Only two arrested overnight at Occupy Boston

By adamg on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 6:26pm

Dewey Square tonight. Photo copyright Richard Beaubien

Arrests made around 3 a.m. when two people refused to leave tent they had pitched in the middle of Atlantic Avenue. Otherwise, police let Occupiers dance the night away.

Experimental realtime coverage from last night below. It may take a moment or two for the feed to show up:

Neighborhoods:

Downtown

Free tagging:

Dewey Square

Occupy Boston

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Comments

Hmm...

By eeka on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 7:15pm.

It told me to enter a username and password to access storify.

On this very page?

By adamg on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 7:27pm.

Or did you click on something?

Only clicked on

By eeka on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 7:39pm.

"read more"

Storify seems to be working - also an issue question

By issacg on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 7:43pm.

seems to be working fine, Adam. Nice job. Good luck, and be safe.

Issue question - what is all of this throwing around of the word "eviction"? That presupposes that there was at some point some kind of lawful tenancy. Is this just more msm laziness (although I see it written right there on one of the Occupy signs), or is someone taking the position that this is the termination of a lawful tenancy?

Thanks, I'm pretty sure I'll be safe tonight

By adamg on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 7:52pm.

I'm typing this from my living-room couch. I'd actually like to be down there, but I have a meeting in the morning for which I'll be paid to attend and, alas, I've gotta think about stuff like that (because, knowing Boston Police, they won't actually move in until well after 1 a.m., although, maybe, if OB does move everything out first and just have a dance party at midnight, they'll move sooner if only because Menino seems to want to prove how tough he is, and it's hard to be tough on an empty space).

As for "evict," hmm, I've heard of squatters being "evicted," and they don't start with legal tenancies, but I'm no lawyer ...

A nice warm couch - now that's an occupation!

By issacg on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 8:42pm.

Ha! Good for you being at home.

On the squatters thing, squatters typically don't squat on public property, and even if they did, I don't think their removal could be property termed an eviction.

I think that the touchstone is that this is public property, and it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to acquire property rights from a public entity without its express permission (e.g. by a lease or license). , Further, it's settled, and has been for a long time, that one cannot adversely possess against the commonwealth - if one could, every state forest would be full of nutjobs trying to keep others off their little parcel for 20 years so they could claim it as their own. Then we'd see some real riots.

I've always thought evict can

By ZedThou on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 10:39pm.

I've always thought evict can also just be a synonym for expel, and luckily Merriam-Webster agrees with me. So I'm not sure why it's lazy to use this particular word.

Adam, will it eventually

By riggssm on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 8:03pm.

Adam, will it eventually settle into something you scroll through? It's already kinda large, and only 20:00. Interesting idea, though!

Dunno

By adamg on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 8:17pm.

But yeah, I would hope so! I'll look around for help files to see if there's a setting or something.

Must have missed you Adam

By Rich Beaubien on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 9:36pm.

I was down there about 8pm so I must have waled right by you. I posted a few shots to the Flickr group.

Be safe

Occupy JP

By anon² on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 11:38pm.

So I assume (the frauds) Occupy JP, being the diligent Occupiers they are, are down in Dewey Square with the rest of Occupy Boston showing their solidarity and support, right?

They're not all at home right now, most likely in bed. Right?

Oh they're not? How surprising!

"We have to actually OCCUPY stuff?"

By JPFree on Fri, 12/09/2011 - 7:09am.

Occupy JP totally would have made it but, like, it was cold 'n' stuff and there were totally other people from JP there anyway, so, like, what's the point? Besides, there was one toasty-ass fire going at the Behan and the bartender -- who we all know personally and always try to have an involved personal conversation with across the bar no matter how annoyed she gets -- had a ridiculous playlist going. Late-thousands dance pop mixed with late-70s reggae punk. It was awesome.

But what are you griefing us for? The Occupy Boston organizer's TOTALLY from JP. So's the guy with the truck that brought in the weatherproof tent and brought it back. That means they're Occupy JP by extension, which means we're awesome!

Aaaaaanyway, I'm gonna catch up on some sleep. Hope we see you guys at the informative march on Saturday. The eight of us can't wait to fill you in on what you obviously don't know after months of Whole Foods protests and two months of actual... err, I mean Downtown... Occupy protest. God, you guys can be so ignorant sometimes.

Good show!

By anon² on Fri, 12/09/2011 - 11:07am.

IMAGE(http://www.brianchalfin.com/images/jokerserious.jpg)

I think Occupy JP as an idea

By anon on Fri, 12/09/2011 - 11:28am.

I think Occupy JP as an idea is lame as hell. However, one of the two people arrested last night is one of the organizing members of Occupy JP, so yes I agree you can be so ignorant sometimes.

Fight the power. I stayed

By PeterGriffith5 on Fri, 12/09/2011 - 2:25pm.

Fight the power.

I stayed up last night until 1:00 watching Live Stream and listening to Steve Levelle on WBZ.

I had been intrigued at reports that the occupiers were moving their valuables out of camp in anticipation that Boston PD wouldn't give them time to pack up after midnight. I wondered if they thought that Boston PD would allow them to bring there stuff back to camp?

Although I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a "Direct Action" on the part of the police, my favorite part was when they started setting up tents on Atlantic Ave. with the 1,000 supporters chanting - "We own the street, We own the street".

These chants, although fun, remind me of the early Whose Food rally chant, "JP, united, we won't be divided" It reminded me of how cool sloganeering an be - and how wrong.

At that point, I went to sleep.

Seriously, I have to commend the Boston PD for their restraint and professionalism in all this.

The whole "take back" thing

By anon on Fri, 12/09/2011 - 4:01pm.

I agree with how lame empty sloganeering can often be. "We own the street". Oh really? Well if you own it, Mr. Landlord of the street, what are you gonna do with it? Another overused one is the whole "take back" series of things. "Take back the country", "take back the night", "take back the day", "take back Wall Street", "take back this", "take back that". Why are we always "taking things back"? Did we have them in the first place to take back? What are we taking them back from? What will we do with them now that we've "taken them back"? It's so vague, and, at it's core, meaningless. Better to try to accomplish goals than sloganeer about conceptually taking things back.