Documentary: Occupy Wall Street, NYC MayDay 2012

May Day. For Occupy Wall Street activists and supporters May Day 2012 was seen as a coming out party of sorts. Following a somewhat diminished level of activity after their removal from Zucotti Park last fall, May Day was targeted as a time for rejuvenation, recommitment, and reenergizing the movement. There were planning meetings and train the trainer sessions as activists organized across the country towards what was billed as a national “day of action”. Arriving at Bryant Park in New York City on the morning of May 1st the energy, anticipation and enthusiasm among the demonstrators was tangible. But for the NYPD, a department that is already wrestling with deep morale issues, the prospect of another set of protracted demonstrations, with the additional overtime hours for police that will result, hours filled with boredom wrapped like a blanket, over a constant underlying sense of tension and potential violence, it seemed, to me, to have already worn out many of New York’s finest. They seemed frustrated and weary. And I thought, it’s going to be a long hot summer…