Stick a fork in those protestors because they are done.
New York City police in riot gear swept into a Lower Manhattan park to remove Occupy Wall Street protesters early today following similar moves that shut camps in Oakland,
California, and Portland,
Oregon.
Police and the park???s owners told protesters at 1 a.m. local time to remove items including tents and sleeping bags, after which city workers cleared remaining belongings, Mayor
Michael Bloomberg said in an e-mailed release. People can return to the park once the cleaning is finished, he said.
???Protesters -- and the general public -- are welcome there to exercise their First Amendment rights, and otherwise enjoy the park, but will not be allowed to use tents, sleeping bags, or tarps and, going forward, must follow all park rules,??? the mayor said in the statement.
Hundreds of protesters have slept in tents and under tarps since Sept. 17 in Zuccotti Park, which was both the birthplace of the protests against economic inequality and the physical symbol of the movement. The police operation came after organizers announced they would mark the two-month anniversary of the movement this week with
plans to ???shut down
Wall Street??? and ???occupy the subways.???
???Evict an Idea???
???Some politicians may physically remove us from public spaces -- our spaces,??? activists said in a statement released at 2:25 a.m. local time. ???You cannot evict an idea whose time has come.???
About 200 people were in the park when police using loudspeakers told protesters to leave or face arrest, said Chris Porter, 26, a welder from
Indiana who joined the protest in the park about a month ago.
Police broke down tents and ???destroyed everything??? while forcibly removing protesters who had locked arms, he said. The
Associated Press said about 70 people were arrested, citing
Paul Browne, a police spokesman.
City cleaning crews in orange vests hauled away dumpsters full of the encampment???s remains.
???I have become increasingly concerned -- as had the park???s owner, Brookfield Properties -- that the occupation was coming to pose a health and fire safety hazard to the protesters and to the surrounding community,??? the mayor said in the release.
???Final Decision???
???We have been in constant contact with Brookfield and yesterday they requested that the city assist it in enforcing the no sleeping and camping rules in the park,??? Bloomberg said. ???But make no mistake -- the final decision to act was mine.???
The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
The one-square block space hosted a medical tent, kitchen area serving three meals a day, library, comfort station doling out underwear, sweaters, pants and blankets, and tables offering media outreach and legal guidance.
Resident protesters at Zuccotti have evaded eviction and confrontation with New York police before. Thousands of people convened in the early morning hours of Oct. 14, leading Brookfield Office Properties Inc., the owner of the park, to postpone a scheduled cleaning.
Hundreds of protesters arrested last month during a demonstration on the Brooklyn Bridge are scheduled to start appearing in court today to face disorderly conduct charges.
900 Charged
More than 900 people have been charged in connection with the protests since mid-September, including about 700 arrested during the Oct. 1 bridge demonstration, according to police.
The demonstrators refer to themselves on signs and in slogans as ???the 99 percent,??? a reference to Nobel Prize- winning economist
Joseph Stiglitz???s study showing the richest 1 percent control 40 percent of U.S. wealth.
Oakland police cleared a
downtown encampment yesterday after a slaying on Nov. 10. Police in
Portland evicted campers at Chapman and Lownsdale squares on Nov. 13 after two people suffered drug overdoses.
Salt Lake City banned protesters from staying overnight at Pioneer Park on Nov. 11 after a person was found dead at the camp that morning.
???The people who originally founded the encampments are either no longer there or no longer in control,??? Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said yesterday in a telephone interview. ???In part of clearing the camp, we moved a lot of the homeless -- they were about half of the residents.???
Officials??? Concerns
Deaths, sexual assaults, drug dealing and theft in the tent cities threaten public safety, officials said. The camps have drawn the homeless, street youths and a criminal element, some officials said.
???In the past few days, the balance has tipped,???
Portland Mayor Sam Adams said in a Nov. 10
statement. ???We have experienced two very serious drug overdoses, where individuals required immediate resuscitation in the camp.???
When protesters began camping in Portland on Oct. 6, ???the groups that day were people who have been committed to the movement,??? Sergeant Pete Simpson, a spokesman for the
Portland Police Bureau, said yesterday in a telephone interview. ???Then those people started leaving and the homeless population and street youth began moving in.???
The camps have cropped up in cities nationwide to protest economic disparity. Demonstrators decry high foreclosures and unemployment rates that plague average Americans while large bonuses were issued by U.S. banks after they accepted a taxpayer-funded bailout.
Philadelphia Mayor
In Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter said on Nov. 13 that the city ???must re-evaluate??? its dealings with Occupy Philly after numerous reports of thefts and assaults at the group???s tent city on Dilworth Plaza outside
City Hall.
Since Oct. 6, emergency medical services have made 15 runs to the camp and a woman reported a rape Nov. 12, he said at a
news briefing. Nutter said he???s asked for additional police in the area.
Many of the initial leaders that the city dealt with have since left and the group is fractured, Nutter said. The mayor said he wants to avoid confrontation with the movement and agrees with them on issues such as unemployment, poverty and bank lending.
???Now we???re at a critical point where we must re-evaluate our entire relationship with this very changed group,??? he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Alison Vekshin in
San Francisco at
avekshin@bloomberg.net; Esme E. Deprez in New York at
edeprez@bloomberg.net
