Lincoln Park at 10:00pm this past Sunday.
7:45am | Talk of confiscation turned to talk of victory Sunday night, as police not only left Occupy Long Beach property in peace, but also decided against taking action when dozens of OLBers refused to vacate Lincoln Park at 10:00pm.
On Friday OLB sent out a press release stating that “South Division Watch Commander Lt. J[eff] Li[e]berman and two other officers served verbal notice to Occupy Long Beach that most the group’s belongings, other than the sleeping bags and blankets in use at the time, must be removed from the park and the sidewalk by this Sunday, November 27 at 10PM or they will be confiscated … [despite] that at its last meeting the City Council had requested a report from the City Manager and City Attorney regarding the use of the park by OLB for exercise of our first amendment right to peaceful assembly and to explore how the City could work cooperatively with OLB.”
However, on Sunday night OLB spokespeople told the Long Beach Post that OLB had succeeded in getting word of police plans to Councilmember Rae Gabelich, who assured OLB that the council had not been informed of this decision by police, saying she would call City Manager Pat West to see about staying police action.
Meanwhile, OLB said, another city councilmember contacted Police Chief Jim McDonnell, who disclaimed knowledge of any such plans by police.
Whatever the chain of events, OLB’s Tammara Phillips said that at approximately 4:00pm Sunday police promised that if OLB made an effort to eliminate some of what has been accumulated at the site — which OLB did — police would not take confiscatory action (yes, “confiscatory” is a real word).
But the galvanizing genie seemed to be out of the bottle on this night. Eighty or so Occupiers had shown up for a potential showdown, and when the six police officers arriving shortly after 10:00pm ordered OLB to vacate the park, a large number of protesters — some of whom had recently received training in tactics of nonviolent resistance — refused to do so. “The reason I want to take the park,” an OLBer told his compatriots at 10:15pm as they discussed their next move, “is that taking a public space is an effective form of leverage against the government for redress of … grievances.”
“If they hadn’t agitated us, we’d all be asleep on the sidewalk and quiet right now,” an OLBer told me as we stood in the park, 11:00pm fast approaching and police nowhere in sight.
The passivity on the part of the LBPD was a change of tack by a police force that only a week ago deployed about 20 officers to deal with 20 or so protesters who chose to erect tents on the sidewalk in an effort to protect themselves from the cold and rain that hit the southland last weekend.
Perhaps coincidentally, Sunday night featured the largest media contingent that Lincoln Park has seen in the 46 days of the Occupation, including at least five television crews (e.g., KTLA, CBS2/KCAL9). As the Long Beach Post has reported, the LBPD has regularly tracked the media presence on site.
KTLA reporter Rebecca Hall chats with an OLBer in Lincoln Park as 11:00pm approaches.
An OLB spokesperson told the Long Beach Post that, contrary to the motion passed by city council on November 15 requesting a report “on the practices of other cities to accommodate the Occupy protestors, and a discussion of options the City may consider to provide a free-speech zone or other means to address the issue,” to date OLB has not been included in the compilation of said report, and that Councilmember Gabelich “was disturbed to find out that we hadn’t been involved.”
The Long Beach Post is seeking comment from Gabelich and the LBPD on pertinent issues discussed above.