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'Walkupy' protesters arrive in Charlotte, 2 arrested

Observer and WCNC-TV reports
  • http://media.charlotteobserver.com/smedia/2012/01/07/22/44/Smc0d.Em.138.jpg|240

    Garth Kiser, 33. Photo courtesy of the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office.

  • http://media.charlotteobserver.com/smedia/2012/01/07/22/46/94MoV.Em.138.jpg|240

    Sarah Lynn Handyside, 29. Photo courtesy of the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office.


A pair of protesters associated with the Occupy movement were arrested Saturday in uptown Charlotte.

WCNC-TV reports that the arrests were caught on a cell phone video that was posted to Facebook by a group that calls itself "Walkupy."

The group, which says it hopes to give new life to the nationwide Occupy movement, left Washington, D.C. on foot on Dec. 1 and plans to end its march in Atlanta later this month. On Saturday, they arrived in Charlotte.

“I got the feeling they were losing energy," protester Dylan Bozlee told WCNC-TV. "And the movement needed something newer than just the occupations."

As they passed through Charlotte, group members Garth Kiser, 33, and Sarah Lynn Handyside, 29, were arrested near East Trade Street.

The video posted online, in part, shows a police officer asking the group to move along on the sidewalk. Kiser and Handyside apparently refused, and were eventually arrested.

“I am not going to leave the space that I am entitled to be in! This is my space, this is your space,” shouted one of the “Walkupy” protesters in the video.

Handyside, of Anchorage, Alaska, and Kiser, of Murphysboro Ill., are each charged with second-degree trespassing.

Both remained in Mecklenburg jail Saturday evening under a $500 bond.

On Dec. 30, four Charlotte-area men were charged after they burned two U.S. flags at the organization's uptown camp site across the street from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police headquarters.

Burning the flag is not against the law, but the four were charged with careless use of a fire, a misdemeanor, because police said they did not use a fire pit. Several people at the site identified at least two of the men as members of the Occupy Charlotte group.

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