Were the OWS protestors stockpiling weapons?

By Rick Moran

Depends what you mean by "weapons." The Gothamist:

Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway filed a motion on behalf of the city today opposing a court order requiring the NYPD to allow Occupy Wall Street demonstrators back into Zuccotti Park. In filing the motion, Holloway asserted that "people who have a known history of violent interaction with the police" have been gathering in the park, and "makeshift items" that he said could be used as weapons, "such as cardboard tubes with metal pipes inside, had been observed among the occupiers' possessions." He also noted that after the October 1st Brooklyn Bridge march, "knives, mace and hypodermic needles were observed discarded on the roadway."

"It was our understanding that the protesters may have had a significant number of items that could potentially be used as weapons," Halloway writes in the motion, adding that there had been little to no crime in Zuccotti Park before the occupation began, but since there had been "73 misdemeanor and felony complaints" and about 50 arrests. Although the initial order to vacate (see below) promised demonstrators they would be allowed in-though without tents and sleeping bags-Bloomberg is now refusing to comply with the court order, and the park remains closed. A growing throng of demonstrators have gathered around it.

Later in the day, a judge upheld the eviction order, but the question remains: did some of the OWS demonstrators plan on initiating violence, or violently responding to a police action against them?

Verum Serum quotes a young protestor from a video:

On the 17th, we going to burn New York City to the f-cking ground.

...

Ain't no more talking, They got guns we got bodies. They got bricks we got rocks. Let's see what they got.

[Young man in the background] They got missiles, we got bombs.

I want them...I want them to make that decision so they can see...in a few days you going to see what a molotov cocktail can do to Macy's.