Yesterday, a Suffolk Superior Court judge ruled against the Occupy Boston protesters, removing a restraining order that prevented the city from evacuating the encampment in Dewey Square.
In the judge’s decision, in which she denied a motion for a preliminary injunction that would prevent eviction, she cited that “while Occupy Boston protesters may be exercising their expressive rights during the protest, they have no privilege under the First Amendment to seize and hold the land on which they sit.”
Dewey Square and the Rose Kennedy Greenway are publicly owned but privately maintained spaces, and as such, it was inevitable that the protesters would be forced to leave at some point. Especially with the onset of the winter weather and the ban on winterized tents at the encampment, there was no possible way that occupiers’ stay in Dewey Square could have come to a happy ending.
Conditions in Dewey Square also would have lent themselves to the group’s disbandment. Problems with sanitation, fire hazards, the homeless and drug dealers prevalent throughout the encampment would only have escalated during the wintertime and endangered those who live there.
Many other city courts have done the same with their Occupy protests; in fact, other cities have taken a less judicial approach in dealing with the protesters. Occupy Boston participants should be grateful that the city has maintained some modicum of proper procedure and logic throughout the legal interactions with the protesters.
This new development could prove pivotal in the Occupy movement. If protesters are forced to leave, will they move their demonstration to another location? Will they take to the pages of the Internet? Or will the movement fizzle out? If protesters can organize their message and formulate concrete goals once and for all, they can prove that their message can extend beyond Dewey Square and in doing so, legitimize the whole movement. Until then however, the judge was absolutely justified in making her decision to remove the protesters’ protection against eviction.
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