Just a few weeks after moving into McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, Occupy DC stood out from its counterparts across the country because it hadn’t clashed with police, it hadn’t been threatened with eviction and it hadn’t seen the mass arrests that marked so many other Occupy encampments. These days, Occupy DC stands out simply because it’s one of the last major Occupy camps still standing.
Occupy Baltimore, one of the last holdouts, was evicted last week. Occupy Wall Street, the original, is long gone, evicted by police in a violent, mid-November raid. Occupy Philadelphia and Occupy LA were evicted within days of each other late last month, and Occupy Boston was kicked out of the park in early December.
In Richmond, Occupiers voluntarily and peacefully broke camp this week. In Denver, protesters set fires when police tried to evict them late Monday night; nine were arrested. Cities like Houston, Miami and Charlotte, N.C., still boast Occupy encampments, but they’re much smaller than the District’s twin camps.
| Occupy protesters arrested outside White House |
| Seven protesters were arrested outside the White House on Tuesday night after they sat down on the sidewalk and refused to move when U.S. Park Police asked them to leave. They were protesting a section in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act that they said permits indefinite detention of terrorism suspects regardless of nationality. |
As other camps are shut down, D.C. Occupiers are seeing an influx of new protesters arriving in the nation’s capital, some from as far away as Wisconsin and Florida. Occupiers in Philadelphia and elsewhere are trying to keep their movements alive without full-time encampments, but it’s hard to sustain an Occupy camp without an actual camp — so some are migrating.
“It’s really hard to connect with other people if you don’t have a site,” said Franklin O’Sullivan, who left Occupy Boston for Occupy DC.
One reason Occupy DC has outlasted so many other demonstrations is that, unlike police departments in other cities, the National Park Service, which oversees the protesters’ use of D.C. parks, has tried to accommodate the protesters. The Park Service classified Occupy as a “24-hour vigil” so it can remain camped in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza even though camping is banned there.
However, impatience with the movement is growing. District Mayor Vincent Gray last week asked the federal government to reimburse the city for Occupy-related costs, which have topped $1.6 million so far.
