsed by the communist party of china, the rulers of Iran and the American nazi party. Now that’s ironic, the media and democrat party leaders steadily compared the tea party movement to nazis yet the nazis support the same movement AS the democrats in supporting ows. I see a lot of antisemetic comment from these ows types yet none from tea party people.
Actually I saw this on Fox news and the Orielly show. Conservative radio (God Bless Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck) are all over this story. Rapes, murders, suicide, arson, drug overdose, selling drugs, destruction of property, shots fired at the White House, bomb threats, pushed 75 year old little lady down the stairs, obstruction of justice, placing children directly in harms way, child pornography, destruction of private business, racism, anti-Semitic hate crimes. I’m glad I carry a gun.
The unfortunate truth is that the mainstream media hasn’t been very good at reporting the WHOLE story in some time. That’s why sites like this exist in the first place. Being that most of the stories on this site give names (like Michele Fields), video footage, events that can be backed up with public records (police reports, hospital records, etc) they should be easy to prove or disprove.
Its also interesting how local news tells a different story from national news. (Compare some local Oakland news, radio and newspaper coverage to what you see on CNN and MSNBC, you might be supprised how messy these “mostly peaceful” protests are getting)
I wish I had been there. A few of those OWS guys would of found themselves at the bottom of those marble stairs head first.
REALLY? Wow, I’ve seen some crazy before but some of these comments might just take the cake.
I’d also like to point out that there’s another video of this woman being pushed down the stairs, this time, from an angle where you can actually see what happened. She wasn’t pushed by protesters. She was pushed by some small man in a suit throwing elbows to get through the crowd. Quite obviously an AFP Summit Attendee. Not that I believe this undeniable evidence will even begin to dent the frothing insanity of this post and it’s comments.
http://youtu.be/pTnOwaTRDog
As the chev at occupy washington dc ( specifically ) located at freedom plaza, I want to apologize for the stupidity of so many un-educated bullish persons that have no smarts.
This is one of many different reasons why I decided to part ways with occupy. Though, I must say most occupiers don’t harbor this type of character.