What to do next at Occupy Riverside?
I am a member of Occupy Riverside here in California. Yesterday at roughly 6 A.M. I had someone wake me up from my tent to tell me that there were a ton of police assembling in the parking lot. I got up to find over 100 police officers, dozens of police cars, police trucks, a paddy wagon, and a few dozen motorcycle cops coming into our occupation, which had 32 tents. They cleared us and our things out of the mall we have been occupying for roughly 6 weeks. The details of the raid itself are here: http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/11/30/30118/police-break-occupy-riverside-camp-2nd-time-month/
After this happened we were told we could not have chairs, tables, tents, or anything else that could be considered a structure on public property. We were also told that we could not sit on any of the monuments in the mall we were occupying according to city ordinance despite the fact that we have held our General Assemblies since day one at one of the monuments and people often sit on them. When asked to not sit on the monument last night during our GA we complied (we have at least 4 cops on bicycles at our occupation site constantly since the raid).
Today one of our fellow occupiers was sitting in the mall eating his lunch. 3 officers approached him and told him he could not eat his lunch there, on a public bench, in a public space. He was arrested for refusing to leave and eat his lunch elsewhere.
Now, because the public space we have been occupying is under constant surveillance we are unable to set our tents back up without the threat of being immediately arrested. My question to you is what should we do next? I think we could use some of our fellow occupier's ideas right about now on what one of our next acts should be. Thank you for your time!
Posted Dec 1, 2011, 11:05 PM UTC