Wall St. Protesters Can’t Return Gear to Park

Wall Street protesters won’t be allowed to return gear such as sleeping bags to Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan after the privately owned space is closed for cleaning beginning tomorrow, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
“People will have to remove all their belongings and leave the park,” Kelly said today after a memorial ceremony in Battery Park. “After it’s cleaned, they’ll be able to come back. But they won’t be able to bring back the gear. The sleeping bags, that sort of thing, will not be able to be brought back into the park.”
The Occupy Wall Street protest that began in New York on Sept. 17 has spread to cities including Denver, Boston and San Francisco. More than 700 have been arrested in New York demonstrations, mostly on disorderly conduct charges, and about 140 were arrested this week in Boston. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he supports the protesters’ free-speech rights as long as they don’t violate the law.
Brookfield Office Properties Inc., a New York-based real estate developer that owns the park at the intersection of Broadway and Liberty Street near the World Trade Center site, agreed to create it as a public amenity open 24 hours a day year-round. It also established rules against camping, lying on benches, and using tarps and tents.
‘Defend the Occupation’
The demonstrators view the cleaning and the prohibition on gear in the park as an “attempt to shut down Occupy Wall Street for good,” Patrick Bruner, a spokesman for the group, said in an e-mail statement. He called on people to come to the site at 6 a.m., an hour before cleaning is scheduled to begin, “to defend the occupation from eviction.”

Protesters have been camping at the site since the demonstration began. The park has become a sea of backpacks, blue tarps and sleeping bags, which the occupants roll up and stack in piles during daylight.
Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne, Kelly’s chief spokesman, said a disorderly conduct charge may arise when a person blocks traffic on a sidewalk or roadway. In cases where an individual violates rules on private property, an owner may contact police to enforce rights against trespassing, Browne said. He said he had “every expectation” that demonstrators would comply with the law.
Posted Notices
Yesterday, Brookfield executives announced their intention to clean the park, and city officials told demonstrators they would have to leave temporarily to allow the clearing of debris and cleaning of park surfaces. Brookield posted notices around the park telling demonstrators that camping, erection of tents, use of tarps, sleeping bags and lying on the ground are against the rules.
Last night, Bloomberg visited the park and Deputy Mayor Caswell Holloway issued a statement telling the demonstrators, “the cleaning will be done in stages and the protesters will be able to return to the areas that have been cleaned, provided they abide by the rules.”