Wall Street Protest Gets More Popular + Photos

Protests inspired by New York's "Occupy Wall Street" movement have emerged in other US cities in recent days.

Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement have vowed to stay through winter in a park near New York's iconic financial district where they are protesting issues including the 2008 bank bailouts, foreclosures and high unemployment in the United States, Rohama reported.

Similar protests inspired by New York's have emerged in other US cities in recent days, including Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The group has gained support by five New York labour unions as well as celebrities and academics like Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, rapper Lupe Fiasco and the musical group Radiohead.

More than 1,000 demonstrators, who have camped out in New York's financial centre for over two weeks, marched on Friday to New York's police headquarters to protest to what they viewed as a heavy-handed police response earlier on in their demonstration.

Some held banners criticising police, while others chanted: "We are the 99 per cent" and "The banks got bailed out, we got sold out."

Police observed Friday's march and kept protesters on the sidewalk, but no clashes were reported. They said no arrests were made before protesters dispersed from the police headquarters by 8pm after the march.

"No to the NYPD crackdown on Wall Street protesters," organisers had said on their website, promoting the march.

Other online flyers for the march critiqued other local police policies: "No to Stop-and-Frisk in Black & Latino neighborhoods" and "No to Spying and Harassment of Muslim Communities".

The protest came less than a week after police arrested 80 Occupy Wall Street members during a march toward a main shopping district. It was the most arrests by New York police at a demonstration since hundreds were detained outside the Republican National Convention (RNC)  in 2004.

A city police commander used pepper spray on four women at last weekend's march and a video of the incident went viral on the internet, angering many protesters who vowed to continue their protests indefinitely.

The same commander was accused of false arrest and civil rights violations for incidents in the 2004 RNC police response.