Cynical Police Action
by digby
This column in the NY Daily News about the growing stratification of the society Occupy Wall Street is building is fascinating. It discusses the group’s stated goal of creating an antirely different democratic/social organization with a new form of decision making and allocation of resources (of which I admit to being fairly skeptical — but then I’m old.) The article discusses how difficult it is to do such a thing and examines the way the culture has broken into two camps — participants and everyone else.
However, fascination at the movement’s growing pains quickly turns to horror when you get to this part:
But while officers may be in a no-win situation, at the mercy of orders carried on shifting political winds and locked into conflict with a so-far almost entirely non-violent protest movement eager to frame the force as a symbol of the oppressive system they’re fighting, the NYPD seems to have crossed a line in recent days, as the park has taken on a darker tone with unsteady and unstable types suddenly seeming to emerge from the woodwork. Two different drunks I spoke with last week told me they’d been encouraged to “take it to Zuccotti” by officers who’d found them drinking in other parks, and members of the community affairs working group related several similar stories they’d heard while talking with intoxicated or aggressive new arrivals.
The NYPD’s press office declined to comment on the record about any such policy, but it seems like a logical tactic from a Bloomberg administration that has done its best to make things difficult for the occupation — a way of using its openness against it.
“He’s got a right to express himself, you’ve got a right to express yourself,” I heard three cops repeat in recent days, using nearly identical language, when asked to intervene with troublemakers inside the park, including a clearly disturbed man screaming and singing wildly at 3 a.m. for the second straight night.
“The first time I’ve heard cops mention our First Amendment rights,” cracked one occupier after hearing a lieutenant read off of that apparent script.
“A lot of you people smell,” a waggish cop shot back later after an occupier asked if he might be able to help find more appropriate accommodations for a particularly pungent and out-of-sorts homeless man.
“The police are saying ‘it’s a free for all at Zuccotti so you can go there,’” said Daniel Zetah, a member of several working groups including community affairs. “Which makes our job harder and harder because the ratio is worse and worse.”
It sounds as though they are promoting criminal behavior in order to disgrace the movement — and perhaps turn some of the protesters into victims of criminal predators. “Free for all” also means “anything goes.”
It might be useful for the OWS folks to consult with some people from Santa Monica, a liberal city in the midst of a major metropolis which has had a longstanding conflict between its desire to be decent to the homeless in the face of the rest of the city and environs pushing their dispossessed across its borders. It’s been quite the saga over the years and the outcome has not been particularly satisfying. Perhaps the working groups at Zuccotti Park will have more luck.
One thing Santa Monica did not have to face, however, was police in other jurisdictions doing this to degrade its reputation and create violence and mayhem within in its borders, (at least to my knowledge.) This appears to be a conscious effort to sabotage the movement. And it may work.
Feeding the homeless is a beautiful thing and I’m sure that many of those folks can find peace and safety in the numbers at Zuccotti Park they can’t find on the streets. But the homeless aren’t all saints any more than the rest of the population and it’s very difficult to deal with predators in your midst when the police — a quasi-military force — are basically working with them. Which, it seems, they are.
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