The Slow Death of Occupy D.C.
Out go the tents. (Screenshot from OccupiedAir livestream)
Early this morning, the Park Police rolled into McPherson Square, set up barricades, took down the Tent of Dreams, distributed blue flyers describing what they were going to do, and after giving Occupiers about an hour to remove stuff from their tents, started methodically going through the park in yellow jumpsuits to bag and tag what hadn't been taken. Some headlines call it a raid, but the overall impression is more like a toxic waste dump cleanup, with months of detritus being cleared away.
"All persons not in compliance will be subject to arrest, and property will be collected as evidence," the notice reads. "Any temporary structure used for camping is subject to seizure as an abatement of a public nuisance."
The public nuisance language bears out hints dropped by the Department of the Interior at Tuesday's court hearing: Stuff could actually be taken out for sanitary reasons, even if it wasn't technically violating the no-camping regulations. By the time they're done, some of the tents might be left, but with nothing that made them habitable.
By giving the protesters a week's warning, and saying that the tents can remain as a symbolic protest, the cops have avoided the kind of moral outrage and vivid imagery that accompanied evictions in New York, Oakland, Miami. According to Occupy D.C. attorney Ann Wilcox, compliant tents will be allowed to remain indefinitely, as long as people are around to continue the demonstration. "The community presence sort of keeps it all going," she told me at around 8:00 a.m. "This is not going to be like Miami or L.A., where they say, 'you've got to go.'"
But as more and more tents go down, it looks like very little of the village Occupy D.C. started out as will remain, which protesters hadn't anticipated. And without the residential component, the self-governing community element of the protest—the one I found most creative and intriguing—totally dissolves, no matter how long the more conventional teach-ins and marches continue to take place. At the moment, some are going to Freedom Plaza, which is permitted through the end of February. But what do you think's going to happen then?
Even if this gets litigated in court post facto, I'm going to bet the Park Service has covered its legal butt—and if the fight is about whether tents were properly removed or not, most people who still cared will lose interest.
Time for Occupy D.C. to figure out what's next.
Keep tabs on the livestream here.
11:38 am
thank the lord. watching the live stream of the whole thing show how amateur and idiotic these people are. get them out of our city, please! i want my park back!
1:39 pm
so who is gonna pay to have the part restored? not those deadbeats.
2:38 pm
I love how the Occupy Live Stream was brought to me by ads from Capitol One. The irony is delicious
10:43 pm
Good riddance
10:39 pm
How can any compassionate person delight in the misery of others. There are people tonight, homeless people taken in by Occupy McPherson Square, who have been driven out of tents by the National Park Police back onto the streets of DC. If you believe that corporations should receive preferential treatment under our laws then you have every reason to be pleased with what has gone down at McP Square. If you think Congressmembers should be able to use their offices to personally enrich themselves you should be delighted at the assault on our local Occupy movement. This movement cannot be stopped.
5:53 am
You guys never went to sit in McPherson Square. And there is Franklyn Park a block away NOT OCCUPIED that you don't go to either. Get the fuck outta here with your self serving bullshit. You dont give a fuck about that park in real life, you're just sad spiteful individuals whose values are really screwed up. Occupy was for DC voting rights amongst other things. Oh I forgot, you commute from MD or VA and try to tell our city how we should live and are brainwashed by the corrupt politicians and media.
Wake the fuck up, this country is broken and we need to get back to the basics. For the people, of the people and by the people. Corporations ARE NOT PEOPLE!
7:50 am
Oh more of the Occupy DC drivel. I am sure that most readers on Washingtoncitypaper agree that this country could use a little change (or a lot). But this change is not coming from a rogue group of immature little twits who think that camping and banging drums is helping. It appears the "movement" has turned into little more than antagonist of the police force that doesn't want to be there anymore than you want them there. If you want to create change grow up and quit looking like D bags. Or get a better PR group because the videos that come from this are less than flattering.