Occupy Chicago members camp out downtown

October 2, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Sunday was the tenth day that an offshoot of the New York protest called Occupy Wall Street was camped out in downtown Chicago.

It's called Occupy Chicago and its members have staked out territory outside the Federal Reserve Bank and the Board of Trade. They're rotating in shifts because they're not allowed to sleep on the sidewalk.

They plan to stay indefinitely, and say they're objecting to what they call "the subversion of democracy by a small number of wealthy people."

"The democratic mechanisms and the institutions that support them are not functioning properly," said Mark Banks with Occupy Chicago. They say their goal is the transformation of political consciousness.

In New York this weekend, 700 of the demonstrators were arrested when they blocked traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.

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