One Occupy SLC protester was arrested on charges of criminal mischief and disorderly conduct during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City on Sunday after an altercation with passersby.
Daniel Hanna, 18, was dressed as pop megastar Lady Gaga and waving a sign as he took the national protest movement’s message of social injustice to film festivalgoers.
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When a Pleasant Grove couple drove alongside him on Main Street in their white Ford Explorer, a verbal exchange ensued.
The couple shouted obscenities at him, Hanna said, telling him to "get a job."
"I shouted back that I have a job and we are the 99 percent," Hanna said, adding that he told the female passenger "I love you, sweetheart" and she responded "I hate you."
As he remembers it, the car intentionally swerved into him, bumping him into a deep puddle. He said he threw his sign at the vehicle. People nearby urged Hanna to contact police, and a stranger gave him the vehicle’s license plate number.
After he related the incident to a traffic officer, police pulled the Explorer over. But officers then took Hanna — dressed in drag — to the Summit County Jail.
Park City police Capt. Phil Kirk said that two officers concluded Hanna had not actually been hit by the car but that he did leave scratches and a small dent to its rear passenger side with his sign.
Hanna and other protesters were running and yelling in the road, Kirk said, when the driver pulled over and saw Hanna fall in some snow. At that point, Hanna struck the vehicle with his sign.
Hanna bore no marks indicating he had been hit, Kirk added.
After he sang several rounds of "Folsom Prison Blues" in the holding cell, Hanna’s friends bailed him out.
"It was an amazing day," he said.
Twitter: @catmck
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