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| Oakland mayor Jean Quan (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images / AFP) |
If you
thought the recent crackdowns of Occupy encampments across the country was more
than a coincidence, there is a good chance you were right. Oakland Mayor Jean
Quan admits to talking to other cities before the massive coast-to-coast
evictions .
In an
interview this morning with the BBC, Mayor Quan reveals that she spoke with
officials from other cities over the phone before a Monday morning raid that
led to the eviction of hundreds of Occupy Oakland protesters and the arrests of
many.
“I was
recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the
same situation,” says Quan, who goes on to claim that the movement, in her
opinion, had transition from a political movement to one marred by anarchists.
“What had
started as a political movement and a political encampment ended up being an
encampment that was no longer in control of the people who started them,” says
the mayor. Perhaps the greatest blow to her city’s own Occupy Oakland movement,
however, came after repeated raids from local law enforcement agencies — often
more than a dozen area forces working in conjunction — to infiltrate
demonstrations and beat and arrest protesters.
After weeks
of an occupation in the city’s Frank Ogawa Park, an early morning raid on
Monday emptied the square as around 20 protesters were arrested before 6:30
a.m. local time. Among those detained were members of a prayer group who had
gathered to praise in song as police apprehended them.
The mayor
goes on to say that protesters in the movement are “looking for more stability”
and blames anarchists that have co-opted the movement for hijacking the cause
and disrupting any attempts at achieving peace. To protesters, though, the
violence coming out from Occupy encampments for the most part has been carried
out by law enforcement agencies. In Oakland alone, two American military
veterans have been seriously injured by police action since police raids on the
Occupy encampment there began.
Mayor
Quan’s admittance that she spoke with other city leaders opens up speculation
that a series of raids in recent days were more than a coincidence. Crackdowns
in Albany, Denver, Salt Lake City and elsewhere in only the past few days
suggest that coordination among the mayors of those towns could have caused for
the mass evictions which have been ongoing since Saturday.
As Oakland
became a western hub of sorts for the Occupy movement domestically, Zuccotti
Park in Lower Manhattan where the movement began almost 60 days ago suffered a
police crackdown in the early morning hours of Tuesday. As of this afternoon,
hundreds of protesters are gathered outside a New York City courthouse awaiting
a ruling regarding whether or not they have a right to return to the park that
has been the home for many of the demonstrators during the last two months.
Calling
into question the choice to protest in private parks, such as Zuccotti, Mayor
Quan adds, “the Occupy movement itself is having a hard time controlling the
encampments” and suggests that the group will reestablish their demonstrations
in different locales.
Following
the raids in Oakland and New York, protesters have already begun retaliating
and attempting to re-occupy their prior encampments while at the same time
trying to spread the demonstrations to neighboring locations.
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