Occupy's Spring Resurgence Continues with Union Square Clash
Occupy Wall Street's springtime resurgence is fully underway as the group tried to occupy a second park in New York this week but found itself again pushed out by police late Tuesday night. About 300 protesters (by the New York Daily News' estimate) had gathered in Union Square by the time police moved in on them. The group had been keeping a vigil there since getting evicted after an attempt to re-occupy Zuccotti Park on Saturday. The News reported one arrest, but Occupy said on its website that four had been arrested by Wednesday morning. Also, a woman in the park apparently went into labor as protesters faced down police. On Wednesday morning, a live feed showed protesters back in the park after police used a seldom-enforced park curfew to keep them out overnight. Gothamist explains how that works:
City parks (unlike Privately Owned Public Spaces [POPS] like Zuccotti Park) close at 1 a.m., but this curfew has almost never been implemented in Union Square, at least not that we can remember—not even in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, when the park became an impromptu candlelight memorial.
The group's got more actions planned for New York in the coming days, including a march for Florida shooting victim Trayvon Martin on Wednesday night, a pollution march on Saturday, and a rally at Fort Greene Park on Sunday. The strategy, apparently, is to simply wear police out.
