Leaked NYPD document shows police plans for ‘May Day’
A six-page NYPD document leaked online and posted on OccupyWallSt.org shows the police department’s preparations for today’s Occupy Wall Street “May Day.”
Many of the OWS events noted in the document are also publicly listed on Occupy websites, like Bryant Park meetings beginning at 8 a.m. and a march from Union Square to Wall Street at 5:30 p.m.
Police are also anticipating a “Bike Bloc” leaving from Union Square at 9 a.m. The NYPD monitored the Facebook invitation for the event, indicating that 52 out of 732 invitees are planning to attend, in order to “tie up automotive traffic,” according to police.
The NYPD is also watching out for a “Wildcat March” when protesters join labor workers at 1 p.m. at Sara D. Roosevelt Park without a permit.
“Organizers of this action have advocated the use of so-called “Black-Bloc” tactics to confront the police, sometimes violently, like those experienced during the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh in 2009, in which barricades, rocks, and trash bins were used in clashes with law enforcement,” the document states.
As Metro reported yesterday, the NYPD is also acutely aware of plans to block tunnels and bridges leading into Manhattan. Passages that the NYPD predicts protesters may try to disrupt today include the Brooklyn Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel.
The document warns that militant elements inside and outside the OWS movement may attempt to confront NYPD officers and even use weapons against cops like pipes and rocks. The NYPD predicts many spontaneous and unscheduled events will take place throughout the day, as OWS press team member Bill Dobbs told Metro yesterday.
“Although OWS organizers have publicized a large number of the marches, demonstrations, and activities that will take place throughout the day, it should be expected that “pop-up” demonstrations, splinter demonstrations, and flash mobs may occur at any time, especially during “evening actions” that are planned for 7:00pm and later,” the document says.
Tuesday night, Gawker reported the NYPD visited the homes of at least three protesters and questioned them about plans for May Day.
“There was definitely an upswing in law enforcement activity that seemed to fit the pattern of targeting what police might view as political residences,” Gideon Oliver, the president of the New York Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, told Gawker. “They were asking what are your May Day plans, do you know who the leaders are—these are classic political surveillance questions.”
The NYPD told Metro this morning that no Occupy-related arrests occurred overnight. 
