DETROIT, MI–For the May Day events, I started in the Media Command Center for Occupy Detroit till about 4 or 5 pm. Then I joined the fun. In this video clip from Occupy Detroit, there is a group of “police officers” that are dressed in all black with different shoulder patches indicating they were different units:
Most city police ware dark blue uniforms, and here are a few cop cars and the bus parked on Woodward:
The talk last night was that these guys where Homeland Security. At about 9:30, they announced that everyone must leave the park by 10 pm. With the understanding that the sidewalks where a legal public space, a group of people congregated around the Pingry statue. Then the guys in black, with the company of about 40 city police, decided that we were not aloud to assemble on the sidewalk, saying that this was an illegal assembly. The protesters asked where they could go and were told to go south. To me this indicated that no one cared where we were as long as we didn’t stay in Grand Circus Park.
We regrouped in another park for about an hour or so and started getting visitors from the city police. They asked the group to go back to Grand Circus, and when told that that’s where we came from and why, they didn’t even know about the events. That makes me wounder just who was calling the shots in Grand Circus…
All in all, it was a good day. Occupy had a food line for the homeless people in the area and a few musical groups played some tunes.
-Occupy Journey-
Editors note: Check out our other May Day stories here.