In New York City, the trial is underway for an Occupy Wall Street activist whose March 2012 arrest ignited allegations of police brutality. Cecily McMillan reportedly suffered a seizure when she was arrested during an attempt by protesters to re-occupy Zuccotti Park six months after the start of Occupy Wall Street. When she appeared on Democracy Now! days later, she was limping and suffering from bruised ribs and what appeared to be a hand-shaped bruise over her right breast.

Cecily McMillan: “I ended a 40-something-hour stay in jail and ended up with all these bruises. I mean, that’s — I have an open case, so I can’t talk more about it, and I’m sure you can tell that it would be difficult for me to remember some things. But I have these.”

McMillan now faces up to seven years in prison on charges of second-degree assault. Police say she elbowed an officer in the head, but her attorney, Martin Stolar, says she was reacting to someone grabbing her right breast from behind, not realizing it was a police officer. The attorney said, “The main issue here is the heavy-handed, over-policing by the NYPD during the Occupy Wall Street protests.”