LOS ANGELES? Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says Occupy LA protesters must leave their encampment on the lawn of City Hall by 12:01 a.m. Monday.
The mayor and police Chief Charlie Beck announced the planned ouster at a Friday afternoon news conference.
Continue ReadingThe mayor praised the protest and its aims but said the camp of about 485 tents is unsustainable and City Hall Park needs to be cleaned and restored.
Elected city leaders initially embraced the campers and the deadline to leave is a tactic that stands in stark contrast to middle-of-the-night police raids used in other cities. Villaraigosa handed out plastic ponchos one rainy day. The City Council passed a resolution to support Occupy LA. Officials found an alternate site for a farmers market that the camp displaced.
But as Occupy Los Angeles entered its seventh week with no end in sight, the dialogue started getting strained.
City Hall still made friendly overtures, trying to make a deal with the activists by offering them 10,000 square feet of office space and empty lots for a garden if they would pack up their tents. Fallout after the proposal was made public and caused the deal to be rescinded.
As camps in other cities degenerated into unrest that led to mass arrests, Occupy L.A. has remained largely a peaceful commune. Police arrive on site only when called in to investigate petty crimes. Marches have resulted in only about five spontaneous arrests - the other 70 or so involved protesters who deliberately got arrested to make a political statement.
The hands-off strategy perhaps underscores the liberal leanings of a city that has often been known for counterculture movements. But it marks a departure for a police force still striving to emerge from the shadow of the 1991 beating of Rodney King, the Rampart corruption scandal of the late ?90s, and more recently, the 2007 crackdown at an immigrants rights rally in which demonstrators and reporters were injured with batons and rubber bullets.
This time, even before the first tent was set up on the City Hall lawn, Jim Lafferty, a lawyer who has been representing Occupy LA, said Police Chief Charlie Beck assured him protesters would be left alone if they remained peaceful. Beck promised no surprise raids would be carried out, said Lafferty, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild?s Los Angeles chapter.
Protesters have done their part to cooperate. They?ve readily complied with health inspectors? demands for more portable toilets, trash pickup and food sanitation. They?ve also worked to tamp down anarchist inciters in the camp who want to provoke authorities, as well as activists with hot tempers.
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