Police Vow to Evict Wall Street Protesters Friday Morning

By Edgar Sandoval, John Doyle and Helen Kennedy, NYDaily News

13 October 11

Occupy Wall Street showdown looms between protesters and NYPD cops over cleaning of Zuccotti Park.

Friday morning showdown loomed between Occupy Wall Street and the NYPD after protesters vowed to defy orders to leave Zuccotti Park so it could be cleaned.

The city says protesters can return to the park after the cleanup - but without the sleeping bags, tarps and coolers that have made their 27-day sit-in possible.

"We see this as a pretext to shut the occupation down," said protester Amin Husain.

Occupy Wall Street - an amorphous group that has tapped into national populist anger at corporate excess - said it would resist any attempt by the NYPD to shift protesters from the public plaza where they have camped since Sept. 17.

"They will not foreclose our home!" Husain told the crowd. "This is an occupation, not a permitted picnic. We won't allow them to come in."

They geared up for a confrontation, sending out an emergency alert calling on supporters to mobilize at 6 a.m. Friday "to defend the occupation from eviction."

"We'll position ourselves with our brooms and mops in a human chain around the park, linked at the arms," protest organizers wrote on their Facebook page.

"If the NYPD attempts to enter, we'll peacefully/non-violently stand our ground and those who are willing will get arrested."

The NYPD said it would arrest anyone interfering with lawful attempts to clean the park by its owner, Brookfield Properties. Gear left behind by protesters will be judged abandoned and thrown away, officials said.

"They now have decided they want to clean the area, and they're going to do that," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "And we'll stand by and make sure that the peace is maintained."

To counter Brookfield Properties' claims that the park has become unsanitary, Occupy Wall Street started their own effort to clean it up.

Hundreds of volunteer raised mops and brooms into the air - relishing the image of "cleaning up Wall Street."

The crowd voted to spend $3,000 from their $150,000 donation fund on power washers, gardening supplies and professional sanitation workers.

"Today we clean, to call their bluff," said Nicole Carty, 23, of Brooklyn.

However, after rented power washers arrived Thursday afternoon, the protesters realized they had no water supply.

"We can't use the power washers we have. My hands are scarred from cleaning. It's hard cleaning without water," Damian Guarniere, 41, said.

Brookfield Properties, which owns the park but must legally allow 24-hour public access to it, appealed to the NYPD on Wednesday evening to clear it so it could be cleaned, saying conditions "have deteriorated to unsanitary and unsafe levels."

Mayor Bloomberg made a surprise visit to the encampment Wednesday night to say the cleanup would begin Friday.

Brookfield Properties distributed fliers Thursday morning alerting the protesters that power washing would begin Friday at 7 a.m., one third of the park at a time.

The city promised the protesters they would "be able to return to the areas that have been cleaned, provided they abide by the rules that Brookfield has established for the park."

However, those rules explicitly bar sleeping bags, tarps and coolers, which are necessary to sustain the encampment.

"After it's cleaned, they'll be able to come back, but they won't be able to bring back the gear, the equipment, sleeping bags," Kelly said. "That sort of thing will not be able to be brought back into the park."

Protesters said it was a clear ploy to end the sit-in.

"If Bloomberg truly cares about sanitation here, he should support the installation of port-o-sans and Dumpsters," said protester Patrick Bruner, 23.

On Twitter, the protesters asked New Yorkers to "call 311 and tell Bloomberg not to evict us!"

The Working Families Party called a rally for 6 p.m. Thursday at the park to "defend the rights of the Wall Street occupiers to assemble peaceably" and urged supporters of the movement to show up at 6 a.m. Friday to face off with the sanitation crews.

"We call on Mayor Bloomberg to honor his word that he will not impede the protestors," said Executive Director Dan Cantor.