The Occupy Wall Street began as the alleged American
version of the "Arab Spring," that movement in the Middle
East that so far has toppled dictatorial regimes in
Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and which has embroiled
Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria in civil conflict. Over the
past three months, the Occupy Wall Street movement has
metastasized into protests in multiple U.S. cities, and
engendered Occupy clones in Occupy Seattle, Occupy
Oakland, and so forth.
As the movement spread, violent clashes took place
between the protesters and the police. Some of the more
infamous incidents include the spraying of an 84 year-old
woman in Seattle, and the pepper spraying of seated
protesters at UC Davis in mid-November, 2011. See the
video below of the UC Davis pepper spraying: