Hundreds of Occupy Wall St protesters arrested

Occupy Wall Street protesters clogged streets and tied up traffic around the US to mark two months since the movement’s birth and signal they are not ready to quit, despite the break-up of many of their encampments by police.

Hundreds of people were arrested, most of them in New York.

The demonstrations – which took place in cities including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Boston, Washington and Portland, Oregon – were for the most part peaceful.

Most of the arrests were for blocking streets, and the traffic disruptions were brief.

Chanting “All day, all week, shut down Wall Street”, more than 1,000 protesters gathered near the New York Stock Exchange and sat down in several intersections.

Helmeted police officers broke up some of the gatherings, and operations at the stock market were not disrupted.

As darkness fell, a coalition of unions and “progressive” groups joined Occupy demonstrators in staging rallies at landmark bridges in several US cities to protest joblessness.

In New York, a crowd of several thousand people, led by banner-carrying members of the Service Employees International Union, jammed Manhattan’s Foley Square and then marched peacefully across the Brooklyn Bridge on a pedestrian promenade.

As they walked, a powerful light projected the slogan “We are the 99%” – a reference to the Americans who are not super-rich – on the side of a nearby skyscraper.

Police officers dressed in wind breakers, rather than riot gear, arrested at least two dozen people who walked out onto the bridges’ roadway but otherwise let the marchers pass without incident.

Several weeks ago, an attempt to march across the bridge drew the first significant international attention to the Occupy movement as more than 700 people were arrested.