Written by
James Goodman and Meaghan M. McDermott
Staff writers
The Occupy Stink-up-Rochester protesters — arrested Friday night and arraigned Saturday in City Court — say they are victims of a city administration that is trying to limit their constitutional rights.
“This is an issue about free speech and political expression,” said Brian Lenzo, a media outreach coordinator for the group.
Lenzo, 30, of Rochester, was one of the 32 protesters radicals arrested at Washington Square Park in downtown Rochester on Friday night, after police warned them that the park officially closes at 11 p.m. The arrests began about midnight.
Former Rochester school board member and president Professional protester Shirley Thompson and a photographer for the Rochester Institute of Technology’s student publication on assignment also were among those arrested.
While Lenzo acknowledges that the city code has a prohibition against being in the park after 11, he said that the ordinance is intended for public safety and should not have been applied to the peaceful protesters. [See, laws are only meant for YOU!!! Not for these Libtards!]
Despite their convictions, protesters voted Saturday to obey the law and vacate the park at 11 p.m., Lenzo said.
He also said that protests inspired by Occupy Wall Street in many other cities did not result in the arrests of protesters, with officials being much more flexible in the application of similar laws
.”Mayor Richards has lived up to the stereotype of an out-of-touch one-percenter,” he said.
Lenzo said that the protesters wanted to work out an arrangement that would have allowed them to stay beyond 11 p.m.
“The response was, ‘This is the law. And there are no exceptions,'” said Lenzo. [Well no kidding…why should We The People CHANGE OUR LAWS to suit the 1%?]
Mayor Thomas Richards did not return a phone call for comment, but in a statement issued Saturday evening, he noted that “the city supports our citizens’ First Amendment rights and we have always provided many opportunities for the safe exercise of those rights.”
He said the law and ordinances regarding park usage were posted on signs at each entrance of Washington Square Park, adding “those signs were torn down and destroyed,” [you filthy animals MUST be CHARGED and PAY FOR ALL THE DAMAGE YOU HAVE DONE TO THIS PARK!] and that fliers with the same information were handed out to protesters in the park Friday night.
“Washington Square Park was meant for public use and enjoyment and not to be covered in tents or to be lived in,” Richards said in the statement.
Police Chief James Sheppard could not be reached for comment Saturday.
But in the complaint filed in City Court, Sheppard said that the defendants knowingly violated the trespass law and the city municipal code by being in the park after hours.
“The defendants refused to leave the park after being warned numerous times,” the Sheppard statement says.City Councilman Adam McFadden said he would not second-guess the mayor’s decision to enforce park hours.
“The protesters were told what time the park was closing,” he said. “I think we have to be clear about what we’re protesting. Is it the park hours? Or what’s going on with our economy?”
But KaeLyn Rich, director of the Genesee Valley Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that while she needed to know more, the arrests raised questions.
“The First Amendment of the Constitution is one of our core values in a democracy — so the right of peaceful assembly and free speech should be upheld,” Rich said.
Occupy Rochester’s website says, “Unlike similar NY occupations in Buffalo, Syracuse, Binghamton and New York City, Rochester’s mayor seeks to become the first NY mayor to forcibly end the occupations here.”
Richards in his statement said: “Selective enforcement in other cities has led to confusion and confrontation.”
Protester Tim Adams, 26, of Rochester disputed that the city has been consistent with its enforcement of the park’s closing time.
“People come by here all the time and skate,” he said. “I’ve been down here before at 3 a.m. and there’s people here. I guess it’s just not OK if you have a political message.”
Lydia Bayoneta of Rochester said the protesters are only speaking out “against corporate greed [a ‘corporation’ can not show greed, that is a HUMAN trait, you people are idiots!] and the economic burden that has fallen on all of our backs.”
The protesters will reconvene at Washington Square Park at 1 p.m. today, Lenzo said.
“And we will go from there,” he said.
Occupy Rochester protests that have been held on weekdays at the Liberty Pole will now move to Washington Square Park, he said.
In solidarity with protesters from Occupy Oakland — the California group dispersed Tuesday by police with tear gas and where Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen was injured by an apparently police-fired projectile[this is a lie, the projectile came from another protestor in a hoodie, cut and blow up the ‘incident’ from the occupycrap and you see, though fuzzy, the person throwing the rock or bottle is NOT a cop but a protestor.] — Occupy Rochester is mobilizing for a 5 p.m. march from Washington Square Park to City Hall on Wednesday, said Lenzo.
The arraignments
Some of those arrested Friday night were freed before their arraignment Saturday morning by posting $200 in bail and, according to Lenzo, all of those arrested Friday night had been released from jail by Saturday afternoon.
As each protester appeared before City Court Judge Teresa Johnson, she read the charges — trespassing and being in a city park after it was closed — and a plea of not guilty was entered. The judge set court dates for those arrested, at various times in the weeks ahead.
Thompson, 60, of Rochester, said prior to her arraignment: “It is important to defend our right to peaceful assembly.”
Jonathan Foster, who is a staff photographer for RIT’s weekly student publication, the Reporter Magazine, was arrested after he had gone to his car to get a pen.
Foster, who was wearing a T-shirt saying “Reporter” on it at the time of his arrest, was photographing the protest and said that he was walking back to the area of the arrests when police confronted him.
“They said, ‘That’s it. You’re done,'” said Foster 20, a photojournalism major from Dillsburg, Pa.
Foster said he was doing his job. “I’d like to plead not guilty under the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of the press,” he said.
Each arraignment took a short time, with the judge entering the not guilty plea as a formality until further court proceedings.
But Patti Durr, 48, of Brighton said she felt uncomfortable pleading not guilty to something she did.
Using sign language and an interpreter, Durr evoked the memory of Rosa Parks, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Susan B. Anthony — all of whom had been arrested for exercising their rights.
“I think it is an injustice,” Durr said about her arrest.
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