On November 28th, the hallway outside the House Ways and Means committee’s special session began to fill up with demonstrators. Within minutes, hundreds of protestors had left the steps of the capitol building and flooded into the narrow hall chanting, “Let us in!” and pounding on the door. Within a few more minutes, the already packed legislative room was filled past capacity with people. From the crowd, someone shouted, “Mic check!” and the speeches began. A history teacher from Seattle attempted to place a citizens arrest on the legislators and was summarily taken into custody and pulled out of the room. Soon, the legislators called it quits for the day (apparently because the fire marshall said the room was too full) and left before even starting.
This was just one of the scenes of conflict between protestors and government officials over the course of the day. The capitol began to fill up early in the morning, and the Occupy camp was bustling with people getting ready to march to the capital campus. For the majority of the day the protests remained relatively sedate and calm. Demonstrators were able to freely walk the campus and enter the capital and other buildings.
As darkness fell and the police decided to clear people off the grounds, conflicts arose. Multiple arrests were made and tasers were used on protestors before the night was over.