Occupy Wall Street: Not our neighbors
Via Don Surber, a local New York resident who speaks for many:
“Frankly we’re not interested in a good neighbor policy. The occupiers are not our neighbors,” said Linda Gerstman, a board member at 15 Broad Street. “Our neighbors do not beat on drums while children are sleeping, our neighbors do not verbally attack people on their way to work, our neighbors do not break into our buildings and vandalize them, our neighbors do not urinate and defecate in the street. These occupiers need to vacate our neighborhood.”
In Oakland, officials had the same sentiment and decided that enough was enough:
Under the cover of darkness early Tuesday, hundreds of police swept into Oakland’s Occupy Wall Street protest, firing tear gas and beanbag rounds before clearing out an encampment that demonstrators had hoped would stir a revolution.
In less than an hour, the 2-week-old, miniature makeshift city was in ruins.
Scattered across the area were overturned tents, pillows, sleeping bags, yoga mats, tarps, backpacks, food wrappers and water bottles. Signs decrying corporations and police still hung from lampposts or lay on the ground.
Protesters had stayed awake through the night, waiting for the expected raid. Officers and sheriff’s deputies from across the San
Francisco Bay area surrounded the plaza in front of City Hall around 5 a.m. and closed in.
Eighty-five people were arrested, mostly on suspicion of misdemeanor unlawful assembly and illegal camping, police said.
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Posted by Rick Rice on October 26, 2011.Filed under Occupy Protest.
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