City Surprises Occupy Honolulu Protesters, Confiscates Belongings at 2 A.M.
The city cleared more belongings of Occupy Honolulu protesters from Thomas Square Park early Saturday morning.
About a dozen city workers backed by eight police officers arrived at the park at 2 a.m. and confiscated a bike, tables and other items including signs that were lying inside a new boundary of the park.
About 10 Occupy protesters, who were mostly asleep, were surprised by the move. They quietly watched the city workers and police remove belongings and place them into green bins.
Protesters did not chant or hold signs to oppose the city’s action. They remained outside the park’s boundary, which was clearly marked by a barricade tape. No arrests were made.
Sgt. Lawrence Santos told Civil Beat the city’s action was a “park closure,” and a “regular maintenance.” No items from the sidewalk were confiscated.
Last year during APEC the city arrested eight people for being in the park after it closed at 10 p.m. Then Occupy moved to the sidewalk area outside the park. But a new ordinance, enforced last week, bans possession of belongings on a sidewalk for more than 24 hours.
During Saturday’s two-hour clean-up, some city officials including Trish Morikawa, coordinator of housing department, and Louise Kim McCoy from the mayor’s office, watched from a distance.
McCoy said they came to the park to observe because Thursday’s confiscation resulted in a clash with protesters and the arrest of a man who tried to say inside his tent, which he had turned into a sign. She said the mayor’s office received several “thank-you calls,” after they cleared the encampment on Thursday.
Occupy protesters erected about half a dozen tents Friday night . Ten protesters spent the night. Protesters dismantle the tents during the day and set them up at night, an attempt to avoid the ban on storage of belongings on a sidewalk for more than 24 hours.
The protesters say they will find any loopholes they can to stay in the Thomas Square area. If forced to leave, protesters said they would occupy the mayor’s office.
– Reporting by Sanjeev Ranabhat
