It's official: The police have joined in.

I still haven't seen any confirmation for the Twitter post by Michael Moore claiming police in New York City were participants in Friday's Occupy Wall Street march with Pete Seeger, at times singing along with the crowd. He compared it to the police joining the protesters in Egypt during the Arab Spring. I blogged about it here. At this point, I'm inclined to think the incident didn't happen, but no matter. Something wildly more significant is unfolding right now on that same front. Organized factions of the police--and the armed services--have begun to proclaim their support for OWS--loudly and resolutely.

@OCCUPYMarines and @Occupy_Police have active Twitter feeds and thousands of followers despite having been up and running for just a few days. Both groups also maintain websites and Facebook pages. The uniformed presence in the Occupy movement has seeds in the October 15 confrontation in Times Square between Sargeant Shamar Thomas and police officers who were threatening to arrest Occupy Wall Street protesters. The video of the incident immediately went viral and Thomas became an overnight folk hero.

According to the website Business Insider, the OccupyMARINES organization initially reached out to former marines but eventually put out a call to veterans in other branches of the military asking them "to lend their support to help 'talk sense' to police and recruit them into supporting the Occupy movement." The effort is aimed at veterans only because active armed-services members are prohibited by military law from joining protests.

Now the boys in blue have stepped up with Occupy Police. The first posting to the group's website declares, "We are in open Solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and all Occupy movements across the nation. We’re starting off Day 1 with a mass e-mail to all police departments throughout the US. We want them to know that they ARE part of the 99% and to get involved with the movement. We openly support positive communication between Police/People and we encourage you to do the same."

In addition to the planned e-mail, @Occupy_Police deluged police departments across the country with Twiiter requests to support the Occupy movement. Here's the tweet: "YOU are the 99% PROTECTING 100% - Join us in open #Solidarity with #OWS & the people of our nation #OcPo."

I've been dabbing my eyes all day as I read the @Occupy_Police Twitter feed with its grateful shout-outs from civilians and thanks from the police in return; wary posts from rank-and-file officers followed by entreaties from OcPo to join the movement along with reassurance that the organization will ensure anonymity; and requests to "please send us your photos of police in #solidarily with the people."

Besides the inspirational value, this whole thing is perhaps the most powerful refutation yet of the attempt by the right wing to paint OWS as a fringe movement made up of (depending on which right-wing source is talking) slackers, criminals, anarchists or drug addicts. The newest talking point from the Right says that the protesters just wanna have fun. Zuccotti Park is party central for the disaffected.

The truth is that there are people hanging out at Occupy sites who use drugs, who are homeless or have been unemployed long term. (I might point out that this doesn't mean they deserve our scorn or that they necessarily shouldn't be there.) Also part of the movement are humanitarians, store clerks, teachers, geeks, ditch diggers, marketers, burger flippers and CEOs--and, now, officially, police and ex-military women and men.

It's a very big tent and getting bigger.