Chicago police arrested 21 people protesting against economic inequality on Tuesday at two rallies, charging them with trespassing.
Chicago police arrested 21 people protesting against economic inequality on Tuesday at two rallies, charging them with trespassing, a Chicago Police spokesperson said.
The arrests came a day after thousands of people including teachers, religious leaders and union workers marched in downtown Chicago to voice mounting anger over joblessness and economic woes in protests that snarled rush-hour traffic.
Those marches, organsed by the "Stand Up Chicago" coalition, had appeared to target financial events in the city including a conference of the Mortgage Bankers Association, which was also subject to protesters' ire on Tuesday.
Organisers said Monday's march was inspired by, but not formally affiliated with, the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York last month and sparked smaller protests nationwide.
On Tuesday, 16 people were arrested at a protest at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Chicago where the annual conference of the Mortgage Bankers Association was underway, the Chicago Police spokesperson said.
The people arrested at the conference were facing charges of misdemeanor trespassing, he said.
Separately, five women aged 55 to 80 from the Action Now group were also arrested after they took garbage from a foreclosed home owned by Bank of America Corp and dumped it in one of the bank's branches, the group's website said.
Police said that group was also facing charges of misdemeanour trespassing.
Action Now, which calls itself an organisation of working families fighting for change, said Bank of America had not properly shuttered the foreclosed home from which the group took the furniture and garbage.
"Since Bank of America will not go to our neighbourhoods and clean up their vacant properties, Action Now members brought the neighbourhood to them," the group said on its website.
Bank of America did not immediately respond to an after-hours request for comment.
Chicago has also seen several weeks of daily protests outside the Federal Reserve Bank by "Occupy Chicago," an echo of the larger Wall Street protests.
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