For a sense of how much things have changed in New York in the last 75 years or so, one only has to go to Jewish Museum. On display there, through March 2012, is a special exhibition, The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936-1951, featuring a group of photographers who eschewed the arty modernist trends of the time to go out in the streets to capture real people and urban realities. At the entrance, a documentary from the early 1930s shows 100,000 protestors gathered in Union Square demanding economic justice.
Such a gathering literally could not take place today, not just because the city seems to do everything in its power to constrict protest, but because what was once a sacrosanct public space -- Union Square -- has become a shopping mall with a farmer's market and a village of holiday shops choking its paths.
The contrast between the Union Square of the 1930s and that of today symbolizes how New York has gone from being a city protective and proud of its dissenters to a virtual police state where protestors are treated like criminals simply for expressing their First Amendment Rights. This goes beyond the abuse of the Occupy Wall Street participants, though when demonstrators are beaten, pepper-sprayed and arrested for peaceful protest and journalists with valid press credentials are kept blocks away so as not to be able to witness your tax dollars in action, there ought to be cause for alarm.
But the use of everything from anti-terror police to pepper spraying to the literal trashing of books at the Occupy Wall Street encampment and at its demonstrations may mark a turning point in how the public view the police. Any change would be partly the work of a press corps whose own members were arrested and kept from covering the police actions at Zuccotti Park. Whether this shift will extend to New York's leading politicians, though, remains to be seen.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg continually repeats that he is protecting civil liberties. One New York Times reporter even called him the "freedom mayor." And for most of the last decade, politicians have competed to like Goneril and Regan in King Lear to see who could praise "New York's finest" and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly the most.
At the same time, Bloomberg, his police commissioner and the police themselves have regularly violated the rights of journalists and protestors. I will never forget participating in a totally peaceful and relatively small picketing by tenants, mostly older women, a few years ago near Bloomberg's townhouse at 17 E. 79th St., and watching the police videotape and photograph every participant as if we were criminals or terrorists when all we were doing was speaking out for stronger rent laws and less onerous increases from the Rent Guidelines Board. But that’s bomb-throwing Bolshevism in today’s New York City.
At the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York demonstrators were arbitrarily rounded up and kept in custody in an unhealthful garage until the convention ended.
Bloomberg had written a personal check for $7 million to the Republicans for that convention and was not going to have it sullied by dissenters. His actions cost the city millions of dollars in settlements with illegally arrested and abused demonstrators, with some cases yet to be resolved.
Most New Yorkers have remained silent about overly aggressive and even illegal police tactics -- perhaps because they don't want to do anything that might contribute to a rise in crime. After all, the city has enjoyed a declining crime rate and has managed to avoid any successful terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001.
Tom Allon, a newspaper publisher now running for mayor, remembers being "mugged in 1972 in broad daylight at Broadway and 79th Street when I was 10 years old. I have three kids now, and I feel confident that they'll be safe when they’re out on the street. The city is a much different place, and Bill Bratton and Ray Kelly can take a lot of credit." Allon also credited Dinkins' Safe Streets, Safe City program, a tax surcharge won in Albany that allowed for the hiring of many more police officers and funded programs that hit at the roots of crime.
For years, few reporters, other than those at the Village Voice, took on the police department or Kelly. One who did -- veteran police reporter Len Levitt -- wrote earlier this month, "Other than Ray Kelly, what police commissioner on God's green earth could keep his job after the avalanche of police scandals in New York City?"
Levitt cited indictments of gun smuggling cops, the conviction of an office who planted drugs on suspects, the ticket-fixing scandal and more. "No mayor in recent history has abdicated his responsibilities in supervising the police department and his police commissioner as Bloomberg has," Levitt wrote.
This month, New York magazine took the grumbling mainstream with a story on Kelly titled, The Force Isn’t with Him.
On Nov. 16, gay activist Brendan Fay resigned from the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advisory council to the police department and called on other members to do the same. "I no longer wish to associate myself with a police agency that evicts in the dark of night, attacks young men and women with pepper spray and batons, destroys personal property. This is not democracy. This is not community policing," Fay wrote in a letter to the group. "The actions of the NYPD under the leadership [of] commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg are clearly contrary to the commitments, expectations and principals of this advisory body."
It is hard to say how the Occupy Wall Street raid will change attitudes, mayoral politics and the future of policing in New York.
Kelly has enjoyed broad popularity and led an Oct. 19 Quinnipiac poll for mayor in 2013 as the choice of 25 percent of those surveyed. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was second with 17 percent.
Quinn has already declared that she wants to keep Kelly as commissioner. Allon, who is campaigning for mayor as a maverick, said in an interview before the raid that he would be proud to have Kelly or former Commissioner Bill Bratton in his administration. "By and large they have kept the peace," he said.
Allon said that the current stop-and-frisk practices of the police "needs to be looked at carefully." He also said, "I have a problem with too many petty arrests that lead to criminal convictions. I would be actively involved in setting parameters -- keeping major crime rates down and keeping the city safe while ensuring civil liberties are respected."
The leading candidates for mayor in 2013 all criticized the police raid on Occupy Wall Street to varying degrees. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio came out the strongest, calling the raid "needlessly provocative and legally questionable." City Comptroller John Liu said, "There seems to be no compelling reason for this action at this time."
And they all, including Quinn, former comptroller -- and 2009 mayoral candidate -- William Thompson and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, expressed dismay about the treatment of journalists and reports of excessive force by police, particularly against Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez, who was arrested and held for 20 hours.
Neither Quinn, Liu, de Blasio, Stringer or Thompson responded to a Gotham Gazette e-mail asking if Kelly should stay as police commissioner, how they believe policing should be done differently in New York and how they have tried to make that happen. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz wrote in an e-mail, "I have complete faith in Commissioner Kelly."
Perhaps this is not surprising. "Politicians are afraid of the police," Ann Northrop, a veteran of ACT UP and my co-host on the Gay USA Gay USA cable news program, said. "They think they need the police to exercise military control to protect them from anarchy and that without the police, they are naked and vulnerable. But they also think the police have the power to overpower them, to take control of the state, like a military coup in a Third World country. So they continually support everything the police do, whether or not it's legal or smart."
Some politicians have criticized the police, though somewhat cautiously.
At the Nov. 17 Occupy Wall Street mass rally in Foley Square, Councilmember Robert Jackson, said he was particularly dismayed by video on NY-1 of the Nov. 15 raid showing a sergeant assaulting a demonstrator. "He had no right to grab him and throw him to the ground. People have a right to demonstrate," Jackson said. He said he was not defending illegal activities by demonstrators who allegedly threw batteries and vinegar at some cops, but he added, "Police need to show restraint in dealing with people."
Now a grassroots group has emerged to make what they see as abusive and overly aggressive police tactics an issue in the 2013 city elections. Members of the Police Reform Organizing Project fanned out across the city on Nov. 19 and collected 1,000 signatures signatures on a petition calling for an end to "wasteful, ineffective, illegal, unjust, homophobic and racially biased NYPD policies and practices" They want an end to "abusive policing" and "quotas for arrests and summonses," an independent agency to monitor the police with the power to punish corruption, and the promotion of "measures that address economic and social inequities and strengthen communities while reducing crime."
Robert Gangi, who was executive director of the Correctional Association for almost 30 years where he was a leader in the fight for Rockefeller Drug Law reform, is the senior policy advocate at the Urban Justice Center and founder of the new project. He accuses the police department of engaging in "bullying."
"They do it because they can," he said. "There is not enough political pushback to make them pay a price for their harsh, aggressive tactics."
While Gangi said "Kelly should definitely go," he is focused on an entire police culture that, he said, has "refined and honed and applied the kind of tactics developed under Giuliani and Bratton."
Gangi acknowledges that the group’s task is "an enormous lift." Still, he is "determined," with groups like Make the Road and the New York Civil Liberties Union, to make police reform a factor in the 2013 elections. His non-partisan group will survey all candidates for city offices.
One issue candidates might have to confront is how to hold police accountable for any misconduct. Whatever offenses the police may have been guilty of during Occupy Wall Street, few hold out much hope that they will be punished for it.
"There is a major problem with police accountability," Bill Dobbs, the civil libertarian who has helped with media at Occupy Wall Street, said before the Nov. 15 raid. "The major way things come out is through lawsuits, but the money [paid to plaintiffs] comes out of taxpayer funds, not the police budget and very rarely from police officers. It is extremely rare for an officer to be found guilty of police misconduct or excessive force."
One officer, Anthony Bologna, who misused pepper spray at an early Occupy Wall Street, was punished swiftly -- docked 10 vacation days --when caught dead to rights by cell phone cameras.
There have been numerous exposés on police misconduct in recent years from Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson's indictments of ticket-fixing cops to Graham Rayman's 2010 Village Voice series on how Officer Adrian Schoolcraft, who blew the whistle on the accuracy of police statistics, had his career destroyed. "They put the guy in a mental hospital," Dobbs said.
Dobbs said that there won’t be any serious reform around police misconduct until "there is a permanent special prosecutor devoted” to that one issue. But that would require a political change. “There is so much reflexive, knee-jerk support for police” that it is very hard to get justice in cases of police misconduct," he said.
That the raid on Occupy Wall Street was in the dead of night and involved riot police, anti-terror cops, and throwing thousands of books into a garbage dumpster gave it more than a whiff of fascism, a word I am loathe to use but which fits in this case whether or not those books can be recovered at a Department of Sanitation depot later.
Ray Lewis, a retired police captain from Philadelphia who joined Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park in uniform, said after the Nov. 15 raid, "You should, by law, only use force to protect someone's life or to protect them from being bodily injured. … And the number one thing that they always have in their favor that they seldom use is negotiation -- continue to talk, and talk and talk to people. You have nothing to lose by that."
Lewis dismissed the city's concern about unsanitary conditions in the park. "Here they are worrying about dirty parks when people are starving to death, where people are freezing, where people are sleeping in subways," he said, adding. "That's obnoxious, it's arrogant, it's ignorant, it's disgusting."
Lewis's sign read, "NYPD: Don't Be Wall St. Mercenaries." He himself was arrested at the Occupy Wall Street Action on Thursday but said that would not deter him. "They'll have to arrest me again," he said.
"We have to bring to light the fact that we are in a police state," said Jordan Amos, 25, of Philadelphia at Foley Square, holding a sign that read, "A Police State is a Terrorist State." He was at Zuccotti Park for the Nov.15 raid. "We did not try to harm them or disrespect them," he said. "Up until that point, we showed the police a lot of love and peace."
The city blacked out news coverage on the Nov. 15 wee hours raid -- keeping reporters blocks away "to protect members of the press" in the mayor’s words and arresting those who stayed and tried to do their jobs with valid police-issued credentials. PEN American Center and PEN International, the world’s oldest international literary and human rights organization, condemned the city action.
"Whatever the arguments for clearing and cleaning the park, denying the rest of us the opportunity to witness the police action through the independent reporting of a free media simply reinforces the suspicion that the city government is seeking to hide from democratic scrutiny," said Kwame Anthony Appiah, president of PEN American Center. He added, "It is also wrong to deny media access because it runs entirely against the spirit of the First Amendment guarantees that are at the heart of PEN's mission.”
Gabe Pressman, dean of New York TV reporters and president of NY Press Club Foundation and Glenn Schuck, the president of the Club itself, also condemned the treatment of press at the Occupy eviction. In a letter to Bloomberg, they wrote, "The actions of some police officers were not consistent with the long-established relationship between the NYPD and the press. The brash manner in which officers ordered reporters off the streets and then made them back off until the actions of the police were almost invisible is outrageous. We want the department to investigate the incidents involved in this crackdown on Zuccotti Park and we want assurances it won't happen again."
Then there is the trashing of books. Frances Mercanti-Anthony helps run the People's Library that had amassed thousands of books in Zuccotti Park. She said that after the city threw them all into a dumpster during the raid on Nov. 15, "only 10 percent were recovered. Laptops were smashed." She said 100 more books were confiscated from the library in Zuccotti Park on Nov. 16 after Occupy was let back in. "It's an attempt to erect a police state that to exist has to exert power over everyone," Mercanti-Anthony said.
She had several dozen books laid out on a bench in Foley Square at the massive action on Nov.17 that anyone could borrow or take, "It's OK for the police to take them, but only if they're going to read them," Mercanti-Anthony said said. She held up a copy of the Constitution that she hopes Bloomberg will read.
Responding to criticism, the administration has claimed repeatedly that the courts are on its side. Even if that is the case, according to Donna Lieberman, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, that does not mean the city has to evict the protesters. Writing in the wake of a judge's ruling that upheld the city's refusal to allow protestors back in Zuccotti Park with their gear, she said, "Today's court ruling upholding the eviction was disappointing, but it is important to remember that the First Amendment sets a floor -- not a ceiling -- for determining whether government should accommodate free expression. There is no reason why the Bloomberg administration cannot embrace a more expansive understanding of free speech and allow the protesters and their tents back into Zuccotti Park in a way consistent with public safety and health. It should do so immediately.”
If the Nov. 15 ruling is appealed, Judge Kimba Wood's 2000 decision on sleeping on the sidewalks is likely to come into play. In that case, the Civil Liberties Union sued the city on behalf of tenant activists (I was not among them this time) seeking to sleep in Carl Schurz next to Gracie Mansion before the Rent Guidelines Board meeting on rent increases. They hoped to dramatize how excessive rent hikes lead to homelessness.
In ruling for the protestors, Wood wrote, "The city contends that if it cannot stop sleeping at this vigil, then it cannot under any circumstances, regulate the use of city sidewalks in a manner it deems necessary and appropriate to promote the free flow of pedestrian traffic. ... The city has offered no evidence that those who sleep on the sidewalks while intoxicated and/or homeless (the instances cited by the city) will implicate the First Amendment at all."
In an article on the decision, Judge Emily Jane Goodman wrote, "Given the right case, sleep can be considered speech and is thus protected by the First Amendment."
She continued, "The court agreed that this was no mere nighttime nap, but was political expression."
It remains to be seen if Occupy Wall Street can prevail on the same claims, but whatever the courts rule, the police actions against the protests have raised the discussion on police tactics and misconduct to a whole new level. On Nov. 20, State Sen. Eric Adams and civil rights attorney Norman Siegel called for City Council hearings into the eviction raid and “said city officials violated a court order by cleaning out Zuccotti Park and should be penalized,” according to NY1.
City Councilmember Rosie Mendez has sponsored a First Amendment Assembly Act that she concedes has been going nowhere since we wrote about it in 2008, but she hopes current events will bring attention to this bill that would compel the police to be more accommodating of protests.
Reacting to the raid at Zuccotti Park, Dobbs said, "Bloomberg and the NYPD were itching to do this like authoritarians everywhere – squash a protest desperately hoping that the issues would be stopped. But Occupy's issues are going around the world."
Andy Humm, a former member of the City Commission on Human Rights, has been in charge of the civil rights topic page since its inception in 2001. He is co-host of the weekly "Gay USA" on Manhattan Neighborhood Network (34 on Time-Warner; 107 on RCN) on Thursdays at 11 PM.
Following the early morning police raid that cleared protester from Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, events and reaction came quickly . In the hours that followed, maneuvering continued on both side. Demonstrators sought to return to the park as the city held fast to keeping them out.
Our digest of the day's events includes a timeline and links to key coverage and resources. On a separate page, we round up some of the response to the eviction of Occupy Wall Street protesters. To read that, go here.
This was complied from news reports.
1 a.m.: Raid at Zuccotti Park begins.
2:10 a.m.: Press barred from Zuccotti Park.
2:55 a.m.: City Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez arrested.
4 a.m.: The park is cleared. Police later report approximately 200 arrests in the park and surrounding streets.
6 a.m.: State Supreme Court Judge Lucy Billings issues a temporary restraining order stopping the police from evicting protesters who are not breaking the law and barring people from entering the park with tents. (According to the Daily News, court administrators later took steps to insure that Billings, who spend 25 years as a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, would not be the one deciding on the restraining officer at an afternoon hearing.)
6:45 a.m.: Mayor Michael Bloomberg issues statement on the clearing of the park, saying he and the plaza's owner, Brookfield Properties, had become increasingly concerned about health and safety hazards at the plaza.
7 a.m.: Protesters mass in Foley Square to ponder next steps. They eventually plan to march to a lot on Sixth Avenue and Canal Street.
8 a.m.: Bloomberg holds news conference on the police and sanitation department action clearing Zuccotti Park.
11a.m. Protester cut the lock on a lot at Sixth Avenue and Canal Street owned by Trinity Church and prepare to occupy the space.
12:20 p.m.: Police clear out Duarte Square, the plot on Canal Street that protesters had hoped to occupy. Many of the demonstrators head about a mile south -- to Zuccotti Park.
1:45 p.m.: Hundreds of protesters have returned to the area around Zuccotti Park but are not allowed to enter the plaza itself.
4:46 p.m.: State Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman rejects extension of temporary restraining order that would have allowed protesters to return to Zuccotti Park.
5:45: p.m.: Bloomberg announces that Zuccotti Park is reopen to the public, saying the court's ruling " vindicates our position that First Amendment rights do not include the right to endanger the public or infringe on the rights of others by taking over a public space with tents and tarps."
7 p.m.: Occupy Wall Street General Assembly begins as an estimated 500 protesters -- without tents or sleeping bags -- re-enter the park.
8 p.m.: Police release City Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez, who was arrested during the clearing of Zuccotti Park, after he spent about 20 hours in police custody.
After an Earlier Misstep, a Minutely Planned Raid
The operation came after weeks of planning. Police officials watched how the occupations in other cities played out, often with much less tolerance by officers for the social movement -- and with greater degrees of aggressive force. Police commanders in New York held conference calls with colleagues in other cities. They increased so-called disorder training -- counterterrorism measures that involve moving large numbers of police officers quickly -- to focus on Lower Manhattan….
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, squinting in the glare of his department's bright lights, was at the center of the operation, his presence underscoring how the operation was fraught with challenges for the Police Department. There could be no repeat of episodes in recent weeks, like the pepper-spraying of protesters, that violated department rules and created a firestorm of public sympathy for the squatters. (Al Baker and Joseph Goldstein, New York Times)
Last Night at the Zuccotti Barricades
I witnessed several egregious examples of police misconduct. … Two women were arrested while they were marching on the sidewalk a few feet in front of the rest of the march, seemingly unprovoked. There were several instances of police rushing through marchers like deranged rugby players, possibly in an attempt to arrest a specific person on the other side of the group.
This morning showed that Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly are not trying to win a P.R. war or demonstrate restraint. I’ve for the most part defended the NYPD over the past two months. This morning, though, they had a collective viciousness that I haven’t found to be present on a large scale before. (John Knefel, Salon)
First They Came for the Free Press – and the Books
As they cleared the park, New York City police reportedly arrested at least four journalists and dumped more than 5,000 books -- the contents of the Occupy Wall Street Library -- in the dumpster. [The Bloomberg administration said the sanitation department had the books and they had not been destroyed.] (Attytood, Philadelphia Daily News)
Reporters Say Police Denied Access to Protest Site
As New York City police cleared the Occupy Wall Street campsite in Zuccotti Park early Tuesday morning, many journalists were blocked from observing and interviewing protesters. Some called it a "media blackout" and said in interviews that they believed that the police efforts were a deliberate attempt to tamp down coverage of the operation. …
At a news conference after the park was cleared Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg defended the police behavior, saying that the media was kept away "to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect members of the press." (Brian Stelter, Media Decoder, New York Times)
City Reopens Park After Protesters Are Evicted
"New York City on Tuesday reopened the park in Lower Manhattan where the Occupy Wall Street movement was born not long after a judge upheld the city’s move to clear the park and bar the protesters from bringing back their tents or staying overnight.
"The police opened the gates to Zuccotti Park just after darkness fell and let in a single-file line of people as a crowd surrounded the park. Some chanted, 'Let us in. Let us in.'
"'You have to walk through a gantlet of officers,' said Andy Nicholson, 54, of Manhattan, who entered the park, stopped and was told by the police to move along. 'It's all about control,' he said. " (James Barron and Colin Moynihan, New York Times)
Occupy Wall Street Movement Has No Right to Sleep in Parks "Long before a Manhattan Supreme Court judged ruled against the protesters, the Supreme Court settled the matter of protests camping indefinitely in public parks … with a majority opinion written by JFK-appointee Byron White. While the states have a great deal of latitude in determining their individual rules -- and Zuccotti Park’s odd status as a privately owned public space creates room for debate-- basic property rights are not suspended for protests, no matter how heartfelt." (John Avlon)
Occupy Wall Street Eviction Highlights Manhattan’s Public Spaces
Zuccotti Park is a privately owned public space, which could make it more difficult for protesters to argue they have a constitutional right to occupy it. (Katie Spencer and David M. Levitt, Bloomberg Businessweek)
Occupy Wall Street Innovator Says Movement Should Start Up in Spring
"Just hours before the raid on Zuccotti Park, the original godfather of Occupy Wall Street - a Canadian anti-capitalist group - advised the protesters it might be time to wind things down for the winter. Adbusters, which first proposed an occupation modeled after Egypt’s Tahrir Square uprising, suggested Monday that the time was coming for the protesters to “declare victory” and scale back." (Helen Kennedy, Daily News)
Occupy Wall Street's Eviction Was a Lucky Break
"The protesters were lucky to be kicked out of Zuccotti last night for two reasons -- the logistical reason and the macro reason. Logistically, these people weren't going to live on the concrete through February, anyway. Eventually, they were going to leave. Last night's raid gives them a banner headline in newspapers across the country and lets this particular occupation with a bang instead of the whimper of a three-month trickle-out. Just as nationwide enthusiasm was starting to wane, the raid reminds the nation where the movement started.
"But the geography of Occupy Wall Street can't become more important than its message. Whether there are tents in Zuccotti Park is secondary to the question of how do you turn a movement veering into a drug-and-violence protest into an inclusive campaign that non-marching liberals can feel a part of?" (Derek Thompson, The Atlantic)
Occupy Wall Street Debates Next Steps
"With or without the park, most Occupy supporters do not appear ready to back down from the momentum the movement has gained through laborious organization, ongoing outreach and visible public actions. 'No one piece of this movement is indispensable, except people -- not even the park,' said [Alejandro Varela, who is active in various OWS working groups and lives in Brooklyn]. 'We need people most of all. Without the park, we’ll just have to be more creative.'" (Rachel Signer, The Nation
After Zuccotti: What Now for Occupy Wall Street?
"If the mayor and the editorial page of the New York Post think the protests will simply fade away, they are deluded. In its short life, Occupy Wall Street has gone from a local sideshow to a national movement, with offshoots in hundreds of towns and cities. Whatever happens next, it has already changed the terms of the political debate, putting rising inequality front and center, which is where it should have been for years. (John Cassidy, The New Yorker)
Occupy Wall Street Protesters Evicted, Grapple with Future of Movement
"Occupy Wall Street activists grappled with the future of their movement after a police raid and a day of legal drama ended their hold on a Manhattan park that had become the symbolic center of the world-wide protest….
"It wasn't clear whether the eviction in New York will end the protest or push it into a new phase that could be harder for police to control. As unruly as the encampment often was, it was easy for police to monitor since it was in a fixed site. (Andrew Grossman, Alison Fox and Sean Gardner, Wall Street Journal)
Clearing a Park and Reviving a Movement
"Give Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg credit -- he cleared a park and probably revived an occupy movement all at once, and without the tear gas, nightsticks and rubber bullets that seem de rigueur in Oakland.
"Anger bubbled around the mayor since he massed his police in the darkness of early Tuesday and descended on the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park. … But Mayor Bloomberg -- the personification for many of Mr. 1 Percent -- shrugged off such talk." (Michael Powell, New York Times)
Occupy Movement: City-by-City Police Crackdowns So Far
The roundup from six U.S. cities.
Could Legal Ploy Scuttle Albany Protest?
"Gov. Andrew Cuomo has urged State Police to enforce a curfew against Occupy Albany protesters in a state-owned park, leading to 39 trespass arrests this weekend, but Albany County District Attorney David Soares is dismissing the charges.
"So what's next? Legally, the governor could appoint Attorney General Eric Schneiderman as a special prosecutor to supersede Soares. (Jimmy Vielkind, Times Union)
Occupy Los Angeles Marches in Solidarity for evicted Protesters
Stirred by live video of the Zuccotti Park eviction, about a hundred protestors from Occupy Los Angeles staged a midnight march through downtown streets early Tuesday. (Nancy Dillon, Daily News)
Council Members See No Reason to Break Up Occupy DC Camps
Multiple D.C. Council members said Tuesday the National Park Service should continue to monitor the Occupy DC encampments in the city, but as of now they see no reason to follow other cities; lead in breaking up the camps. Since early October, Occupy DC protesters have been camping in McPherson Square while an affiliate group, Stop the Machine, have erected tents in Freedom Plaza to protest what they perceive as corporate greed. Both camps are on National Park Service property. (Tim Craig, the Washington Post)
"The question of whether Occupy Wall Street has worn out its welcome with municipal leaders seems to have been answered in the affirmative tonight. Two weeks ago, Oakland police used tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash grenades to disband the Occupy camp outside city hall, on orders from Mayor Jean Quan. Police in Atlanta; Albany, N.Y.; Cincinnati; Nashville, Tenn.; Salt Lake City, Portland, Ore. and other cities have also moved to evict Occupy demonstrators from public spaces in recent weeks." (Ray Vasvari, Slate)
London Protesters Warily Watch New York
"In the sprawling pup tents that constitute the base camp for Occupy London, anti-capitalist protesters who kept vigil through the night learned from their smartphones and laptops that the police had begun dismantling the camp in New York’s Zuccotti Park known as Occupy Wall Street. The New York camp was the template for the London protest and scores like it around the world. (John Burns, New York Times)
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Statement on Clearing Zuccotti Park
"No right is absolute and with every right comes responsibilities. The First Amendment gives every New Yorker the right to speak out -- but it does not give anyone the right to sleep in a park or otherwise take it over to the exclusion of others –-- nor does it permit anyone in our society to live outside the law. … The First Amendment protects speech – it does not protect the use of tents and sleeping bags to take over a public space. Protestors have had two months to occupy the park with tents and sleeping bags. Now they will have to occupy the space with the power of their arguments. (To read the full text, go here.
The Protesters' Perspective
Throughout the day, Occupy Wall Street provided statement on the developments and a chronology of events. It begins with police bringing in bulldozers at 1:20 a.m. Tuesday. (To read the chronology and comments, go here.)
Temporary Restraining Order to Stop the Evictions
Early Tuesday morning, State Supreme Court Justice Lucy Billings issued a temporary restraining order allowing the protesters back into the park until a hearing could be held later I the morning. The order had little effect since everyone already had been ousted form the park, and police continued to block anyone from re-entering the plaza until a later ruling in the city's favor. (To read the full test of the order, go here.
Court Ruling Against Occupy Wall Street
State Supreme Court Judge Michael Stallman rejected an extension or the earlier temporary restraining order that would have allowed the protesters to return – with sleeping bags – to Zuccotti Park. In his decision Stallman said the protesters "have not demonstrated that they have a First Amendment right to remain in Zuccotti Park, along with their tents, structures, generators, and other installations to the exclusion of the owner’s reasonable rights and duties to maintain Zuccotti Park, or to the rights to public access of others who might wish to use the space safely." (To read the full ruling, go here.)
Let Them Back
We must balance the protesters' First Amendment rights with the rights of the residents, workers, and businesses of Lower Manhattan. We must protect the protestors' right to peaceful assembly and the local community's right to a safe and secure neighborhood.
Today's actions include reports of excessive force by the NYPD, and reports of infringement of the rights of the press. If these reports are true, these actions are unacceptable. The council will seek answers to questions surrounding these reports and clarifying information regarding the arrest and treatment of Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez.
In a spirit of cooperation, we must work to ensure that the protesters are allowed back into Zuccotti Park as soon as possible and are allowed to exercise their right to protest while not impeding on the rights of others."
--Christine Quinn, speaker, New York City Council
'Provocative and Questionable"
"Protecting public safety and quality of life for downtown residents, and guaranteeing free expression are not exclusive of one another. Mayor Bloomberg made a needlessly provocative and legally questionable decision to clear Zuccotti Park in the dead of night. That some media and observers were prevented from monitoring the action is deeply troubling.
"I know of no one -- protesters included -- who desires a permanent occupation of lower Manhattan. But provocations under cover of darkness only escalate tensions in a situation that calls for mediation and dialogue. I call on the mayor to find a sustainable resolution -- as other cities have done -- that allows for the exercise of free speech and assembly, with respect for the rights of all New Yorkers to peaceful enjoyment of our great city."
--Bill de Blasio, public advocate
'The Wrong Message'
"Going in and forcibly removing the protestors in the dead of night sends the wrong message. City Hall should have continued to talk with the protestors in the light of day if it wanted them removed, instead of evicting them in the middle of the night. There seems to be no compelling reason for this action at this time. The protestors have a right to be heard."
--John Liu, city comptroller
Freedom and Safety
"I am greatly troubled by reports of unnecessary force against protestors and members of the media, including the use of “chokeholds” and pepper spray. I am also troubled by reports of media being forcibly kept away at a distance from these events. American foreign correspondents routinely put themselves in harm's way to do their jobs, in some of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. And their NYC colleagues deserve the freedom to make the same choice. Zuccotti Park is not Tiananmen Square. I call for a full explanation of police behavior in this evacuation.
New York City has a duty to protect public safety, and it also has a duty to protect people’s freedom to voice concerns about economic justice that have struck a deep chord with millions of Americans. Surely our city can do both."
--Scott Stringer, Manhattan borough president
The Need for a 'Reasonable Solution'
Community Board 1 has been clear that we oppose the use of force in this situation and oppose a forcible clearing of the park. We believe that there is a solution that allows the protection of OWS's First Amendment rights and also respects the quality of life for residents and small businesses. As we have consistently said, these two are not mutually exclusive and we urge the city to meet with OWS and work toward a reasonable solution. We are also concerned that the media was apparently prevented from being in the park during the eviction and cleaning. CB 1 staunchly supports the First Amendment right of the press to cover news events without interference from government.
--Julie Menin, chairperson, Community Board 1
Two Months of Inaction
"Although this action should have been taken weeks ago, we thank Mayor Michael Bloomberg for taking this difficult step to protect the public health and safety of our community. As a community group, we continue to consider all of our options, including litigation, if the mayor or the owner of the park, Brookfield Properties, ever again fail to enforce the clear rules of the park and the laws of the city, which are designed to protect the health and safety of our neighborhood."
--Linda Gerstman, spokesperson, Downtown Community Coalition, a group of downtown residents formed in response to the protests
The Right Move
Mayor Bloomberg’s forced cleansing of Zuccotti Park nearly two months into an unsanitary and sometimes dangerous encampment was just what the doctor had been ordering.
The amorphous agglomeration known as Occupy Wall Street had transformed a space intended for open community access into a round-the-clock shantytown — and they claimed that the First Amendment guaranteed their right to do as they pleased. This is not constitutional wisdom. This is self-important, self-indulgent bilge.
--Editorial, Daily News (For full text, go here.)
A Show of Force
The demonstrators were roused from their sleep, had their personal belongings, including tents, computers and other equipment trashed, and were kicked out of the park. The media were deliberately kept at arm's length and prohibited from being on scene or filming the eviction from helicopters above, a chilling violation of freedom of the press. These moves are reminiscent of the actions of petty dictatorships, and contrary to America's proud tradition of unfettered First Amendment rights, free of interference and censorship. This Administration has shown that it cares more about exercising power than protecting citizens and the freedoms we cherish.
--Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, Democrat of Manhattan
'No One Can Evict an Idea'
In two short months, Occupy Wall Street has focused the world's attention on the deep frustration felt by working people about an economy that no longer works for the middle class. The 99 percent have seen good jobs disappear while the rich get richer and the big banks make billions with impunity. Mayor Bloomberg may have cleared the park for now, but Occupy Wall Street's message cannot be silenced. No one can evict an idea whose time has come.
"Now more than ever, CWA members will join the massive day of action on Thursday, Nov. 17. … The 99 percent are standing up against corporate greed and against a government that more and more puts the interests of the 1 percent ahead of the middle class."
--Chris Shelton, vice president, District 1, Communications Workers of America
An Important Movement
"Occupy Wall Street isn’t a place - it's an idea, a movement that has brought national and international focus to the danger to our economy and our nation that we face because of growing income inequality. The UFT is happy to continue providing logistical support for the Occupy Wall Street in our building, and we will be joining the OWS protestors in their continuing efforts around New York City to bring economic fairness and opportunity."
Michael Mulgrew, president, United Federation of Teachers