On Thursday night, 10 protestors were arrested in the park when they refused to dismantel and leave a tent structure in the park. On Friday some of the protestors did move to City Hall Park, which the city had offered as an alternative to Westlake Park where protestors have been for nearly three weeks. The city has stated that the occupation was in violation of the park’s terms of use and for most of the previous week, occupiers have been in the park without a permit for demonstration activities.

Accompanied by a light contingent of bicycle police, city sanitation workers began arriving at the park around 8:00pm, but by 10:00pm the sanitation workers and police had disappeared, leaving the protesters alone in the park without incident. Numbers in the park remained high late into the evening with protestors at one end of the park dancing around a large drum circle while the protest’s biggest General Assembly to date met at the other end. A joyous and festive mood among protestors held steadily through the night.

Along with the increased numbers, there was a marked rise in the visibility of communication strategy and technology among the protest organizers.  In the protest’s information tent, volunteers huddled over laptops tweeting protest updates and checking on the Occupyseattle.org website and online Livestream video feed. Wearing a taped yellow band around his arm one media volunteer said that there were at least 40 people signed up as media liaisons with as many as six on–site on any given day.   Identifying himself only as “William” he said that he regularly worked a 7:00am until 7:00pm shift at the park answering questions from reporters and curiosity seekers.

There was also a roving protest reporter holding a laptop in one arm and a webcam in her hand who was documenting the protest activities live to the Occupy Seattle site.  She could be seen making continual circles around the park for most of the evening.  She was finally spotted resting on a bench long after the daylight had disappeared from the park. Other protestors used Flip cameras, cell phones and all varieties of handheld video cameras to document the protest. As of Sunday, a search on Youtube for “Occupy Seattle” yielded more than thirty pages of mostly user–generated videos of the Seattle occupation.

There were other signs that the occupation is becoming more organized. A contingent of union stage–hands were on hand Saturday providing and operating a donated PA system for protest speakers to use throughout the day. The nightly General Assembly included reports from protest “working groups” with agendas ranging from the hip-hop music coalition to the social media outreach group. Indeed it seems like the most popular working groups involved outreach through social media and technology.

Hoping to support the growing movement, army vet Mike Johnston made his first visit to the occupation on Saturday afternoon coming down from Lake City Washington, a suburb just north of the city. A Metro Access bus driver and not much of a social media user,
Johnston had been keeping up with the protests on Seattle’s lone AM progressive talk radio station. Dressed in a light military style jacket with camouflage pants, Johnston looked like someone who would be just as likely to attend a Tea Party rally, but Johnston was particularly upset with the number of vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who couldn’t find jobs. At the festival he joined a contingent of military veterans who have maintained a visible presence at Westlake throughout the occupation.

Young mother of four, Toni James has been following the protests via Twitter since its inception. She was also making her first visit to the protest where she spent most of the afternoon and early evening mingling with protesters and checking out the scene. Worried about her children’s future, James had made the visit in a sign of solidarity with a movement she believes is just going to get bigger. One of her teenage sons has also expressed interest in the movement and she is considering bringing him down to Westlake with her in the future.
By 10:00pm the police presence in the area dwindled to almost nothing. Protestors flirted with filling 4^th Avenue every time there was a lull in traffic. They would spill into the streets dancing and shouting and then quickly retreat when the traffic light turned green again. Despite reports of police ticketing drivers who honked in support of the protestors, there was a steady stream of drivers who honked or raised an outstretched fist. These displays of solidarity drew loud cheers from protestors lining the sidewalk.

As an autumn chill descended on the evening, dancers, protestors and campers showed no sign of leaving or giving up. Despite ultimatums from city officials, the tent city that now dominates Westlake Park makes it look like the Occupy Seattle movement will be at Westlake Park for sometime to come.

The encampment at Westlake Park is a patchwork display of people and political causes.  Anarchists commune next to college graduates. Young parents push strollers past seniors– some carrying signs and talking animatedly among themselves about the issues behind the protests. In snippets of overheard conversations, the words “greed” and “banks” are often used. But the movement’s aims are diffuse and inchoate. Not unlike some Tea Party organizers, people here are quick to point out that ideological labels are secondary to the grassroots nature of the protests. Looking across the waves of marchers in the street, you could indeed see signs excoriating Wall Street greed next to anti-war placards, socialist banners and anarchist flags. Despite the crazy quilt of causes on display, the umbrella of corporate greed vs. economic equality held steadily throughout the day.

The un-permitted march began promptly at 5:00pm when a critical mass of protesters made their way southbound on the sidewalks of 4^th Avenue passed columns of Seattle bicycle police. The march was announced earlier on twitter and the Occupy Seattle  Website.  Despite the movement’s success with electronic and social media, it was notable how many marchers weren’t using their smart phones. A small band of twitter users were keeping an online running commentary but marchers seemed more interested in chanting and carrying signs.

Word of mouth was the obvious communication strategy on the ground. For example, organizers moved the original time from noon until 5pm so that there actions wouldn’t interfere with an indigenous people’s protest of the Columbus Day holiday. This was announced on twitter, but the park numbers swelled during the afternoon anyway. Most hoping to march missed the twitter correction or were already on-route when the decision was relayed. Eventually protesters assembled in Westlake Park began forming lines about twenty minutes before the scheduled departure. In a “shhh, pass it along” manner, people relayed messages among themselves to form lines and get ready. Ten minutes before the start, another wave of messages moved along the lines. At 5:00pm sharp the first protestors left the park on the sidewalk of Fourth Avenue heading north toward the stated goal of reaching the iconic Columbia Tower.

As the march took form along 4th Avenue, bicycle police cordoned off traffic at intersections along the route allowing the march to walk along as one group. Most exchanges between protestors and police were polite with an occasional smile and friendly banter thrown in. Marchers kept largely to the sidewalk despite no visible presence of protest marshals or any obvious leadership.

Once the march reached the intersection of  4^th and Marion, it unexpectedly took a left turn up the hill away from the stated target of the Columbia Tower. Marchers
instead flooded the outdoor promenade of the Bank of America plaza at 5^th and Marion.  Here the plaza filled continually with protestors for nearly forty minutes. What looked like a march of 300 or so at Westlake now was looking like 700 or even more. With chants of “We are the 99%” and “This is what democracy looks like”, protestors filled the plaza for nearly half an hour before someone with a small megaphone began relaying messages to the crowd about the return march. Using the novel “human megaphone” technique pioneered by the movement’s founders in New York, messages were repeated in unison from a person with a megaphone by the whole crowd. Cries of “mic–check, mic–check” preceded each message  as marchers were directed to take over all of 4^th avenue on their way back to Westlake Park.

While this marked an escalation of tactics, the police fanned out on bicycles and escorted the march back towards the park without incident. Everything proceeded smoothly until the march spontaneously stopped at the busy intersection of Pike and Fourth. Around a third of marchers staged a sit-in blocking the intersection with police looking on.

Everyday, protestors camped at Westlake have a “General Assembly” that serves as an assembly of ideas and planning. Yesterday, protestors at the head of the march took over the intersection and put out a call to the rest of the marchers to join them. As the intersection filled, a resolution was called for to vote on having the Assembly in the intersection with the knowledge that this was illegal and that the protestors in the intersection would likely be arrested.  It was put to a vote once, and passed by acclamation, but the limits of the human megaphone were exposed almost immediately.  Protestors on the sidewalks surrounding the intersection couldn’t hear the resolution and despite the pleas of some of the protestors to stay, a second resolution was put forth to continue on to Westlake as originally planned avoiding a confrontation with police.  That resolution also passed by acclamation but with more protestors participating in the vote.
All but two protestors left the intersection.  Those two were quickly arrested and driven away in police vehicles.

Within the hour, a light rain began to fall and the numbers in Westlake Park dwindled back to around 200 or so.  After dark, the park was split into two camps with organizers on one end holding a forum on economic issues and grievances and a drum and dance circle on the other end.  Each bloc sonically complimenting each other–human megaphone meeting drum and cowbell–as Seattle shoppers and tourists with brightly colored umbrellas stopped to take pictures and take it all in.