Tasneem Raja

Once a novelty to most observers, the hand signals and protest-speak of Occupy Wall Street now seem like old hat to anyone following along at home. But the recent uptick in heavy-handed police tactics at Occupy protests has given rise to a new slew of phrases to decipher. "Kettling" may sound cozy, and "frozen zone" like a delightful summertime treat, but neither is much fun. Here's a guide to some lesser-known procedural phrases we've come across. (You can add your own in the comments.)

Frozen Zone
As MoJo's Josh Harkinson first reported, this phrase was used by an NYPD officer to describe the November 15 raid on Zuccotti Park:

"Can I help you?" an burly officer asked me, his helpfulness belied by his scowl.
"I'm a reporter," I told him.
"This is a frozen zone, alright?" he said, using a term I'd never heard before. "Just like them, you have to leave the area. If you do not, you will be subject to arrest." 

The usage surprised many; "frozen zone" usually describes an area that's officially off limits due to immediate risk of terrorist attack. Ground Zero was a frozen zone for weeks after 9/11, as Adam Ross wrote in Dispatches from Ground Zero:

Additional checkpoints on Houston, Canal, and Chambers Streets heightened the feel of an occupied, semi-militarized zone. Outsiders with no claim on residency were barred from entry. Even in the age of the three-thousand-dollar rental, downtowners had still imagined themselves in that "other country" which wry nineteenth-century cartographers had depicted as "le pays de boheme." Suddenly, this was the least urbane of urban quarters, and on our most civil of streets and avenues a freakish assortment of paramilitary vehicles (bearing unfamiliar acronyms) held sway.

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