Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

By Matthew Russell Lee

WALL STREET, October 12 -- New York City police threatened to arrest protesters and the Press in front of a Bank of America branch on lower Broadway Tuesday at dusk, a block from Zuccotti Park which some now call Liberty Plaza. Click here for video by Inner City Press.

  At dusk a non-violent group long concerned with Bank of America funding of mountain-top removal coal mining crossed Broadway from the park. Inner City Press was among them. White suited Reverend Billy began an "exorcism," preaching how Bank of America finances wars -- then the police moved in.

By Bank of America, Reverend Billy feels "ATMs crawling up" his back (c) MRLee

  Other signs in the crowd spoke of Capital One, which in applying to buy ING DIRECT could become the fifth largest bank in the United States. It has sought to evade the protests against the Big Four -- Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase -- by means of comedic advertisements featuring such liberal icons as Alec Baldwin and Jimmy Fallon. Baldwin has yet to respond to mounting requests by NCRC and others that he distance himself from Capital One.

  Earlier on Tuesday, protesters marched on the home of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon. Downtown, the JPM Chase tower is surrounded by police and fencing. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, too, was surrounded by police.

Police in front of NY Fed, Oct 11, 2001 (c) MRLee, Inner City Press

  At the UN in midtown, before heading south to Occupy Wall Street, Inner City Press suggested to a diplomat of the New Libya that Transitional National Council Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi, a symbol of the Arab Spring, come at least to visit OWS at Zuccotti Park, now called the American Autumn. We'll see.