NYPD ‘Loses’ the Occupy Wall Street Wikileaks Truck

(gawker.com) Life can be difficult when your vehicle has a huge Wikileaks logo and “Top Secret Mobile Collection Unit” emblazoned on the side. An artists’ Wikileaks-themed U-Haul truck is missing after being confiscated by the NYPD.

The Wikileaks truck has been a fixture at Manhattan’s Occupy Wall Street protest since day one, provoking puzzled reactions from media, cops and tourists alike. Unfortunately, Julian Assange hasn’t been secretly crashing in the flatbed; it’s a project by New York-based artist/activist Clark Stoeckley. Stoeckley says he has no connection to the Wikileaks folks. He’s been driving the thing around the country since March, filming his exploits, and for most of the past two months it’s been parked down at Zuccotti Park, where it sheltered him and fellow occupiers.

But last Thursday morning—the morning of Occupy Wall Street’s big day of action—Stoeckly was pulled over on Broadway and Cedar Street near Zuccotti Park. The cops used the fact that his license plate was crooked, and that he turned on his windshield wipers without his lights as pretense to pull him over, Stoeckley told us in a phone interview. (New York law requires drivers to use headlights “whenever you are using your windshield wipers to clear rain, snow, sleet, etc.”)

Read more: http://gawker.com/5861916/nypd-loses-the-occupy-wall-street-wikileaks-truck