What is the state, exactly, of OWS in Zucotti Park right now?

[intheflow]

There are so many threads swirling around I'm having a hard time keeping track of what's happening. Here's what I think has happened over the last 24 hours:

1) Riot police raid OWS in Zucotti Park, trashing thousands of dollars of private property, arresting about 200 people, while blocking off entrance and egress to/from the park especially press and including restricting air traffic over the park.

2) Judge Lucy Billings rules that action was bullshit and protesters need to be allowed back in the park, tents and all.

3) Bloomberg takes Billings off the case and puts a new judge on it.

4) New judge says protesters can come back. Sans tents.

5) NYPD says all the stuff they trashed, including the library, is safe in police custody and can be picked up on Wednesday. (Although the photos I saw sure didn't look like anything was safely handled, many items were broken, and who can prove ownership of a tent to pick it up, anyway?)


My questions are:

Is this a good summation of the time-line and events thus far?

Have I missed or misunderstood any part?

Thanks in advance! :hi:

[brooklynite]

1. Allowing for political bias...

2) Judge Lucy Billings rules that action was bullshit and protesters need to be allowed back in the park, tents and all.

Not what she ruled; she issued a temporary restraining order (making no judgement of the action)pending a formal hearing

3) Bloomberg takes Billings off the case and puts a new judge on it.

Judge Billings handles Real Estate cases; if you have proof that the Mayor specifically interfered, please present it.

[intheflow]

3. How was Billings removed from the case?

How did the case come before her in the first place if it wasn't in her jurisdiction to rule on it? :shrug:

[brooklynite]

6. She was approached with a request for a temporary restraining order...

...but the State Court has a separate process for assigning judges for actual hearings.

[intheflow]

19. I still don't understand how she could have issued a restraining order

without having the authority to do so. And you're saying there was an actual hearing today with the new judge? I'm not trying to be obtuse, but the whole story sounds like Swiss cheese, it's so full of holes.

[brooklynite]

21. My guess is that any Judge can issue a temporary order, just as any judge can issue a search warrant

[MADem]

31. Yes, we see this all the time on crime dramas, actually!

And a FRIENDLY judge--like the first one, with an ACLU background--was the perfect one for those lawyers to approach, from their perspective anyway. They had to know it would be a crap shoot on the second go-round, though.

[PoliticAverse]

9. Apparently lawyers specifically called her in the middle of the night.

Read: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/judge-lucy-billings-signed-occupy-wall-street-order-aclu-veteran-article-1.977725#ixzz1dnSdiHk4

[MADem]

14. They were trying to assure a ruling, plainly. nt

[MADem]

13. Judges who hear restraining order requests are not assigned to follow a case through all

its ins-n-outs. They are there for one item on one occasion. They rule, and that's that.

Same deal with bail judges--as an example, the judge that gave the low bail to Sandusky isn't going to be the one who sits on the bench when he's tried for child molestation. She did her bit (despite being affiliated with that guy's charity--she should have recused herself), and that's that.

[intheflow]

18. I didn't say that they do.

It's just strikes me as strange that one judge would issue an order and then another appears less than 12 hours later. That seems really sketchy.

[MADem]

29. Well, the lawyers were gaming the system, as was noted elsewhere in this thread, and

I don't think most judges work a twelve hour day.

It doesn't seem sketchy to me at all, particularly when the computer program that picked the judge randomly chose one who has ruled both for and against Bloomberg, and is a respected individual.

[PETRUS]

5. Right on #2, question on #3.

On whose authority was Judge Billings removed? Is she not a NY Supreme Court justice? Is she only limited to real estate cases? And what constitutes a real estate case? Not an eviction? I'm not being belligerent, I really just don't know.

[snot]

37. This is the first I've heard of judges being assigned based on areas of law,

other than criminal or family law.

I mean, I know that's the excuse that was given; but have OWS lawyers confirmed that, or anyone else who doesn't work for Bloomberg?

[PETRUS]

2. That's about right.

1a) My understanding is that the authorities not only blocked access to the park itself, but to the whole area - setting up roadblocks, shutting down trains (subways), and closing the Brooklyn bridge.

1b) Clubs and pepperspray were used - people were injured, it wasn't just property damage.

[raptorguy85]

4. zucatti park

Weren't they just going to clean it up and let them back in?

[PETRUS]

7. They're back. GA was livestreamed earlier.

[PoliticAverse]

8. Comments...

1) Essentially correct, but the arrest figure is apparently closer to 70.

2) Yes her order was made in the middle of the night and temporary. The city apparently ignored it.

3) A hearing was scheduled for the daytime and a judge was picked at random from the pool of judges (Bloombnerg doesn't
pick the judge).

4) The new judge let the temporary order expire, allowing the park owners' rules to be in effect.
See his ruling here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/266874-ows111511.html

5) Correct and it looked like some stuff was put into a compacting garbage truck.

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. According to a friend near Zuccotti, police and sanitation were told to trash everything without

regard...check this:

Bloomberg said this a.m. that people can go pick up their stuff that was taken from the park last night from the Sanitation Dept. garage on the west side. But the Sanit crews were told to treat it all as trash and they dumped and destroyed ...much of it including not only the OWS Library >5k of books but all the medical supplies in the med tent. I've heard people who were there last night say the garbage men were taking things home saying "this would just go to the landfill if I didn't take it" when told it was private property.

[lonestarnot]

12. Maybe Bloomberg should be held responsible for the losses.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

11. Several mistatements

1) The city does not control the airspace. That belongs to the FAA. I looked at the FAA website. One TFR in the area and not for this action. Don't know NYC well enough if the park was covered by it. Top of the TFR as I recall 3000 ft MSL. Here are the specifics: http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_1_4984.html

2) A mayor can not get a judge off the case directly. He may have called a friend, (who knows at this point), but he lacks the direct authority.

[PETRUS]

16. News agencies are reporting that the city closed the airspace.

"The news" gets things wrong often enough, though. Maybe the city just asked and got compliance?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

33. Media rarely gets specialized things like this correct

[intheflow]

17. According to one of the coordinates on the FAA link,

they definitely shut down air space over Manhattan, though the specific coordinate given was for Central Park, a bit uptown from OWS but still definitely over the island.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

34. It was limited to 2999 ft nd below

[intheflow]

36. Which means... what?

Birds were prohibited to fly over? The Guardian reported it was to stop news helicopters from flying over. Presumably, they fly lower than, say, commercial aircraft.

[Graybeard]

15. Michael Moore just said the Feds are involved in the shut-downs.

On Countdown with KO Moore said that the federal government and Homeland Security are providing coordination and support to all of the Mayors of the occupied cities.

[intheflow]

20. Also reported in the Minneapolis Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/top-news-in-minneapolis/were-occupy-crackdowns-aided-by-federal-law-enforcement-agencies

[NYC_SKP]

22. Absent additional evidence, I call bullshit on Michael Moore's assertion.

And bet a dollar that it doesn't surface in a day or two or three or a week.

Are big cities looking to federal agencies for guidance?

They'd be crazy not to.

That's different, though, from any coordinated top down effort, the kind being described here and there.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

25. I'm curious. What "guidance" do the police and mayors need ...

... from the feds to roust a bunch of people from a park?

I've this point made in a couple threads. What guidance? How to operate a garbage truck? How to work the pepper-spray dispensers? How to charge people with loitering and disorderly conduct?

[NYC_SKP]

26. I think it would be more, "hey, is our ass covered if we ________?" type stuff.

And/or "if it gets ugly will you have our backs" and/or "are we stifling civil rights if we....?"

that's what I think smart mayors do, they talk to state and to federal attorneys.

This is a big deal, they would want to know, I think.

:shrug:

[brooklynite]

23. and Michael Moore would know this how?

Or is he just reporting the same unsourced blog post that everyone else is?

[intheflow]

24. This is not a blog:

http://www.examiner.com/top-news-in-minneapolis/were-occupy-crackdowns-aided-by-federal-law-enforcement-agencies

[NYC_SKP]

27. No, but it is unsubstantiated crap. Here:

I posted my thoughts about it in another reply:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2318367&mesg_id=2318477

Small town reporter speculation bullshit.

[cyglet]

28. Rather insulting

that you think Minneapolis/St Paul is a "small town", but ok.

They had DHS agents in Oakland, so why is it inconceivable?

[MADem]

32. I'll bet there's DHS agents in Oakland often.

It's not an insignificant port, after all.

[NYC_SKP]

35. I challenge only the author's credibility, sources, and writing skills.

I apologize for leaving any impression that comes off as a slur against smaller cities.

It's just that sometimes hack writers try to fluff their stuff with bullshit.

It happens in big cities too, so I didn't need to go there.

You're right.

Also, It's not inconceivable, it's just unsubstantiated.

:donut:

[MADem]

30. +1 nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

38. The cops seized the newly re-stocked library at the park and I think removed

food also. The People's Library has footage of the raid on the library on it's web site.


http://peopleslibrary.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/this-is-what-a-police-looks-like/

[intheflow]

39. Chilling!

[RegieRocker]

40. If this is true about the feds it makes the big "O" completely

responsible.