Wall Street protesters vowed to “defend the occupation” of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan after police said they’ll have to clear out sleeping bags and other belongings under rules set by the private park’s owner.
Brookfield Office Properties Inc., a New York-based real- estate developer that owns the property, said crews will close sections of the park for cleaning beginning at 7 a.m. today to relieve “unsanitary conditions.”
“People will have to remove all their belongings and leave the park,” New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said yesterday. “After it’s cleaned, they’ll be able to come back. But they won’t be able to bring back the gear. The sleeping bags, that sort of thing, will not be able to be brought back into the park.”
The Occupy Wall Street protest that began Sept. 17 has spread to cities including Denver, Boston and San Francisco. More than 700 demonstrators in New York have been arrested, mostly on disorderly conduct charges. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he supports the protesters’ free-speech rights as long as they don’t violate the law.
The demonstrators view the cleaning and the prohibition on gear in the park as an “attempt to shut down Occupy Wall Street for good,” Patrick Bruner, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement. He called on people to come to the site before cleaning is to begin “to defend the occupation from eviction.”
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn sided with the protesters late yesterday, saying they should be allowed “to peacefully remain in the park as they have been.”
‘Captured the Feelings’
“The protests at Zuccotti Park have captured the feelings of so many Americans who are nervous about the economy, worried about their future, and frustrated about growing income inequality,” Quinn said in a statement.
Brookfield agreed to create the park at the intersection of Broadway and Liberty Street, near the World Trade Center site, as a public amenity open 24 hours a day, year-round. The city said Brookfield’s rules against camping, lying on benches, and using tarps and tents would be enforced after the cleanup.
“Brookfield respects the rights of free speech, assembly and peaceful protest,” Melissa Coley, a company spokeswoman, said in a statement yesterday. “The manner in which Zuccotti Park has been used for the past several weeks has created unsanitary conditions.”
The demonstrators responded by setting up a sanitation committee to sweep and scrub the park yesterday, Bruner said. He offered to provide volunteers to help Brookfield maintain standards of cleanliness at the site.
Cleaning Park
“Occupy Wall Street is committed to keeping the park clean and safe,” Bruner said by e-mail. “We are organizing major cleaning operations today and will do so regularly.”
Protesters have been camping there since the demonstration began. The park has become a sea of backpacks, blue tarps and sleeping bags, which the occupants roll up and stack in piles during daylight.
Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne, Kelly’s chief spokesman, said a disorderly conduct charge may arise when a person blocks traffic on a sidewalk or roadway. In cases where an individual violates rules on private property, an owner may contact police to enforce its rights, Browne said. He said he had “every expectation” that demonstrators would comply with the law.
To use the clean-up as a pretext for mass arrests “would be a violation of the spirit of the First Amendment,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, in an e-mailed statement. The organization intends to monitor the site with observers tomorrow, she said.
Statements ‘Disingenuous’
“If the city is drawing a line in the sand over cleaning the park and refuses to accept the reasonable offers by protesters to do a clean-up, then the recent statements by the mayor and police commissioner about protecting the right to protest were disingenuous,” she said.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer called on the mayor to meet immediately with residents of Lower Manhattan and demonstrators at the park to “avoid major conflict and protect the safety and well-being of all involved.”
The clean-up deadline should be extended to give city officials, residents, protesters and the property owner an opportunity to meet, he said.
“The protesters will be able to continue to exercise their First Amendment rights in Zuccotti Park, or anywhere else in New York City,” said Marc LaVorgna, a spokesman for the mayor. “But those rights do not include the ability to infringe on the rights of others, which is why the rules governing the park will be enforced.”
Bloomberg visited the park Oct. 12 and Deputy Mayor Caswell Holloway issued a statement telling the demonstrators, “the cleaning will be done in stages and the protesters will be able to return to the areas that have been cleaned, provided they abide by the rules.”
No comments:
Post a Comment