This is a picture of Ray Lewis, a retired Philadelphia Police Department captain, being arrested with other Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park last week. Lewis was carrying signs a pair of signs urging New York City cops to join the protests. “NYPD Don’t Be Wall Street Mercenaries,” one read. Lewis was highly critical of the NYPD’s tactics in the park: “This bullrush–-what happened last night is totally uncalled for,” said Mr. Lewis, who argued that the removal should have been accomplished through negotiation instead of force. “You should, by law, only use force to protect someone’s life or to protect them from being bodily injured, okay? If you’re not protecting somebody’s life or protecting them from bodily injury, there’s no need to use force. And the number one thing that they always have in their favor that they seldom use is negotiation–continue to talk, and talk and talk to people. You have nothing to lose by that.” Lewis dismissed the claims of Mayor Bloomberg that the raid was necessary because the protest encampment carried with it a risk of crime, fire and health hazards. “That’s a farce. They complained about the park being dirty. Here they are worrying about dirty parks when people are starving to death, where people are freezing, where people are sleeping in subways and they’re concerned about a dirty park. That’s obnoxious, it’s arrogant, it’s ignorant, it’s disgusting.” Lewis says that the police should be careful not to get on the wrong side of the protests. “All the cops are, they’re just workers for the one percent and they don’t even realize they’re being exploited,” Mr. Lewis said.
