Yesterday, Boston Police Department officials clashed with Occupy Boston protesters in Dewey Square over the attempted installation of a ‘winterized’ tent at the site.
A group of protesters delivered the tent to the site as part of Occupy Boston’s Health and Safety Improvement Festival, an event designed to improve the sanitation of the Dewey Square encampment in response to city officials’ concern. Police promptly surrounded the protesters and forced them to remove the tent, citing that the erection of the 120 square-foot tent would be a violation of city fire safety and building codes.
“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,” Occupy Boston member and Franklin County resident Rod Norcross told The Daily Free Press. “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.”
It seems nothing if not ironic that the city’s crackdown on Occupy structures and amenities over the past few weeks has directly followed the hearing about whether the protesters should be allowed to stay, during which the city used the defense of sanitation and safety concerns. Occupiers won the right to stay for at least another two weeks, and now that they attempt to install structures like sinks and flame retardant tents to improve safety and sanitation, the city government turns around and takes these things from them, effectively preventing protesters from maintaining a modicum of cleanliness and security.
Yes, the protesters technically did not possess the required permit for the tent, but yesterday’s spectacle just goes to show that the city is willing to compromise the safety and well-being of its citizens for the sake of evacuating the protesters and saving face.
The entire affair reflects extremely poorly on city law enforcement, as it has throughout the Occupy movement nationwide. Law enforcement officials have blown the situation out of proportion, overreacting time and time again and exacerbating the issue. Occupiers glorify their cause yet still flounder in vagueness and disorganization. The media frenzy descends on the spectacle, sensationalizing for the sake of a byline without stopping to consider the implications. Everything surrounding the Occupy movement has been overhyped and exaggerated, and a voice of reason has yet to emerge from either side.
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