From the Times:
A federal judge ruled Thursday that the police did not sufficiently
warn Occupy Wall Street protesters against walking on the roadway of the
Brooklyn Bridge before arresting about 700 of them in October.
The ruling, by Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Federal District Court in Manhattan, allows a class-action suit filed by protesters
to proceed against police officers and other police officials involved
in the arrests. But the ruling dismissed the mayor, the police
commissioner and the City of New York as defendants in the suit, saying
that there was insufficient evidence that those parties were responsible
for any misconduct by the police.
This may be one of those cases were both sides are right: The police did warn; the protesters couldn’t hear. The burden is (and should be) higher on the police.