With concern growing that authorities will attempt to evict Occupy DC protesters from McPherson Square, protesters are scrambling to block a potential eviction through legal means as the movement enters its fourth month in the park. Jeff Light, a lawyer for several McPherson Occupiers, has filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to prevent the Department of the Interior — which oversees the National Park Service, which control McPherson Square — from evicting protesters from the park, pending trial.
Light said other Occupy movements across the country have been evicted after police cited sanitary concerns. The Park Service has already posted warnings in both Occupy camps at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza that mention trash concerns and problems with rats, he said. And on Thursday, the D.C. Department of Health, under orders from Mayor Vincent Gray, will inspect Occupy DC’s kitchens after residents and business complained about rodents in the area.
There’s no telling whether that inspection, or the Park Service’s earlier memos, spell impending eviction for the Occupy movement. But Light doesn’t want to take that chance.
“What you’ve seen around the country with so many Occupies being evicted causes a lot of concern that that would likely happen here,” he said.
Park Service representatives have previously stated that they have no plans to evict protesters. But on Wednesday, Park Service spokesman Bill Line said the Park Service would let a Washington Examiner reporter know when it was “ready to make a move and communicate with demonstrators.”
The suit filed Tuesday night expands an earlier one that was filed on behalf of one protester after an early-December police standoff during which protesters erected a large wooden structure in McPherson Square and refused to leave when U.S. Park Police ordered them out.
Light says a Park Police sergeant informed a protester that police planned to clear tents out of one section of the square after police arrested 31 protesters. A federal judge later granted Occupy D.C. an injunction that requires police to notify protesters 24 hours before they plan to clear the park.
Now, Light is asking to upgrade that suit to a class-action lawsuit that would encompass all protesters who sleep in the park. He said he’s worried that, with the Occupy DC encampment’s status as one of the last Occupy camps remaining, it’s only a matter of time before police attempt to evict protesters.
“I think that they did actually threaten to evict a large portion of the park after the barn was taken down,” he said, adding that he believes “the communication to the Park Police that we were seeking an injunction was part of the reason that they didn’t go ahead and do an eviction.”
