Ten people in connection with Occupy OKC, a local branch of the wider global occupation movement, were arrested in a Del City, Okla. Walmart on Friday following a “mic check” peaceful protest inside the store.
In a press release Friday, Mark Faulk, the media workgroup moderator for Occupy OKC and one of the 10 arrested, called the police response “uncalled for and unconstitutional.”
“The Mic Check had been performed at two other Wal-Mart stores in the Oklahoma City area where the activists were simply asked to leave and exited the store without incident,” he said. “The same scenario was repeated in the Del City store, and the Mic Check participants were again asked to leave and began to walk peaceably towards the store exit. At the urging of Wal-Mart management, the Del City police officers ran towards the peaceful protesters and tackled several of them to the ground and handcuffed them.”
The mic check was developed in New York City at the Occupy Wall Street protest, as a way to circumvent the NYPD’s no-amplification rule. It evolved as a method of protest itself through usage at recent political speaking engagements. One person reads a scripted message and the group repeats it.
Management at the Del City Walmart declined to comment on the arrests. They referred all media inquiries to the company’s media relations hotline.
“We were there, basically, to go in and point out the inequalities between what the average worker makes at Walmart—I believe the average starting salary is $8.75 an hour—and the amount of money that a CEO, for instance, makes—which is $19 million per year, which comes out to $19,000 an hour,” Faulk said.
According to Faulk, who was filming the action, Walmart employees asked the group to leave, as had happened at the previous stops in Oklahoma City, and the protesters were complying.
“We were all walking towards the exit in absolute compliance—what was requested of us by store management—when suddenly, rushing by me, came a number of Dell City police officers,” he said. “I watched one of them, possibly two of them, but definitely one right next to me pull out his Taser; he ran up behind the person who was in front—and I don’t believe that person ever even saw him—tackle him to the ground and threaten to Taser him.”
The Del City Police Department declined to make a statement regarding the incident because of possible litigation being brought against the department by Occupy OKC.
An incident report was not yet available, due to the Thanksgiving holiday.