Twitter followers of Questlove, drummer for The Roots, got a jump start on NYPD’s November 18 eviction of Occupy Wall Street protesters from New York City’s Zucotti Park. The artist spotted police in riot gear gathering near the park, and tweeted what he saw to his nearly 2 million followers. The New York Times is reporting that Questlove’s tweet was picked up by OWS protesters an hour and twenty minutes before police cleared the park.
At 11:38pm, the drummer posted that he had seen about 1,000 officers in riot gear not fear from Zuccotti Park.
Omg, drivin down south st near #ows. Somethin bout to go down yo, swear I counted 1000 riot gear cops bout to pull sneak attack #carefulyall
The tweet went out to his nearly 2 million followers, and was eventually picked up by OWS followers, and was eventually picked up by the official OWS Twitter feed, who initially assumed that the gathering was part of the new Batman production or a shift change rather then an actual threat to OWS’ place in Zuccotti.
Shift change as per usual? RT @DiceyTroop: @mcduh @questlove all quiet at the Park. What did you see questo? Maybe Batman stuff?
Questlove acknowledged these tweets, and continued to assert that trouble was approaching:
ok once again. South St in NYC. blocks from #OWS. saw a GANG (like at least 500+ geared up) standing in line gettin ready for somethin.
And again:
@OccupyWallStNYC if you say so. i assumed cops in line blocks from #ows meant sweep. my bad yall. camp away.
When the eviction began at 1am, Questlove tweeted:
@OccupyWallStNYC wait. so i was right? #ows is being raided? told yall! tryna make me think i was crazy! i knew i saw what i saw.
The Roots drummer can now claim to be, as suggested by the New York Times, the unofficial Paul Revere of the Occupy Wall Street protests.