Boston Police Department officials interrupted Occupy Boston’s Health and Safety Improvement Festival Monday afternoon by prohibiting protesters from bringing a flame-retardant military tent into Dewey Square.
Shortly after noon, when the festival was initially slated to begin, a group of occupiers delivered a large tent wrapped in plastic wrap to the Dewey Square plaza.
Officials surrounded the protesters and told them that erecting a temporary structure larger than 120 square feet would be a violation of fire safety and building codes.
In response to the officials, demonstrators stood on top of the packaged tent and yelled, “This is what democracy looks like! This is what hypocrisy looks like!” as three helicopters circled above.
Protesters said they wanted to bring a winterized tent into the campsite to alleviate the city’s concerns about the safety of the encampment, which were addressed in a court hearing on Dec. 1.
“By rights, we had reasonable expectation to be moving a winterized tent . . . this would be in compliance also with the requests of the city, as stated before to us,” said Rod Norcross, 50, an Occupy Boston protester and resident of Franklin County. “Apparently, the city seems to be of two minds on the point. They blocked our effort to bring in a tent to comply with their own request.”
Even if protesters act within the rights of the First Amendment, they are not entitled to “permanently seize public property, create an unlawful encampment on it and maintain it in violation of health and safety regulations,” according to the City of Boston’s court filing.
Harvard University student Kristopher Martin, who spoke at the court hearing Thursday on behalf of Occupy Boston, said he still did not understand why a military tent was not allowed to enter Dewey Square when tents of lesser quality have been allowed to stand for months.
“Why stop this one when this one happens to be safer than the ones out there?” he asked over a crowd of protesters and photographers.
After officials left the circle surrounding the tent, protesters chanted, “We have more questions! We have more questions!”
After about 30 minutes, a few occupiers lifted the tent to the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Summer Street, where they loaded it into a blue Dodge truck with an Obama-Biden bumper sticker.
As protesters began to disperse, fashion designer and occupy sympathizer Hardip Kaur said she thought officials had a vendetta to remove the tent.
“By creating this situation, [officials] are trying to create fear in people and also to make this occupation look like it’s some freaks doing it, but it’s not,” Kaur, 57, said. “It’s very ordinary people who are in trouble now and they feel like they need a space, and I think this is a fantastic space. This is very symbolic to us.”
Boston police spokesman Eddy Chrispin said in a phone interview that there was no direct clash between occupiers and officers.
“We were already there,” he said. “There was no face-off. They were told about the city ordinance and they opted to walk away with the tent.”
Chrispin said that anyone who wants to set up a tent bigger than a certain size needs a permit. But both parties resolved the tent issue peaceably, he said.
“There was no need for us to step in,” he said.
Chrispin pointed out that occupiers, although allowed to protest, are still subject to state, city and federal laws.
“We’re going to allow them to practice their First Amendment rights, but they need to abide by the law like everyone else,” Crispin said.
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