Retired police chief arrested in full uniform at Occupy Wall Street demo after branding fellow officers 'obnoxious, arrogant and ignorant'



Sitting against a wall in full dress uniform with his hands cuffed behind him, this is former Philadelphia police captain Ray Lewis being arrested during the Occupy Wall St protests.



The ex-cop was taking part in the demonstrations in New York when he was detained by fellow officers who put toughened plastic bands around his wrists and shoved him to the floor.



Startling footage posted on YouTube shows his uniform blending in with a dozen other officers - before they grab him and haul him away.

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Cuffed: Retired Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis sits on the ground after being arrested in New York

Earlier he had been seen walking around holding up a sign in the face of riot cops saying: ‘NYPD don’t be Wall St mercenaries’.



Mr Lewis sharply criticised the police and City Hall response to the protests.

He added that he would be back out on the streets as soon as he was released.

Until 2004 he was a captain in Philadelphia’s police department, one of the few in the US which can rival New York for size or complexity.



Outspoken: Mr Lewis, pictured outside Zuccotti Park, brandished a sign criticising the police response

He said that New York not handling things in the right way.

‘They complained about the park being dirty,’ he said.



‘Here they are worrying about dirty parks when people are starving to death, where people are freezing, where people are sleeping in subways and they’re concerned about a dirty park.



‘That’s obnoxious, it’s arrogant, it’s ignorant, it’s disgusting.’



Caught: Video footage shows the moment the ex-cop was marched away by officers at the demonstration

Defiant: Mr Lewis, seen being led away in the video, called the harsh tactics of the NYPD 'uncalled for'

Lewis was among the 300 arrested during the ‘Day of Action’ on November 17 to protest against how New York mayor Michael Bloomberg was handling the protests.

Enraged: Mr Lewis, pictured speaking to reporters, called his fellow officers 'workers for the 1 per cent'

He had spent most of the day near Zuccotti Park in Manhattan and was giving interviews whilst holding up a sign which read: ‘NYPD watch: Inside job'.



Mr Lewis lambasted his fellow officers as being ‘workers for the 1 per cent and they don’t even realise it’, a reference to what the protesters claim are the few who run the U.S.



He also attacked the harsh tactics of the NYPD as unacceptable and said that they had to end.



Speaking after the Day of Action, he said: ‘You should, by law, only use force to protect someone’s life or to protect them from being bodily injured.

'If you’re not protecting somebody’s life or protecting them from bodily injury, there’s no need to use force.



‘And the number one thing that they always have in their favor that they seldom use is negotiation - continue to talk, and talk and talk to people.



‘You have nothing to lose by that. This bullrush - what happened last night is totally uncalled for when they did not use negotiation long enough.’

Battle: The arrest came as protestors held a day of action near the New York Stock Exchange



