Occupy DC and Police Have First Major Confrontation

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

05 December 11

t approximately 2 am on a chilly Sunday morning a group of DC Occupiers arrived with lumber and built a 25-foot-high structure that they called a "community shelter." They completed the frame of the structure before the United States Park Police arrived and ordered them to remove it.

The police issued an ultimatum at 10 am: Occupy DC had until 11:30 am to remove the building, which the US Park Police deemed a permanent structure. But the Occupiers refused to remove the structure. They asserted that the "community shelter" was not built on a foundation and could be moved. Therefore, the mobile building did not violate park regulations.

By the 11:30 am deadline some sixteen protesters remained in or on the structure. Most of the rest were moved behind yellow crime-scene tape. Throughout the day, fifteen occupiers were arrested for crossing the police line or interfering with it. Michael Patterson, 21, who described himself as a war veteran from Alaska, was among the early arrestees who returned to the park before the sixteen still clinging to the community shelter were eventually arrested. Patterson said the protesters were making a statement, pointing out that they "are not the normal protest group. We are not just going to march for two or three hours," he said. "We are here to stay 'cause the system needs to change."

Police on horseback repeatedly used their towering presence to keep protesters behind the line. But they unsuccessfully tried to keep water and food from the Occupiers who stayed in or on the structure. Throughout the daylong standoff, food, water and cigarettes were thrown to those still inside of the wooden structure. This was the first major confrontation between Occupy DC and police in the three-month occupation of McPherson Square.

McPherson Square in just two blocks from the White House.

"Our message today is that the public space in America belongs to the people," said Rob Wohl, 23, a protester from Arizona who remained inside the shelter hours after Park Police officials issued their ultimatum. Denouncing lenders that made profits while foreclosing on homeowners, Wohl said, "Let the world know that the police are arresting people who put up a structure, not who took one away."

Sometime around 5 pm negotiations monitored by the National Lawyers Guild took a turn for the worse when a building inspector condemned the structure as unsafe. Six protesters who had come down from the roof quickly climbed back up, each claiming that the inspector took less than five minutes to declare the structure unsafe. Ann Wilcox of the Lawyers Guild echoed their concern. Wilcox said the inspector had no checklist and took very little time to make his decision. The inspector was an employee of the National Park Service. According to several Occupiers, blueprints were presented to the group's General Assembly and approved by architects who designed the structure.

There was no sign of any problems with the structure throughout the day, sometimes supporting as many as eight people on the roof.

Around 6 pm Park Police issued three warnings to the sixteen still in or on top of the structure. Demonstrators started chanting, "Occupy Wall Street, Occupy K Street, Occupy everywhere and never give it back." A few hundred supporters chanted "Shame!" as the police began to arrest those remaining in the structure. Ten were arrested before the police turned their attention to six who were on the roof. An armored personnel carrier pulled up on one side of the structure, while a giant inflatable air cushion was deployed on the other side.v

Then came the cherry picker.

Police used the picker to remove three of the last six remaining Occupiers. Two jumped onto the giant air mattress and one had to be taken down a ladder after he evaded the cherry picker. All in all, thirty-one were arrested and the structure was dismantled by the police. The rest of the Occupiers and their tents remain in McPherson Square. We will see in the coming days if the relationship between the Occupation and the police sours as it did in other cities.

Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott will be spending a year covering the presidential election from Iowa.

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