Crime and Self-policing the Occupy Protests

This addresses the problems with homeless and drug addicts, others, who are NOT PART of the protests mingling with protesters. Some of the more pertinent sections are near the end.

From MSNBC.com:

Sex assault arrest highlights security concerns at 'Occupy' protests

By Miranda Leitsinger, Senior Writer and Editor, msnbc.com

NEW YORK -- Highlighting growing security concerns at “Occupy” protests around the country, a 26-year-old man has been arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a woman at the encampment near Wall Street where the movement was born.
Tonye Iketubosin, a Brooklyn resident, was arrested late Tuesday and remained in custody Wednesday while the incident was investigated, police said. He had been working in the encampment's kitchen.
The Wall Street Journal reported that police were investigating an alleged attack by Iketubosin on an 18-year-old woman from Massachusetts. The woman told police she accepted his offer to let her sleep in his tent while he went to work at the kitchen early Saturday, but later returned and raped her, the newspaper quoted an unidentified law enforcement official as saying. Charges were pending.
Iketubosin allegedly groped a 17-year-old woman days before that incident, on Oct. 24. He has been charged with third-degree sexual abuse in that case, the newspaper reported.
Brendan Burke, 41, of Brooklyn, who helped start the “Occupy Wall Street” security team, said there had been three or four assaults since the protest began on Sept. 17 committed by two men.
In such cases, he said, protesters “go straight to the police.”
Burke said the security team, which consists of up to ten members and has help from outside groups to help keep the site safe, has non-violent measures for handling aggressors, including encircling them and shouting them down. A community watch group, akin to neighborhood watch, also monitors the site overnight, he said.
“People forget this is the middle of the street,” Burke said. “All walks of life are in here, so it’s not like a bunch of crazy people are in this park. But there is an element in this park that is eating free food, living in tents and being subsidized by the movement. It’s one of the weak parts of the movement, but it’s changing. … It’s just a thing everyone’s working out as we go along.”
He said the protesters attempt to integrate such interlopers into the movement when possible.
“We have also a track record of including troubled kids into the fray of working groups …  and  becoming part of the movement,” he said.
Protesters find allies in ranks of the wealthy
Security issues have bubbled up at some “Occupy” sites around the country in recent weeks.
“Occupy Boston” is looking at measures to deal with taking troublemakers out of the camp, protester Ravi Mishra, 25, said Tuesday. There have been no reports of sexual assault, though they have had to deal with people who are rowdy, drunk or have substance abuse problems, he said.
Some people who were not really a part of the movement have shown up and gotten “up to no good,” Mishra said.
“We’re doing our best to navigate, you know, both sides of the line,” he said. “On the one hand, we want to make sure that we’re not being exclusive by any means, on the other hand, we do understand that there is ... a degree of realism that we have to take with these issues.”
Old guard back in the trenches at "Occupy" protests
“Occupy Dallas” also has had a few security issues arise with people coming to the camp who were not associated with the movement, protester Michael Prestonise wrote in an email.
“Our position is one that might run counter to the continued accusations of our movement primarily consisting of hippies and freeloaders,” he said. “We actively work with the police to enforce the law.”
Prestonise said the protesters had dealt with theft by announcing stolen items at “general assemblies” and conducted their own investigations in some cases. A fire watch team also coordinates security and organizes shifts to maintain an all-night safety patrol, he said.
Both Occupy Boston and Wall Street have tents for women only. Burke said the camp is safe, but people should not think it’s a crime-free zone.
“There’s a myth about this … that it’s not every day America,” Burke said. “We’re just Americans doing our constitutional right. It doesn’t mean that there is a magic spell that will protect you from crime.”

Public Opinion: Thumbs Up! for Occupy Movement; Thumbs Down! for Tea Party Extremists

The Tea Party has failed to fulfill its potential, and the polling makes it clear that the Tea Party is woefully out of step with the main stream of this nation.  While the Occupy movement is still very young, it is already both larger, more diverse economically, ethnically/racially, and in age demographics.  It is also far more widely approved, and growing as the Tea Party fizzles and declines.

This is not a recent development, this growing disaffection with the Tea Party.  When they were co-opted by the Republicans and by the astro-turfers, effectively bought by big money.  It worked well for the 2010 elections, but I predict that the Tea Party will largely be a spent force by the 2012 elections.

Back in August, the New York Times showed that Republicans were getting a greater share of the blame in the record 82% disapproval of Congress, per their New York Times / CBS News Poll.  And the majority of us are not too happy with how the Tea Party is fragmenting and co-opting the Republican Party either:

The public’s opinion of the Tea Party movement has soured in the wake of the debt-ceiling debate. The Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of the public and favorably by just 20 percent, according to the poll. In mid-April 29 percent of those polled viewed the movement unfavorably, while 26 percent viewed it favorably. And 43 percent of Americans now think the Tea Party has too much influence on the Republican Party, up from 27 percent in mid-April.

The same poll showed 57% disapproved of the job Boehner was doing compared to 47% who disapproved of Obama's performance.  The approval ratings however were sharply different: only 30% approved of Boehner, while 48% approved of Obama's performance.  When it came specifically to the economy:

"Americans said that they trusted Mr. Obama to make the right decisions about the economy more than the Republicans in Congress, by 47 percent to 33 percent."

But that was one poll, and back in August.  A CNN/ORC poll at the end of September showed an all time low opinion of the Tea Party:

Just 28 percent of Americans hold favorable views of the tea party, an all-time low in the 19 months that CNN/ORC pollsters have gauged Americans' feelings about the movement. At the same time, 53 percent of Americans think poorly of the tea party, an all-time high. According to CNN/ORC, the movement's popularity peaked in the spring of 2010, when 38 percent of Americans said they liked the tea party and only 36 percent said they didn't.

There have been a few Pew research polls which show a continuing decline in the opinion about the Tea Party, as have Washington Post / ABC polls, and polling by the Wall Street Journal/NBC.

A TIME Poll taken just a few days ago showed the continued 'thumbs down' for the Tea Party, and a very clear majority thumbs up for the Occupy protesters, per this succinct summation:

The poll asked people to identify which faction of government best represents their views. 30% identified with Democrats, while 17% said Republicans and 12% went with the Tea Party. So if you’re looking for a left-right bias, it leans slightly to the left (30% left to 29% right), assuming the designations of Democrats to the left; Republicans and Tea Partiers to the right. A whopping 39% of the respondents identified with no party or the always-popular “other” designation.
When asked for their view of the Tea Party, 27% of the respondents went with favorable, while 33% said it was unfavorable. When asked about the Occupy Wall Street movement, 54% looked at it as favorable, while 23% viewed it as unfavorable. In short, twice as many respondents viewed OWS as the favorable movement.
Digging even deeper into the numbers, the Tea Party was more hated (24% “very unfavorable” to OWS’ 13% “very unfavorable”), while OWS was more readily embraced (25% “very favorable” against the Tea Party’s 8% “very favorable”). For Tea Party supporters looking for any kind of silver lining, the group of poll-takers didn’t have much faith in OWS being more than just protests and tent-pitching — 56% said they felt it would have little impact on American politics.
There were some other interesting nuggets in the poll; 71% of respondents, for instance, believe that Wall Street executives should be prosecuted if they were found responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown. But what sticks out is the large gap between OWS and the Tea Party. With virtually equal amounts of left and right-leaners answering the polls, and independents tending to go in the Ron Paul direction (let’s not forget — the man pretty much invented this Tea Party), it’s kind of shocking to see such a difference between the OWS movement and the Tea Party. Maybe it’s because the OWS movement isn’t wholly politicized yet and it’s tough to disagree with the “down with the rich!” sentiment. But as it matures into whatever it turns out to be, these numbers will likely change.

So it should be no surprise that those who hitched their wagons to the Tea Party star, the people who populate the right wing echo chamber, are trying every tactic they can devise to smear and denigrate the Occupy movement, often as is their tactic, with disinformation and factually inaccurate statements.  And the more they stamp their collective little feet.........the more the Occupy movement appears to be growing by leaps and bounds.  While the extremists on the right stomp their little feet in frustration it remains to be seen if the Occupy movement will demonstrate better legs than the Tea Party.  I'm betting that it will, and that it will be a force to be reckoned with in the 2012 elections, and that unlike the Tea Party, it will be a unifying rather than a fragmenting group of people at the grass roots level influencing politics.

So it should come as no surprise that the far right extremists will be waging their culture wars in the interim, because it seems even impaired by their Republican math, they can read the numbers written on the wall that shows they are on their way out.

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