Occupy DC Protestors Defy No-Camping Deadline - WSJ

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By RYAN TRACY

WASHINGTON—"Occupy DC" protestors turned a midday police deadline into a media event for their cause on Monday, promising to defy a ban on camping in a federal park and hoisting a massive tarp over a statue in the center of McPherson Square.

At noon, as dozens of cameras rolled and a throng of reporters looked on, protestors pulled the deep blue tarp, emblazoned with stars, moons, and the words "Tent of Dreams" over the statue of Civil War Commander James McPherson, for whom the square is named. "Let us sleep so we can dream," they chanted. "This is what democracy looks like."

The National Park Service had said that it would begin enforcing a camping prohibition around noon on Monday in the square where protestors have pitched tents for nearly four months in one of the nation's last remaining Occupy encampments. There appeared to be no arrests as of midafternoon, though a U.S. Park Police spokesman didn't immediately respond to an inquiry.

Small groups of police officers stood at the corners of the park but didn't move to inspect tents or approach the hub of the demonstration at the center of the square.

Protestors vowed to hold their ground and welcomed the media attention. "Every time they do something like this, we grow," said Barry Knight, a 44-year-old organic farmer who on Monday joined the McPherson Square protestors from Freedom Plaza, the other of the two Occupy camps in Washington.

Sarah Shaw, 24, said Occupy DC was hoping to use the media attention as a way to speak out about inequality and the influence of corporate money on politicians. "We've already changed the dialogue in this country," she said. "We're not about camping. We're about the issues that we're fighting for."

Several Washington occupiers said Monday they planned to keep their protests alive until they felt the political system was changing for the better.

The anticipated showdown at the Washington camps comes after violence between authorities and Occupy protesters in Oakland, Calif., flared over the weekend. Oakland police said they arrested more than 400 people.

Protests have been more peaceful in Washington, where the National Park Service and its police force have jurisdiction over the Washington Occupy sites because they are part of a national park.

But tensions rose at the Occupy DC site Sunday after police used a stun gun to arrest a man who was tearing down fliers with information about the camping rules, according to news reports and a video posted by supporters of the protestors.

A spokesman for the park police told the Associated Press that the man became "aggressive and confrontational" when police tried to arrest him for disorderly conduct. Protest supporters bemoaned the use of force in Twitter messages Sunday night, with one calling it "unprovoked" and "disgusting."

Park Police have been tolerating apparent violations of the camping rule for months while park-service officials said they were respecting First Amendment rights. But the park service said it would change course under scrutiny from congressional Republicans and pressure from Washington, D.C., officials, who have said the encampment is unsanitary.

Round-the-clock vigils and "temporary structures" are allowed in the square as part of a protest, but tents can't be used for sleeping, cooking, or storing personal belongings, according to park service regulations which have been upheld by the Supreme Court.

In Oakland, protesters said a week ago that they planned to take over a vacant building but withheld the exact address until Saturday, in the biggest move to restart their movement since police shut down their encampments last fall. Three officers and one protester were injured.

The weekend confrontations in Oakland marked the latest violence between police and Occupy protesters in that city following clashes in October and November.

—Bobby White contributed to this article.

Write to Ryan Tracy at ryan.tracy@dowjones.com

Occupy Oakland demonstrations, arrests inject new life into movement

By Chelsea J. Carter, CNN

updated 4:50 PM EST, Mon January 30, 2012

Oakland police clashed with Occupy Oakland protesters on Saturday.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Oakland City Hall reopens
• NEW: Protesters vow to stand their ground at Occupy DC camp
• Mass arrests in Oakland among largest in city history, police say
• Arrests are reported in New York, Philadelphia and Tampa

Are the Occupy protests taking place where you live? Let us know.

(CNN) -- Oakland City Hall reopened Monday after municipal employees worked to clean up damage they said was caused over the weekend by Occupy protesters, about 400 of whom were arrested following clashes with police in the Northern California city.

Marvine White was one such worker, called in over the weekend to help scrub graffiti and vacuum floors, CNN affiliate KTVU reported.

"This is not protesting. This is something else. When you protest, you protest. This is madness here," White said.

The mass arrests, described by police as the largest in city history, appear to have injected new life into the Occupy movement as protesters in a number of American and European cities took to the streets Sunday to express their solidarity with the Occupy Oakland group.

"The Occupy movement will respond, as we have always responded: With an overwhelming show of collective resistance," Occupy Wall Street said in a statement posted on its website.

Windows broken, flags burned in Oakland City Hall

Occupy Oakland is part of a larger movement that began last year on New York's Wall Street and quickly spread across the globe. While the protesters have highlighted a number of causes, the overarching theme remained the same: populist anger over what activists portray as an out-of-touch corporate, financial and political elite.

From Philadelphia to Des Moines, Iowa, there were reports of Occupy protesters taking to the streets in mostly non-violent demonstrations.

Oakland police clash with protesters

Occupy Atlanta rallies to protect home

Twelve people were arrested in New York during an Occupy Wall Street protest that saw the group march from Gramercy Park to Tompkins Square Park, police said. Charges and details about the arrests were not immediately made available.

In Tampa, Florida, several protesters were arrested for blocking traffic, CNN affiliate Bay News 9 reported.

In Philadelphia, police reported several hundred protesters blocked traffic near City Hall and attempted to cut down a fence near an area park where Occupy protesters were recently evicted from camping out. Two protesters were arrested, according to CNN affiliate WPVI.

Overseas, Occupy protests were held outside U.S. consulates in Melbourne and Toronto, while statements of solidarity were issued by Occupy groups in Olso, Norway, and in Vancouver, British Columbia, according to Twitter and website posts late Sunday.

Much of the news stemming from the Occupy movement in recent weeks has focused on government efforts to relocate the protest groups, many of whom had taken up residence in city parks and plazas.

In Washington, D.C., the National Park Service gave Occupy protesters a deadline to end what it called "sleeping activity" at two longstanding camps established by demonstrators in the nation's capital. U.S. Park Police began enforcing the ban Monday, with Occupy protesters at one site defiantly huddling under a large blue tarp that they dubbed the "tent of dreams."

Park service to crack down on Occupy DC camps

Park police used a stun gun to apprehend one demonstrator, who tore down park service notices warning protesters of the Monday deadline.

But none of the weekend activities rose to the level of violence witnessed in Oakland, where protesters on Saturday clashed with police after they were prevented from taking over a long-vacant auditorium in the heart of downtown.

Protesters and police traded allegations over who was to blame for the violence that saw demonstrators throw rocks and bottles at police, who it turn fired bean bag rounds, tear gas and smoke grenades at the group.

Oakland Police Officer Johnna Watson described what transpired as "one of the largest mass arrests that we have seen in the city." The charges ranged from failure to disperse to vandalism, Watson said.

The city of about 420,000, located across the bay from San Francisco, has a long and sometimes violent history of activism dating back to the mid-1960s with the founding of the militant Black Panther Party and later for its anti-war protests.

Oakland has been a flash point of the Occupy movement since October, when police used tear gas to break up demonstrators who refused to leave downtown. One demonstrator, an Iraq war veteran, suffered a skull fracture after being hit with a police projectile, according to a veteran's group. Police said they acted after the crowd threw paint and other objects at officers.

In November, violence broke out again in Oakland when police shuttered an Occupy camp at an area park.

Twice, protesters have forced the shut down of the Port of Oakland.

But Saturday marked a new chapter in the Oakland Occupy movement when the group attempted to take over the long-vacant Henry Kaiser Convention Center to use as a hub.

The group said it was necessary, in part because "since November, the city of Oakland and its police force have made it impossible for us to meet, to serve food and to provide a place for people to stay."

The effort turned violent when police turned the group back, alleging the protesters were damaging construction equipment and fences near the convention center.

By nightfall, the protesters stormed a YMCA and later broke into City Hall, police and city officials said. Protesters have decried the allegations, saying they entered the buildings through open doors.

But Mayor Jean Quan told reporters that police have video showing protesters using a crowbar, or something similar to it, to pry open an emergency door to enter City Hall.

Quan took reporters through City Hall on Sunday, pointing to walls where graffiti had already been painted over and other areas of garbage, vandalism and destruction that she said had been left by protesters.

The mayor said there were no firm estimates as to how much damage had been caused, noting that workers had already painted over some "obscene" graffiti and that clean-up efforts would continue.

Meanwhile, Occupy Oakland put out a call for financial aid to help some of those arrested make bail.

"Our bail funds have been dwindling significantly as a result of the police backlash against occupy Oakland in the last month. If you are able, please donate," the group said.

CNN's Karan Olson, Greg Morrison, Marina Landis and Maria P. White contributed to this report.

Occupy Wall Street Takes Aim at Congress - The Daily Beast

Jan 18, 2012 10:56 AM EST

Occupy Wall Street touched a nerve in New York because it pointed to a truth—the banks ripped us off—and tapped that populist rage. But in Washington, the nerve seems to be dead.

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From our first days in Zuccotti Park, people would tell me: “You should be protesting in Washington, not here.” But that complaint missed the name and the point of Occupy Wall Street: that the banks have the real power, not the politicians. For its four-month anniversary, OWS effectively put this theory to the test by descending on the nation’s capital for the movement’s first national gathering since encampments began forming across the country last fall.

 

Occupy Congress was organized by members of Occupy DC to coincide with the first day of the House’s 2012 schedule. The day’s events were loosely scheduled around a multi-occupation “general assembly” on the west lawn of the Capitol, visits to the nearby congressional offices, and a march from the Capitol to the Supreme Court to the White House.

Crowds built over day as the rain cleared and the sun came out, but fell short of the 10,000 we’d hoped would come. Among the 2,000 or so who did come were OWS “celebrities” including Sgt. Shamar Thomas, a decorated Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq; retired Capt. Ray Lewis of the Philadelphia Police Department; and live-stream sensations Tim Pool (New York) and Spencer Mills(Oakland). Captain Lewis was briefly detained while he was searched by Capitol Police, then released to cheers from the crowd.  At a rally in front of the Rayburn House Office Building, demonstrators ran up the stairs and dropped banners from the balcony.

Although modest compared with many of the larger OWS actions in New York, it was a unique opportunity for many people from smaller cities to feel the energy that comes only from joining thousands of others in the streets.

PETE MAROVICH

“I’ve never seen so many people in the streets like that,” said Jordan, who came up from Occupy Charlotte to participate in J17 (the Twitter hashtag marking the day). “That’s more people than live in my hometown.”

Just as Occupy Wall Street had to balance its status as a national symbol with local concerns as it dealt with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Chief Ray Kelly’s aggressive response to our presence and local issues including stop-and-frisk, foreclosures, and homelessness, many in Occupy DC stressed its local goals. “People show up here and think this is national,” said Legba, an Occupy DC organizer. “We are D.C. Statehood is a huge issue for us.”

It felt as if the city was immune to protest—that Washington has professionalized managing dissent.

Past the message of dissent and dissatisfaction with our elected officials, who so often seem to represent moneyed interests rather than the citizens who elected them, the event was important as a step in Occupy Wall Street’s growth into an organization with a national infrastructure. Occupiers came from all parts of the country to congregate in public—a core tenet of OWS—and to meet face to face and begin to connect the dots from the encampments across America.

Those local occupations multiplied and grew because they created a public commons for the many citizens who feel cut off from their government to organize and participate in self-governance, and because the press attention focused on the New York occupation gave the participants and the press the sense that each local moment was part of a much bigger story—lowering the bar for participation and attention. As the encampments expanded, they became magnets for like-minded people and sympathetic or just curious nonactivists. But growing into a true and enduring national movement will happen only as the local occupations connect with each other. Much work remains to develop a grassroots national organization that has the numbers to wield real power.

For many of the New York occupiers I spoke to on Tuesday—and there seemed to be as many of them there as D.C. occupiers—there was an overwhelming sense that the capital was very different from the Apple. Maybe it’s that the police are so nice. Or how the D.C. occupiers are generally compliant and abide by the cops’ orders. There was no feeling of urgency, no tension.

It felt as if the city was immune to protest—that Washington has professionalized managing dissent.

As I sat in the House gallery yesterday evening, the representatives in the chamber acted as if they didn’t notice the occupiers there to protest them, let alone the couple of thousand more protesters outside.

Occupy Wall Street touched a nerve in New York because it pointed to a truth—the banks ripped us off—and tapped that populist rage. But in Washington, the nerve seems to be dead.

All the more indication that we were right to target Wall Street.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Jeff Smith, a former advertising professional, is a member of the Occupy Wall Street press team.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast ateditorial@thedailybeast.com.

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