Stung that Portland police officials and Mayor Sam Adams kept to themselves the final timeline for evicting Occupy Portland from three downtown parks this weekend, some of the movement’s facilitators and city liaisons gathered this morning to demand an apology for what they said was a lack of communication and the muscular riot-squad tactics used by police.
And until an apology comes, they said—and until the city releases raw police footage of Sunday’s raid on the camp’s last General Assembly meeting at Chapman Square (in which one protester was hospitalized) and “holds accountable” officers—Occupy liaisons say they will no longer work with city officials.
“You chose to enlist the full apparatus of police repression to dismantle our encampment,” facilitator Adriane Ackerman said, according to footage of the press conference and a copy of the group’s open letter, below.
Ackerman said the mayor’s offers to pursue a statement opposing corporate personhood amounted to “piecemeal crumbs” and a “conveniently timed attempt” to woo progressive voters. Liaisons were meeting with Adams’ staff up until the night before he announced his three-day eviction notice, and informally discussed some logistical issues during the confrontation Saturday night—something city officials trumpeted during a news conference of their own yesterday.
But liaisons say they wanted more time and notice before heavily armed riot control officers moved in Sunday for the kill, pushing out a crowd of families and retirees and holdout occupiers who began heading into a closed Chapman Square for one last general assembly meeting. Adams’ office is working on a response.
“Our trust in city hall was apparently misplaced,” Ackerman said, adding later, “you claim to support us and yet to you tell your police force to destroy us. Peaceful citizens have been injured in the process. This is not democratic. This is autocratic.”
Update 12:55PM: Mayor Sam Adams’ office sent me the mayor’s response: “In the coming weeks, I look forward to debriefing with Occupy Portland our collective experiences of the previous five weeks and learning more about the focus of their efforts moving forward.”//
The news conference came hours after the movement’s heart, Occupy Wall Street, was razed by New York cops in a sudden, predawn raid. In solidarity, occupiers today are planning a rally and march at Pioneer Courthouse Square. And that’s before a big event planned Thursday in conjunction with labor unions: Occupy the Banks.
A rally with unions may wind up blocking the Steel Bridge during the morning commute, at 8 AM, with a rally at Waterfront Park near Ankeny at 10 AM, and then marches to unspecified locations to “visit civil disobedience actions in progress.” November 17 marks two months since Occupy Wall Street started.
The open letter is after the cut.
15 November 2011
An Open Letter to Mayor Sam Adams:
We, as members of the Occupy Portland Liaison Team, are officially resigning from our roles as city and police liaisons for the Occupy Portland movement. This is in direct response to the deplorable police actions of this past weekend and your refusal to communicate clearly with us during that time.
We were specifically asked by City Hall to create this Liaison Team, for the purpose of facilitating clear communication between city government, police and the Occupy Portland movement. We worked hard to assemble a capable team of activists to act as a conduit of information as agreed upon by our General Assembly.
Initial meetings were amiable and seemingly productive, as your staff was able to express concerns, some of which we shared, about conditions within the encampment. We facilitated communication and followed up by working closely with city employees and our own volunteers to address issues relevant to camp safety.
Despite our efforts, over the weekend, you decided to cave to pressure from your friends at the Portland Business Alliance, the Police Association and other groups interested in maintaining the status quo of economic injustice and issued us an eviction notice. Instead of allowing us to address conditions within our encampment in a transparent and democratic way you chose to enlist the full apparatus of police repression to destroy our encampment.
There were no efforts made by the Portland Police Bureau to communicate to Occupy Portland Police Liaisons or members of our Liaison Team during the events that transpired over the course of Saturday November 12th through Sunday November 13th. We find this highly disturbing since we were asked by your office to be the conduit of information to and from Occupy Portland.
It seems that when City Hall wants something from us you make every effort to reach out, but when you plan to do something to us, communication is halted and you let the police do the talking with their batons. Our trust in City Hall was apparently misplaced.
Thousands of Portland residents of all ages came out over the weekend to support us and help defend our constitutional right to peaceful assembly. They were greeted by hundreds of militarized riot police armed with tasers, stun batons, beanbag weapons, tear gas, pepper spray and live ammunition. This was shocking to many of us who did not expect you to respond to unarmed, peaceful and joyful protest with potentially deadly force. The next day we observed police officers clubbing our fellow citizens and friends with batons, throwing people to the ground and making many unnecessary arrests in the process of destroying our encampment.
An example of this blatant police brutality is the violent attack on Justin James Bridges, the sign language interpreter for Occupy Portland. After repeatedly communicating to Portland Police officers that he had a broken back, police officers responded by beating him and putting a knee into his back. He was hospitalized and lost feeling and control of movement in one arm and one leg due to the unreasonable and excessive physical aggression inflicted by these police officers. Justin was released from the hospital yesterday after spending the night in the hospital. Justin is now in a wheelchair.
You told us on the first day of our protest that you were sympathetic to the goals of our movement and wanted to help find a solution that works for everybody. The behavior over the weekend of police officers under your command has clearly indicated otherwise. Yours is the latest in a string of aggressive, dangerous crackdowns by city and state governments across the nation attempting to silence the Occupy movement.
You claim to support us and yet you tell your police force to destroy us. Peaceful citizens are being injured in the process.
This is not democratic; it is autocratic. Portland expects more from its City Government.
Signing on to ending corporate personhood and changing campaign finance laws amounts to a conveniently timed attempt to restore your declining reputation among members of the progressive left. While we agree with these goals, offering piecemeal crumbs of liberal reform is not acceptable as an olive branch to our movement.
We have said from day one that our fight is not with you, but rather with banks, irresponsible corporations and a corrupt federal government. By camping outside of City Hall we gave you a choice to decide to stand with us and with working class Americans. Instead you made the choice to protect unjust social and economic policies that are leading our nation into a state of financial ruin and institutionalized oppression. The actions of the Portland Police have made it clear where you stand and no amount of political grandstanding will justify your creation of a police state in downtown Portland.
We at Occupy Portland will continue to make our message heard and to stand firmly in opposition to policies and decisions that perpetuate oppression and injustice.
We are open to working with City Hall on many issues but our trust in you and in the Portland Police Bureau has been severely broken. This trust can be somewhat repaired if you choose to apologize for the actions of those under your command this weekend and hold all officers fully accountable for their use of excessive physical violence against unarmed peaceful protesters. Please address your apology to those injured, to Occupy Portland, the Liaison Team and to the Occupy Movement.
In response to your “offer” of support yesterday, we ask that you make public all raw unedited police footage related to Occupy Portland. We await your apology and delivery of this footage with an open mind because we believe there is potential for collaboration with city government in the future.
Despite acting in the interests of corporate elites, you, Sam Adams, are also part of the 99 percent. There will always be a place for you in our movement, should you honestly choose to join us.
Sincerely,
Adriane Ackerman – City Liaison
Alaina Melville – Police Liaison POC
Jim Oliver – City Liaison POC
Kip Silverman – Media Liaison
Micaiah Dutt – Police Liaison
Trip Jennings – Police Liaison
TL;DR: BUTTHURT
You have some support, Occupy, don’t alienate it by shutting down a bridge used by several major bus lines and the MAX.
And now you begin to lose the support of the normal, working people who need to get across that bridge. Learn to vote, kids.
Dear Pigs,
Mow these fuckers down
“Signing on to ending corporate personhood and changing campaign finance laws amounts to a conveniently timed attempt to restore your declining reputation among members of the progressive left.”
These people realize that Adams isn’t running for reelection, don’t they? (And as such, would not need to restore anything regarding his “declining reputation.”)
‘The actions of the Occupy Portland have made it clear where you stand and no amount of political grandstanding and a$$ kissing will fulfill your whining fantasies of a police state in downtown Portland.’
Blame the police or business community, but it was the citizens of Portland that wanted your “leaderless movement” to go.
They remind me of student government types from high school who just realized that actually they have no power, and that the principal is prepared to be a dick if they go ahead and block the pep rally to protest the fascist police state on campus.
Like Graham said before, this incarnation of Occupy has become an unfortunate end to a means. The message has been almost completely obscured.
as someone else has pointed out, it would have cost a whole lot less money for the city to provide port-a-potties, as compared to what it cost for police time.
They look like adults, but whine like little kids.
Mayor Adams gave them a 3 day window to prepare to take it down. And even that got extended.
APOLOGY ?
Fuck off.
How about listing your accomplishments that cost all of us nearly a MILLION DOLLARS?
That money could have gone to roads, bike lanes, feeding the homeless, etc etc etc etc
Nope, paying to have a bunch of babysitters look after elements of your group.
Speaking of which, how about those donations to fix the parks (at LEAST for fucks sake) – how are those doing?
Have you guys asked Nick Fish about the cost estimates, which surely has gone up from 19 grand)
and are the donations pouring in?
Eric — why couldn’t the Occupiers pay for port-a-potties?
Way to stay on message, Occupiers.
Oh god. Just die up your own ass already OP.
And that’s some teal deer there. Obviously unemployed English majors in attendance.
The Occupiers better not interfere with my getting to HUMPfest on Thursday, or there really WILL be a riot!
Are they really saying “You have until 12:01 to get out” is ambiguous or demonstrates misleading communication?
“the psu community players are proud to present fiddler on the ……”
oh rats, wrong program……
those turds look like they snuck on to some steamer ship and set sail for america!!!
And *here* is why most Democratic voters can’t get down with Occupy. We can be sympathetic and hope they can make a difference – but this bullheaded inability to concede that there are other interests (not BANKS, regular people who have to get to work and pick up their kids, not camp in the park all day, etc.) in play is so solipsistic.
Before Occupy, I would have bet several needed internal organs that I would *never* side with the Portland Police in any situation involving protesters. But here I stand, siding with the police and the mayor. Thanks Occupy.
Blownspeakers, yes they could have. There have been donations to Occupy Portland and the cost could have come out of that. OP and the city should have worked that out.
Somewhere in a Galaxy far, far away, Dark Helmet is laughing, “So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.”
you side with them because any normal person with a brain, republican, democrat, libertarian, black panther, whatever realizes that a bunch of whiny 20 something white kids in the richest country in the world have very little to legitimately complain about. yes the labor market sucks and that little housing speedbump has wreaked some havoc but this is not the first generation to face hardship, and is hardly facing any real deal hardship. dont grow a beard, grow a pair and harden the fff up you pussies!!
I support the Occupy movement, but I think we need to let go of this idea of living in parks and disrupting traffic to get our message across. It’s time to move into the next stage of the Occupy movement–we’ve brought attention to the disparities between average american citizens and corporate executives:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/in…
Now is the time to start talking about how to FIX these problems that we’ve brought attention to. The first phase of Occupy was bringing attention to the problem; the next phase of Occupy should be concerned with fixing it.
A very powerful and accurate letter. I am ashamed of our city government and their use of violent police action against constitutionally protected peaceful assembly–much more so by their underhanded tactics at seemingly sympathetic work and communication with Occupy organizers.
Folks, this is absolutely representative of the current LACK of *actual* democracy and the non-adherence by our elected representatives to constitutional principles upon which our nation is based. For the last several decades, voting has clearly proved to be NOT NEARLY ENOUGH to sustain our democratic organization of our nation.
Truly, if you’re not a millionaire or you’re not cold, selfish, and power hungry, then the Occupy Wall Street movement is ABSOLUTELY advocating for you, for our *entire* community, and for the improvement of our potentially great society. Do not divide and do note create division where there is none. See yourself in your community members around you, and see their strength, their struggle and their experience within yourself.
You know shit’s fucked up–don’t play like you don’t any longer.
FUCKING SHITBALL COCKCUNTS.
I AGREE WITHT THEIR OVERALL MESSAGE OF FIGHTING SYSTEMIC ECONOMIC INEQUALITITES; BUT IF THESE SHITBIRDBRAINS THINK THE BEST WAY TO DO THIS IS BY BLOCKING ALL MAX TRAFFIC INTO AND OUT OF DOWNTOWN AT 8 AM? I’M OUT. THEY’VE LOST THE BATTLE, AND THEY’VE LOST THE WAR. FUCKING MORONS.
“Truly, if you’re not a millionaire or you’re not cold, selfish, and power hungry, then the Occupy Wall Street movement is ABSOLUTELY advocating for you, for our *entire* community, and for the improvement of our potentially great society.”
Can Occupy PDX manage to find ONE spokesperson who doesn’t antagonize reasonable people with long-winded rants? Please?
pdxnelson – WE LIVE IN A ‘REPUBLIC’, not a direct democracy, which is a good thing too. Look up the meaning and differences of both.
Also, yes, we have a right to protest and assembly – but there are stipulations to these freedoms too, much the same as you can’t claim ‘freedom of speech’ and yell fire inside a theater (or mention ‘bomb’ at a airport)
There are still rules to play by.
These kids here with their ‘list of demands’ are really just feeling the loss of some meaning in their life. They had a ’cause’! People listened to them! On TV!
Now they ain’t nothing but some whiners.
Enough is enough, I am glad the scum bags had to leave, how about violating our rights, we normal citizens, what are these losers contributing to society? Nothing, except demands, destroying our parks and we tax payers have to pay for all this. We need to make those butt heads responsible and bill each one of them, including Ms. Ackerman. We should suit her and everyone down there who caused all this dismay, while the Police cleared out their mess on Sunday morning, my daughter’s good friend got assaulted downtown from a scum bag thug, probably one of them. Portland used to be a very beautiful place, we do not go downtown anymore, how can you, you get hit up everytime you step one foot into the street by these losers, bagging for money and when you don’t give it to them, they get down right violant, this is what City Hall and the Mayor and the Police are getting, because they let things like that happen and where taken hostage by this movement. What did they achieve, nothing! They call themselves 99 percent, excuse me, you work first and pay your dues to society and pay your taxes and than run your mouth, otherwise shut up, move away and don’t destroy the parks and everything else around. I live in my means also and cannot go out into the street and protest and shit whereever I would like too, it seams to me you did enough, you are nothing but Morons, who do nothing for society, Birkenstock Huggers, Tree Huggers, doing drugs and don’t want to work, but demanding. Who the hell you think you are. Don’t let me catch you! What needs to be done is round them losers all up, put them on a plane and send them to Iraq and Afghanistan, and bring our troops home.
If the highest priority for the cops and half of the douchebags commenting here is to keep traffic flowing, we as a society are terminally fucked.
So three days advanced notice isn’t enough forewarning and one person, in a rally of at least a thousand, with a pre-existing condition being hospitalized for less than 24 hours is brutality. Is that about right? Hell, the city doesn’t apologize for shooting unarmed men in the back. They’re sure as hell not going to apologize (nor should they) for clearing out Hamsterdam, AFTER FIVE WEEKS.
I’m starting to think that maybe the CIA is in on this, because Occupy is doing a masterful job turning off anyone who might be inclined to join or at least sympathize with the movement. It’s that, or the people speaking most frequently for Occupy are the most tone-deaf, petulant whiners on the face of the planet.
Man, don’t block the Steel bridge during my walk to work. It’s going to be cold on Thursday and I can tell I’ll need all the enthusiasm I can muster to make it in. And walking to another bridge sounds like even colder hands. Although I do have two new mittens.
More on topic, I like the theory that the CIA or right-wingers or something are running the movement. That would be far better than Dark Helmet’s probably all to correct assessment that “Good is Dumb.” I will now go rub my action figures together.
Cops are part of the 99% you know. Union and everything!
And could it be said that by being whiny privileged cry babies about the mayor saying, “hey gtfo we need to clean up” they’re actively working against the 99%? Because I doubt the mayor is in the 1%. Also; city council, COPS, media etc.
“Stung that Portland police officials and Mayor Sam Adams kept to themselves the final timeline for evicting Occupy Portland from three downtown parks this weekend”
I guess three or four days notice wasn’t enough. Or maybe they needed to be informed of the exact minute.
Dr. Dolan: You know, it’s a shame about Ed.
Fletch: Oh, it was. Yeah, it was really a shame. To go so suddenly like that.
Dr. Dolan: He was dying for years.
Fletch: Sure, but… the end was very… very sudden.
Dr. Dolan: He was in intensive care for eight weeks.
Fletch: Yeah, but I mean the very end, when he actually died. That was extremely sudden.
One of the guiltiest Marie Antoinette pieces of shit Portland still has employed by its security apparatus spent a bunch of the weekend out of town at a music fest, just to give you an idea what the grown-ups were doing while that guy’s back was getting broken. I didn’t require an apology until I read about this actually. When Risk Management isn’t fending off lawsuits maybe they can graze over the park and eat the rest of that hay like they were built to do.
“One of the guiltiest Marie Antoinette pieces of shit Portland still has employed by its security apparatus”
lol…what??
These comments are painful because the concerns are completely valid ones that I identify with, while I also support Occupy Portland’s core ideas.
I agree the parks’ damage is unconscionable and OP (including me, even though I never camped out) should shoulder responsibility for repairs. I also believe that in most cases the City experiences major cost overruns on all types of projects and can not be counted on to project nor deliver realistic figures. Our city’s bloated bureaucracy and climate of excessive spending (e.g., inflated service/maintenance costs, the kind of riot police response that’s already expensive and the readiness to use physical force that causes the City to pay out hefty lawsuits) is itself a problem that needs addressing. Moreover, I agree the original message of OP has been obscured, although the massive peaceful turnout early Sunday morning suggests otherwise.
If OP is going to gain the support of completely reasonable people like yourselves, who don’t want undue burden placed on already-tight City funding and would like to see constructive action and dialogue rather than meaningless confrontation, the movement has to radically reorient its tactics. I’ve written an open letter to OP on the topic, which I have been attempting to spread around. I hope anyone interested will take a look at it and provide any input or ideas they have.
http://allisunknown.wordpress.com/2011/11/…
Thanks!
Joe Clinkenbeard
Careful Joe, you’ll be called the Uncle Tom of occupy.
Hey Berta- I work downtown (for Amtrack) and I get hit up by homeless people all the time for money/smokes/etc. and have never once been threatened with violence when I refuse to give. Seattle homeless, on the other hand, are some scary goddamn homeless people
its pretty bad when even the dregs of society (portland mercury readers!!) are against you, then you know you’re fucked!! seriously, the more you speak, the better my future as a stand up comedian becomes. please continue i need the material.
I haven’t heard about this, what’s this Occupy thing about anyway?
“Stung that Portland police officials and Mayor Sam Adams kept to themselves the final timeline for evicting Occupy Portland from three downtown parks this weekend…”
Adding to the rest of the commentators: that is false. Occupy PDX had approximately 60 hours notice before eviction.
” But liaisons say they wanted more time and notice…”
Oh, so it’s not that they “kept [the timeline] to themselves”, just that the Occupy leaders didn’t like the timeline. That’s a tad different.
“…heavily armed riot control officers moved in Sunday for the kill…”
Waiter, what’s this loaded language doing in my news story? Unless they killed someone or intended to kill someone, “moved in” suffices.
“…pushing out a crowd of families and retirees and holdout occupiers…”
Weren’t all of these groups ‘holdout occupiers’? Was adding ‘defenseless children’ at the start of the list too wordy, or just overkill when ‘families’ managed to conjure the same image?
I get this is “Blogtown”, but please attempt some objectivity, hm?
@pdxnelson: According to “The Nation”, only half of 18 to 29 year olds bothered to vote in 2008. In 2010, that number dropped to one-fifth. Overall, the 2008 election with people weighing in on a collapsed economy, two unending occupations, and the first non-white presidential candidate, garnered a whopping…. 57% turnout. So when you say that “voting has clearly proved to be NOT NEARLY ENOUGH”, I think that’s largely because not nearly enough people bother to show up to even put down Fozzie Bear as a write-in. (Not showing up just proves laziness; showing up and deliberately voting Fozzie Bear shows discontent.)
I am in agreement with the primary argument of The Occupy *movement* – corporate interests have corrupted our government. The actual *occupation* was a directionless mess doomed to failure without a clear exit plan – a specific victory event, a decamping date – and so it was fated to either die of atrophy or get shoved aside. Neither seems a like a win to me.
As an aside, I’ve read variants of this a few times (from the letter): “Thousands of Portland residents of all ages came out over the weekend to support us and help defend our constitutional right to peaceful assembly.” Look, you were squatting illegally. This wasn’t some ham-handed “Free Speech Zone”, this was a public park you’d claimed as living quarters. It’s called ‘civil disobedience.’ It’s a perfectly viable tactic: own it. Just quit acting like you had a right to take over the place. It makes you look either deceitful or ignorant.
rich people can be pretty funny. also, many contribute more good to society than any of us ever will. Not necessarily Zuckerberg, but a whole bunch of intellectuals/scientists/engineers/musicians/athletes… Why can’t we focus on the system rather than “people with x dollars”? Excluding wealthy people from your movement based on wealth alone, and drawing such lines, seems pretty stupid. ps. I think most investment bankers are fucking selfish, lame douchebags
The most remarkable thing about all of the comments here is that about 90% are self centered and selfish. What a motherfucker.
The anger and sarcasm are good to hear. At least people are feeling something. I think y’all should identify yourselves in some manner, if you dare. These anonymous comments can be coming from anywhere and so what meaning do they have?
As for me, my name is Nick, I’m a Portland citizen and homeowner. I have a wife and child. I’m employed at the moment but we’re scraping by and have been for awhile, as I was unemployed for about two years out of the last five. It’s only thanks to help from friends and our diligent and thorough compliance with the bank’s demands and promises that our house wasn’t foreclosed. So I’m for the political statement OWS is making.
We experienced the cold and cruel tactics of Citibank when we couldn’t make our payments. The bank dangled a loan modification carrot in front of us at the same time as we received dozens of collection phone calls and letters threatening to foreclose. We finally obtained a modification, after I’d been rehired and working steadily for a year, and it was barely an improvement. The banks , over a period of several years now, have had time to figure out how to rewrite loans so that homeowners would truly have a chance to salvage their homes. They never made a serious attempt to alter their policies to work with homeowners. Instead, they were bailed out and then had to be forced by the government at every step to make minimal concessions. To a bank, where you live is not a home, it’s a money asset. It’s a few bucks. And you, if you have a mortgage, are just a source of cash — until you’re not.
What could be more plain than the numbers? Four hundred billionaires control more wealth than 150 million Americans. Michael Bloomberg, for example, in many ways is a good guy, but he’s a billionaire who bought all three mayoral elections. His politics are directly opposed to the politics of OWS, so of course he’s running them off.
I have to work and I have a family, so I can’t hang with Occupy Portland. But I stand with those people and I urge anyone who can, anyone who is on the fence, to join in.
The middle class and below have been sucking it up for decades. It’s time for the big money folks to do some sucking up.
Nick
It’s not about “keeping traffic moving”. It’s about the obvious disconnect between hurting working people in a very real way (making them late to work, picking up their kids, perhaps getting disciplined or losing their job due to their tardiness, etc.) and supposedly helping them in a symbolic way (if at all). If you claim you want to help working and poor people, shutting down public transportation is an obvious conflict with that belief. And the fact that this needs to be explained to Occupiers is the most frustrating thing of all.
What the hell happened to the Mercury? Lately the commenters have been more even-handed and making more sense than the writers.
Lastly, anyone who thinks Sam Adams is a 1%-er doesn’t really understand this whole disparity of wealth thing. Or percentages.