Friday, October 28, 2011

Not With a Bang, But a Shiver?

Bloomberg pulls the plug:
When no one from Occupy Wall Street surrendered the generators, more than 30 uniformed FDNY and NYPD officials entered the park to seize them, witnesses and officials said.

"We did send 30 or 40 firefighters through the park, the police department had its community affairs department there to make sure everyone was safe," Mayor Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show Friday.

"Our first two concerns are the First Amendment and safety, and this was about safety."

The protesters say five generators were seized in total, including one which was biodiesel and ran on used vegetable oil.

New York Magazine notes that this will make things a lot chillier:
However it happened, the safety sweep was a success for the city in more ways than one. Preventing fires is a reasonable concern when you're dealing with a densely packed tent city, but the raid also, conveniently enough, makes it much harder for the protesters to stay warm as the temperatures drop into the low thirties, which will happen as soon as Saturday night. In that sense, seizing generators and gasoline was as much of an offensive maneuver as firing tear gas and flash grenades — and without the PR mess.
 Is this the way OWS ends? Not with a bang but a shiver?

A Fox reporter certainly got a frigid reception:
What has been an otherwise violence-free period during his six weeks covering the Occupy Wall Street movement, took a turn for John Huddy. He explained what happened during Good Day New York:

"This is somebody I've come across several times for the last few days. He threatened to stab me in the throat with a pen. He ripped the mic out of my hand," said Huddy.

"I have a meeting with Bloomberg," said the incoherent protester. The man was soon arrested by the NYPD.

Meanwhile, turns out that marine (who's doing better by the way) who got hit by a tear-gas canister in Oakland, founded an interesting website.

The site is no longer live, but Olsen was the founder of IHateTheMarineCorps.com, a private user forum apparently dedicated to bashing the Marine Corps. (click to enlarge)

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