If you want to assault anyone, take your punishment and quit spending thousands of OUR dollars on tying up courts with this BS.

http://rochesterdemocrat.ny.newsmemory.com/
Jennifer Peltz

Associated Press

NEW YORK — An Occu­py Wall Street activist charged with assaulting a police officer went on trial Friday, with her law­yers saying she was wrongly accused in one of few still-lingering crimi­nal cases that sprang from the protest move­ment.

Cecily McMillan is charged with deliberately elbowing an officer in the eye as police cleared peo­ple out of the movement’s home base, Zuccotti Park, at Occupy’s six-month ob­servance in March 2012. But her defense says Mc-Millan was startled and knocked the officer acci­dentally after he grabbed her left breast from be­hind, leaving her bruised.

The 25-year-old gradu­ate student’s felony trial has become a rallying point for activists, and dozens came to a Manhat­tan court to watch Fri­day’s opening statements. While more than 2,600 cases ensued from the protests over economic inequality, most involved misdemeanor or violation charges. The city had evicted Occupy’s Zuccotti Park encampment four months earlier, but activists gath­ered there to celebrate the six-month mark. Around 11:30 p.m., offi­cers told people to leave so the park could be cleaned, adding that they could return afterward, Manhattan Assistant Dis­trict Attorney Shanda Strain said. “Cecily McMillan thought she could get away with assaulting a po­lice officer by shielding herself in the name of pro­test,” Strain said.

But McMillan’s de­fense says she left the park promptly when told to go and then was sud­denly gripped from be­hind, unaware it was an officer touching her.