Occupy Protester Arrested in Lafayette Park

By Dave Lucas

Albany, NY – A blustery Saturday afternoon at Albany's Lafayette Park - 39-year old Bradley Russell dropped off supplies to begin his personal occupation of the state-owned side of the small park where Occupy Albany has been staged for the past three weeks. Russell is directly challenging New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and the State Police to arrest him at 11pm - the time he says Cuomo and OGS officials "came up with" in an effort to ensure protesters will stay off state controlled land.

Raw video follows:

A little over an hour after the video was shot, Russell was arrested by State Police on a charge of trespassing, after he used foam board and packing tape to assemble what he called a "freedom fort" in Lafayette Park. By late evening, Russell was released and returned to the park, issuing the following statement via Occupy Albany's Facebook page: "I am recently returned after my illegal arrest this afternoon for tresspassing for building exactly the wall of signs with the exact material the State Troopers approved me to use before we ever began the project. As soon as work on the Freedom Fort began, they arbitrarily changed the rules and declared that a sign wall would not be legal (despite their earlier assurances it would be) and arrested me confiscating dozens of American flags and other Americana I had intended to place along the fort walls. All of my materials were busted up and shoved into evidence bags, I assume never to be seen again. It was just the latest illegal act employed by the Cuomo administration who seems dead set on continuing to violate our first ammendment rights. This cannot go unchallenged."