The clash that erupted Thursday night when Occupy Boston members tried to bring an industrial-sized kitchen sink into their downtown camp has ratcheted up the tension between police and protesters.
Yesterday, Boston police stationed more officers in the encampment and protesters said they fear that authorities may be preparing for more arrests on their Dewey Square enclave.
In recent weeks, police have prevented protesters from bringing construction materials into the camp, telling them the supplies were “contraband.’’
Thursday night, Occupy Boston supporters attempted to carry in a metal sink that had been reconfigured to include a self-contained plumbing system. The sink was an effort to help the camp better comply with public health guidelines, protesters said.
When police attempted to confiscate the sink, a crowd of 75 to 100 protesters surrounded a police vehicle, Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said.
“As a result of that troubling activity, numerous officers had to be called to the scene. The officers very successfully were able to gain crowd control, which resulted in one arrest,’’ she said.
The skirmish came hours after a Suffolk Superior Court hearing, where attorneys for the city argued that Occupy Boston protesters have created a hazardous encampment riddled with fire, sanitation, and safety violations.
The judge extended a temporary restraining order Thursday, barring officials from suddenly evicting the protesters. She will decide by Dec. 15 whether the city will have the right to carry out a surprise eviction.
On Thursday night, a 25-year-old Quincy man was arrested at the scene of the sink-confiscation after he allegedly pushed an officer, damaged a police radio, and ran out of the camp and into South Station.
Gary Williams was arraigned yesterday in Boston Municipal Court on charges of assault and battery on a public employee, resisting arrest, destruction of property, and disturbing the peace.
He was released on personal recognizance after appearing before Judge Mark Summerville, who also ordered Williams to stay away from the encampment at Dewey Square....
Mayor Thomas M. Menino said last evening that he is concerned about the health issues inside the encampment, and has been worried about the situation since the camp began two months ago. But if the city wins the court case, he does not know whether he will move to force the protesters out of the square.
“If [conditions] deteriorate, we’ll make our decision then. We’re not going to make our decision today,’’ Menino said. “We’ve been very patient with these individuals, and we’ll continue to work with them.’’
In recent days, Menino has expressed exasperation with the protesters, saying that they have taken advantage of the city’s willingness to work with them.
“As mayor of the city, I represent 630,000 people,’’ he said. “I don’t represent just 200 people in Dewey Square.’’
Protesters reported seeing about twice as many police officers as usual staking out the camp yesterday. Rather than standing along the perimeter of the camp, protesters said, police have been walking through it.
Some of the group’s overnight campers, like Robert Bakoian, 36, said the altered patterns of police have made protesters anxious about what’s to come. When he left his tent yesterday morning, he said, a police officer was standing right outside. That’s never happened before, he said.
“I’ve never seen them inside the camp,’’ Bakoian said. “They’re here way more than they were before… . It makes me uneasy.’’
In preparation for a potential raid, protesters have been partaking in nonviolent resistance training. They are learning how to lay limp if a law enforcement officer tries to forcibly remove them from the camp, and how to protect themselves if police use pepper spray.
Also see: Globe Grinds Pepper Spray Protest Story
Martin, a protester who declined to give his last name to protect his employment, said he was nervous about the judge’s decision - especially because it could come at any time, without warning.
“I’m walking on eggshells now,’’ he said. “If the judge makes her decision after lunch and rules in favor of the city, the cops can raid us right away, just like that,’’ he said.
They basically will when the order comes through.
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"Occupy Boston case a test of free speech; Question is whether an eviction would be a selective enforcement of camping ban" December 04, 2011|By Mark Arsenault, Globe Staff
Despite the invocation of the sacred right of free speech, several constitutional scholars say the City of Boston holds a strong position in the dispute over the future of the Occupy protest in Dewey Square, so long as city officials can show that they’re not targeting the demonstrators because of their political message.
The steep legal challenge for the Occupy Boston movement will be to show that regulations against camping overnight in public parks are being selectively enforced on them, or that the regulations pose an unreasonable burden on them as they try to get out their message.
“No court that understands the law is going to say that because the Occupy Boston movement is speaking politically they have a magic immunity from regular public health and safety regulations,’’ said Don Herzog, who teaches First Amendment law at the University of Michigan Law School....
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"Boston to bar new Occupy tent; Protesters seek to bring winterized equipment into encampment" December 05, 2011|By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff
The City of Boston is vowing to block Occupy Boston demonstrators’ plans to move a winterized tent into the encampment today, citing a ban on bringing new building materials into the area.
“It’ll be confiscated before it gets in,’’ said Dot Joyce, a spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, of the tent that demonstrators hope to erect this afternoon.
Joyce said demonstrators had asked city officials before about bringing in new structures and were told it would not be permitted.
“We will not allow them to build a new neighborhood’’ in Dewey Square, she said.
Sage Radachowsky, 38, of Roslindale, a member of the Occupy winterization and fire safety working group, said yesterday at the encampment that demonstrators plan to install a fireproof tent that can hold up to 10 people.
He said they are informing police and city officials so that all parties can openly discuss the issue.
“We want to do this completely aboveboard,’’ he said.
Radachowsky said the group wants to improve relations with the city and Boston police, after a clash between demonstrators and officers last week over a sink.
Good luck!
Police said that after they seized the appliance Thursday night and put it in a police wagon, protesters surrounded the vehicle, resulting in the arrest of one demonstrator.
Radachowsky said that while he thought police overreacted during the confrontation, “I was not completely pleased with how we conducted ourselves.’’
Alerting authorities to the planned installment of the tent, he said, would open the communication lines between demonstrators and the city, regardless of the final outcome....
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Related: Occupy Boston is denied fire-safe tent at site
Occupy Boston gets sink back, but not at site
"Protesters lose in court; mayor says it’s time to go" by David Abel and Travis Andersen | Globe Staff, December 07, 2011
Occupy Boston protesters lost their court battle yesterday to stay in a downtown Boston encampment indefinitely, a judicial decision that won praise from Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who, for the first time, told the frustrated demonstrators it was time to pack up and leave.
City officials said they had no immediate plans to remove the protesters. An attorney for the demonstrators said they would file an appeal today.
“We applaud the judge for clearly recognizing the city’s authority to protect all of our residents, including those currently at Dewey Square,’’ Menino said in a statement. “Our first priority has always been and will always be to ensure the public’s health and safety. As outlined in the court proceeding and affirmed in the judge’s ruling, the conditions at Dewey Square have deteriorated significantly and pose very real health and safety risks.’’
In a 25-page decision, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Frances McIntyre denied a motion the protesters filed that would protect them from eviction from their encampment in Dewey Square, a fate that has befallen similar protests across the country in recent weeks.
McIntyre also vacated a temporary restraining order that had protected the tent city.
“While Occupy Boston protesters may be exercising their expressive rights during the protest, they have no privilege under the First Amendment to seize and hold the land on which they sit,’’ McIntyre wrote in her decision....
What about the right to peaceably assemble and petition of grievances?
Elaine Driscoll, a spokeswoman for Boston police, said the city has spent more than $700,000 to cover overtime costs for police officers to monitor demonstrators. She described 10 or so officers stationed in Dewey Square last night as routine.
They didn't have to be there, sorry. But it does help you turn against those protesters. I guess the only time cops are bad is when the word union is mentioned.
“The police commissioner is pleased with the decision and believes that it is important that the city has discretion in determining how to proceed,’’ Driscoll said.
Carol Rose - executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which has helped represent the demonstrators - said that while the ruling is disappointing, it acknowledges that their activities are protected under the First Amendment.
She noted the ruling specifies that “creating a model society is expressive speech and is subject to some protections, and that’s actually really important as a matter of future law.’’
Harvey A. Silverglate, a civil liberties lawyer in Cambridge, said he agreed with McIntyre’s ruling, as it pertains to the First Amendment. But he called her ruling wrong because of its “cursory assumption that the free speech provision of the Massachusetts Constitution is not more protective of speech than the federal First Amendment.’’
He said he thought the protesters had a “very good chance’’ of prevailing in their appeal.
“We have the advantage of a free speech guarantee that is older and more robust than the First Amendment,’’ he wrote in an e-mail....
Well, that is good to hear but they still cleared the park.
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"Taking protest to the deadline; Boston orders occupiers to vacate Members deliberate further measures" by Stephanie Ebbert and Martine Powers Globe Staff / December 9, 2011
Facing a midnight deadline to dismantle their Dewey Square camp or face police raids, hundreds of Occupy Boston protesters folded their tents yesterday afternoon, but continued deliberating into the night on whether to leave peacefully and how to convert their message to another medium.
Four hours before the deadline, demonstrators weighed a number of unusual alternatives for shifting their protest - including moving into foreclosed homes, holding their ground in defiance of police, or even holding a dance party....
I'll type the rest myself:
The protesters' message resonated with many.
See: Outrage Over Globe's Occupy Poll
"The whole system is scandalous," said Dorothy Allen, a civil engineer who works downtown and who went to see the campsite over her lunch break. She questioned why the activists were making it so easy on the city to evict them and compared the safety at the camp to the deterioration at the half-dismantled site of the former Filene's basement in the middle of the city.
Also see: All Sales Final at Filene's
"This is not a safety problem," Allen said....
Bil Lewis, a 59-year-old Cambridge man, called Occupy Boston one of the most exciting experiences of his life. "This is the life I want to have lived."
I typed the print verbatim, readers.
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"Driven out, but still driven by their message" by Akilah Johnson Globe Staff / December 9, 2011
Old and young. Black and white. Women and men. Homeless and housed. They transformed the space near South Station into an ideological commune on Sept. 30, and yesterday they began turning it back into the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, at least physically.
Looks like everybody is down there.
Ideologically, protesters said, it’s the same place it’s been for the past two months - just without the tents.
“If the city wants to come and throw our message into a garbage can, they can do it,’’ Guy Sands, 34, said as he and another occupier archived protest signs. “The people want their voice to be heard.’’
Sands lives in Quincy and has been part of the movement since its inception. He didn’t sleep at the camp but was there first thing every morning and stayed throughout the day. That was his routine for the last eight weeks, and it’s one he planned to continue today, even if the physical presence of Occupy Boston has largely vanished.
Michael Mango, who called the encampment home since October, packed up his expensive yellow tent, partly owned by his parents, because he didn’t want to lose it if police raided the site in the city’s financial district.
“I was here Day Two,’’ the 22-year-old Roxbury Community College student said. When asked why he had opted to leave his father’s Belmont home for a tent city near South Station, Mango said: “Income and equality.’’
Mango called the encampment a publicity stunt that was needed to draw attention to vast economic disparities in the United States and start a national conversation about one of the movement’s key issues: 1 percent of Americans control up to 50 percent of the nation’s wealth, and, according to the movement’s website, use that wealth to undermine the democratic process.
“How is it that there are all these buildings and all these rich people and all I have is a tent?’’ he said, before making a promise.
“We’ll keep fighting.’’
************************
Bil Lewis, of Cambridge, has resigned himself to nostalgia: “This is the life I want to have led.’’
Is it led or lived, Globe?
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Related: In camp, loss and confusion meet resolve
I'm about ready to fold up my Globes.
"Curtain falling on Occupy protest; Police action seen as imminent A day of defiance, cleaning up" by Peter Schworm and David Abel Globe Staff / December 10, 2011
Defying the city’s order to dismantle their encampment, a dwindling band of Occupy Boston protesters vowed yesterday to continue their two-month demonstration until they are forced to leave and braced for a possible confrontation with police.
The day after more than 1,000 protesters flooded the streets around Dewey Square in a raucous display of civil disobedience, a sense of resignation pervaded the camp, with many accepting the likelihood that the country’s longest continual encampment had run its course.
Related: Occupy Protests Over
Last night, protesters were texting each other that they had heard reliably that police planned to make their move before morning.
Dot Joyce, spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said, “The mayor has made it quite clear they should go home.
Although she declined to specify when police would evict the demonstrators, she added, “The police will take action at some point when it is necessary and appropriate.’’
Many of the hallmarks of the tent compound - a statue of Gandhi, a food tent, and a library - were gone, and the camp was strewn with trash, tarps, and mud. Lawyers for the demonstrators, meanwhile, did not take legal action to stave off eviction from the square, in the shadow of the Federal Reserve Bank by South Station....
Now I see why the protesters were so despised and insulted by the war-promoting media.
All the signs suggested they had little time left. Police stationed around the camp began barring occupants from bringing in food, at one point stopping them from carrying in a tray of ziti....
What, might be a bomb under the tomato sauce?
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"Stalwart few say the cause will outlast the encampment" by Martine Powers Globe Staff / December 10, 2011
To William, 23, a member of Occupy Boston, the thinning of the ranks at the Dewey Square encampment since Thursday has revealed the truly committed.
“We’ve reduced the overall complacency of the people here,’’ said William, who has declined to give his last name to reporters since the start of the protest.
“I’m talking about the capitalists, the middle-of-the-road people,’’ said William.
William is one of a few dozen people who continue living at the Occupy Boston camp, even after Mayor Thomas M. Menino demanded that all protesters clear their tents out of the square by midnight Thursday. Since that announcement, many have cleared out, and with them have gone their tents, leaving Dewey Square the emptiest, and cleanest it has been since the protest began.
Those who stayed compared their refusal to leave the camp to the sinking of the Titanic: They’re going down with the ship.
While Brian Kwoba of East Cambridge has not slept at the camp since Oct. 11 - his tent was confiscated when police evicted the Occupiers from a stretch of the Rose Kennedy Greenway north of Dewey Square - he said yesterday that he plans to return with a new tent this weekend to face down the police in the event of a raid.
“People who left when the mayor said to leave are undermining the whole purpose of the movement,’’ said Kwoba, 29....
“This phase of the Occupation has run its course.’’
And so has my run with the Boston Globe.
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"Even without an encampment, Occupy can claim a victory, December 10, 2011
So says the Globe.
In other cities, the end of the physical encampment seems to have been a blessing in disguise. Spared the demands of managing a full-time tent city, protesters have been free to focus on foreclosures, student loan debt, and narrowing the income gap. And by continuing on, even after the drum circle is gone, those protesters have built credibility with a sometimes skeptical public that the Occupy protesters are sincere about their cause - that they’re not just protesting for protesting’s sake....
Whatever happens next, the political impact of the Occupy protests is already clear. Earlier this week, President Obama gave a speech in Osawatomie, Kan., calling for higher taxes on the rich and tighter regulation of the financial industry, echoing key positions of many Occupy supporters. Those aren’t new positions for Obama. But his rhetoric is growing sharper. And from Dewey Square to Osawatomie, the message is resonating.
Then why did they extend the Bush tax cuts that could have avoided this mess when they had the supermajority? Why didn't they write good regulations instead of ineffectual, $tatus quo slop?
Man, am I ever sick of agenda-pushing political fooleys!
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And more than that, the elitist insults:
"Occupy Boston: So, what was the point?" by Tom Keane | December 10, 2011
Now that it’s over, the question to be debated is, what did it accomplish? This was, in truth, far from a mass movement. It’s likely more people showed up outside shopping malls on Thanksgiving than ever stayed in Dewey Square. And while one might admire the fortitude of the Occupiers for their long-term commitment, it was, for many, better than paying for rent and meals.
Bunch of free-loaders!!
The Occupiers, and many in the media, will argue that at a minimum they provoked discussion about the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the decline of the middle class. I’m not sure that’s correct. The debate was already under way. Democrats have been harping on tax cuts for the wealthy over the last couple of years. Occupy was more a consequence of that discussion than its provocateur.
Talk about flipping the world on its head.
But whether one gives the Occupiers credit for the conversation or not, it’s hard to see how they’ve played any role in figuring out a solution. The principal impact of the Occupiers’ leaderless, agenda-free movement was pretty much to persuade everyone else that leaderless, agenda-free movements don’t work. The Tea Party activists, with whom the Occupiers are often compared, turned their anger into political action.
And found out like Democrats before them nothing really changes.
But much of the rhetoric from the Occupiers specifically rejected participation in voting and politics, leaving one puzzled as to how anything meaningful was to be accomplished.
??????? And how has changing government worked over the last six years?
And WHAT IS STOPPING the CURRENT CROP of ELECTED OFFICIALS from DOING WHAT WE HAVE WANTED for SO LONG NOW? What is the whole energy-wasting diversion of politics and, what, electing Democrats, going to accomplish?
Meanwhile, there are many out there who have been trying constructively to address the underlying concerns that gave rise to the Occupy movement....
So Occupy was destructive, huh?
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Update:
Occupy Boston camp cleared; 46 arrested
10-week rally comes to an end; no injuries reported
At exactly 5 a.m., a line of Boston police officers walked onto the Greenway and instructed people to leave.
I'm goin'.
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