News Release

Police Clear Occupy D.C. Encampment Near White House

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PETE TUCKER, pete10506 at yahoo.com
Tucker reports at TheFightBack.org, a website which covers Washington, D.C. He said today: “There have been around a half dozen arrests today. A small army of U.S. Park Police came into McPherson Square, near the White House, with horses, trucks and humvees. They set up barriers around and throughout the park, took away people’s tents. At least one reporter was assaulted by police.

“All this comes in the context of Rep. Darrell Issa pushing the Park Service to clamp down on D.C.’s two occupations. Issa, who’s the wealthiest member of congress, has a checkered history, as noted in a New Yorker article last year.

“Since McPherson Square is federal land (as is Freedom Plaza, D.C.’s other, now only, occupation), it was U.S. Park Police which made the arrests and used force today, not Metropolitan Police Department. MPD, for the most part, stayed arm’s length away from today’s skirmishes, and continued to demonstrate a more tolerant approach in dealing with Occupy.”

See: “Don’t Look Back: Darrell Issa, the congressman about to make life more difficult for President Obama, has had some troubles of his own

JASON McGAUGHEY, journeymanj1 at gmail.com
McGaughey said today: “I’ve been living at McPherson Square since Jan. 9. I consider the Occupy movement the resurrection of Resurrection City — Martin Luther King in the last year of his life focused on the Poor People’s Campaign, what King called the next stage of the civil rights movement. After King’s assassination, the Poor People’s Campaign encamped in D.C., setting up Resurrection City, which was shut down by the government and pushed out of the history books. I spent over four years supporting adults with developmental disabilities in Illinois and every year the budget would get cut and I’d have to explain as best I could to them why that was happening. Finally I couldn’t do that anymore. I got active with Occupy Wall Street in New York from the start and then came to Washington. We have to radically change how our society works so that it’s not primarily set up to benefit a few rich individuals.”