A 56-year-old man was arrested last night during a demonstration held by Occupy Gainesville in the Bo Diddley Community Plaza, and of all the people to be arrested, it was the son of blues legend Bo Diddley.
Before his arrest, Ellas Anthony McDaniel was explaining that police were trying to get the demonstrators out of the park, while McDaniel was standing on the "First Amendment Podium" -- a block around a foot high that reads, among other things, "Freedom of Speech."
"Against our Constitutional rights to gather -- to peacefully gather -- so yes, they're trying to get us to leave," McDaniel said. "But I don't think my father would have something like that."
According to the Occupy Gainesville group, McDaniel -- who lives in Gainesville -- was among four to six people arrested in the park that night for trespassing in the park after public hours.
Occupy Gainesville had already run into opposition from the city before last night -- when the group applied for a permit to gather in the plaza, they wrote on the application that they wanted to occupy the park from October 12 to December 31 of next year. The city said October 12 only, and get out by 11:30 p.m.
Check out the video of McDaniel's arrest below (fast-forward to around 1:12 if you just want to see the arrest):
McDaniel was booked, given a court date, and later released.
Click here for more information on last night's happenings on the Occupy Gainesville website, which includes a video of another man being arrested after being asked by the cops to leave, he stepped up onto the "First Amendment Podium" instead.
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