Elise Whitaker at the Occupy camp. (Didi Beck / Neon Tommy)

Elise Whitaker moved from Indiana to Los Angeles to work in movies.

On Oct. 2, 2011, on the second day of the occupation of L.A. City Hall, the 21-year-old decided to go to the camp to deliver some donations and expressions of support.

"Fully intending to take the train down, spend a few hours there, drop off the supplies, be like 'Great work, guys,' you know.  'Do some stuff, make some changes.'  Then go back home and go back to my regular life," Whitaker said.  

"I got there probably around two o'clock.  By five I'd already promised somebody I would be back at eight o'clock the next morning."

For the next week, she took the train every morning and night to and from the camp.  After that week, someone gave her a tent and she stayed, living in "Solidarity Park" until the LAPD raided on Nov. 30.

While the movement became characterized in the media for the griminess of its homeless and criminal element, Whitaker understood how Occupy highlighted the distracted apathy of her age group.

"So many people on Facebook [were] still posting about whatever was on TV that night or who wore what dress or whatever.  I thought, this is insanity, how weird is a world where these things can both exist," Whitaker said.

"There's this huge group of people who are my friends--or at least I know them well enough for them to be my friends on Facebook--and they're paying absolutely no attention to this happening," Whitaker said.  "It felt at the time like these people might be able to change something."

Whitaker became a visible part of the L.A. camp, speaking in front of crowds and helping to plan and organize. 

(Read about Occupy L.A.'s plans for their one-year anniversary)

On raid night, Whitaker linked arms with other Occupiers in a concentric circle as police tried to pry them apart by touching pressure points, even on people's eyes.

One officer pointed a "less-lethal" weapon at Whitaker's face.

"I get that it's 'less-lethal' but what if he actually shoots me?" Whitaker said.  

"I thought, It's okay, it's just a pressure point, it's meant to hurt, now they're going to break my jaw.  Fuck it, if he does, then I can sue the city," she said. 

"I went into it really wanting to be brave and proud and defiant and chin-up," she said.  "I was sobbing.  I was terrified.  I don't think I'd ever been so scared in my life." 

Whitaker was arrested four hours after the cops arrived and once she was arrested she spent another four hours sitting on a bus with other arrested Occupiers.

While arresting her, the cops carried her and dropped her several times, and when they were putting handcuffs on her they rubbed her face in the dirt, she said. 

On the bus, the female passengers used an empty evidence bag because they weren't allowed to use restrooms.

There were a number of people in their late 60s and one woman who was nearly 80 years old on her bus, and the handcuffs were hurting their circulation.

Whitaker and the others repeatedly asked the Sheriff's officers who were driving the bus if they could help them somehow or see how much longer the bus ride would take.

Eventually, after the Occupiers were pleading for help for the woman, one of the officers said, "Maybe she should have left her 80-year-old ass at home."

"We went crazy," Whitaker said.  

They did a "mic check" chant in the bus, saying things like "Mic check, mic check: How would you feel if somebody spoke this way to your grandmother?"

The officer finally apologized, "and once he did he almost couldn't stop talking," Whitaker said.  

"Like 'Okay, I'm sorry, you're right, I shouldn't have said that, I apologize.  I'm tired and you guys are chanting and we're exhausted and we didn't do this to you...Who put those cuffs on you?  LAPD."

The Occupiers asked the officer if he'd radio ahead to other officers for help and he said he would, and that he would check back every 15 minutes if there was no response.

After being loud for hours, the Occupiers thanked him and remained quiet for two or three minutes, until one of the women fainted. 

Whitaker and another woman carried the fainted woman to the front and an LAPD officer came onto the bus and cut the fainted woman's zip cuffs off. 

Immediately, she woke up and started screaming, "How did I get here?  What happened?"

They tried to get blood back into circulation in her arms and she was clinging to Whitaker and the other woman who was carrying her.

Because of that, the officers let all the people off the bus.  

Whitaker said they were fed well in jail.  The jail tried to satisfy the many vegetarian and vegan activists, but eventually they resorted to Cheerios.

For the next three days, Whitaker was in solitary confinement. 

She had passed off her purse before raid night because she had heard about how police search through cell phone contacts or how phones "go missing" when you're arrested, so she didn't have a way to contact people once she was released.

Luckily, someone was waiting for her when she was released at night, and she spent the night at that person's house until she could reconnect the next day with the person who had her purse.

Whitaker's mother, at this point, was "very angry" at her, especially after having a hard time understanding that her daughter was willing to be arrested for the cause. 

While Whitaker was in jail, people were contacting her mother with information about her whereabouts and the plans for bail.

One person from Occupy advised her to let her daughter stay in jail as long as possible as a form of activism.

Because her mother lives in Indiana, a lot of the time information given to her was out of sync. 

"By the time I talked to her Friday evening, she was furious," Whitaker said.

Whitaker has moved back to Indiana to take care of family, and while we talked on the phone she was babysitting an infant cousin.

She's moved away from the protest movement since leaving L.A., but continues to work on and off with 99rise, an offshoot of the Occupy movement. 

Read more of Neon Tommy's coverage of Occupy L.A. here.

Reach Assistant News Editor Michael Juliani here.  Follow him on Twitter here.