Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Embeddable November 14, 2011 Brookfield Letter to the Mayor Re: Zuccotti Park

By Susan Duclos

Letter from November 14, 2011 from Brookefield to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, embedded below.

Via Gothamist:

Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway filed a motion on behalf of the city today opposing a court order requiring the NYPD to allow Occupy Wall Street demonstrators back into Zuccotti Park. In filing the motion, Holloway asserted that "people who have a known history of violent interaction with the police” have been gathering in the park, and “makeshift items” that he said could be used as weapons, "such as cardboard tubes with metal pipes inside, had been observed among the occupiers' possessions." He also noted that after the October 1st Brooklyn Bridge march, "knives, mace and hypodermic needles were observed discarded on the roadway."

"It was our understanding that the protesters may have had a significant number of items that could potentially be used as weapons," Halloway writes in the motion, adding that there had been little to no crime in Zuccotti Park before the occupation began, but since there had been "73 misdemeanor and felony complaints" and about 50 arrests. Although the initial order to vacate (see below) promised demonstrators they would be allowed in—though without tents and sleeping bags—Bloomberg is now refusing to comply with the court order, and the park remains closed. A growing throng of demonstrators have gathered around it.

Justice Michael Stallman is expected to issue his decision around 3 p.m. In the meantime, here is Brookfield's letter to Bloomberg, which was sent to the Mayor yesterday. The letter urges the city to intervene in the interest of "public safety" and cites media reports of "violence, outbursts of bigotry, and escalating sanitary conditions."



Brookfield Letter to the Mayor Re Zuccotti Park




You can find all WuA's Occupier antics posts at the class warfare label page here.

(This post follows up on two previous ones, here and here about the early morning eviction of Occupiers from Zuccotti Park, the order against eviction and the hearing to determine whether Occupiers can return or not as well as Brookefield's statement about eviction and closure of Park.)

It is noteworthy that the hearing Judge, Stallman, did not order the City to comply with the earlier order to the City to allow protesters with tents to be allowed back into park.

.