Despite Threats of Eviction, Occupy Boston Remains on Site

BOSTON—As a midnight deadline for protesters at Occupy Boston to leave their encampment at Dewey Square came and went, Boston Police did not move in during the early hours on Friday to enforce an ultimatum issued by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino that protesters had to leave the square.

Menino’s ultimatum came on the heels of a decision by a Superior Court judge to not issue an order that would have prevented police from removing protesters from the square. But one hour after the deadline, no confrontations in the camp were seen, and Boston Police Superintendent William Evans announced to the crowd that police would not clear the camp tonight.

“We’re continuing to work with [the protesters] ... and hopefully come to a good conclusion where we don’t have any confrontations and there are no arrests,” Evans said, according to the Associated Press.

Around 80 Harvard affiliates joined Occupy protesters, and as midnight struck, protesters continued to chant, sing, and dance around what remains of the Occupy Boston encampment.

Though the police did not move in, the threat of police action took a toll on the encampment on Thursday, as many protestors moved out. Police handed out trespass notices to protesters and taped them to tents in the afternoon, warning dwellers to leave the premises by midnight, according to Occupy Harvard supporter and member of The Crimson editorial board Sandra Y.L. Korn ’14.

Organizers also removed a significant amount of supplies and materiel from the encampment, fearing that it would be destroyed in the police action. Food and medical tents, as well as other valuables, were packed and stored at an undisclosed location for safekeeping. Mud, instead of tents, filled the encampment.

“The infrastructure is valuable and worth saving,” said Steven Squibb, an Occupy Boston supporter. “The resources are worth holding on to because we plan on being a movement for a long time.”

Squibb added that throughout the day homeless people were directed to shelters and similar locations to ensure their safety.

Occupy Boston is one of the last remaining encampments of a protest movement that has sought to highlight growing levels of income inequality in the United States. Around the country, police have in recent weeks evicted protesters from their encampments in major metropolitan areas.

But with the deadline passed and police cautiously observing at a distance, Occupy Boston supporters flooded Atlantic Ave., which is adjacent to the square, and began to dance, chanting “This is what democracy looks like” and “Occupy, shut it down, Boston is a people’s town.”

Earlier in the day protesters proposed a massive dance party as a way to end the occupation, which began on Sept. 30. The idea was debated during a general assembly on Thursday afternoon but did not pass.

Twenty minutes before the midnight deadline, organizers informed protesters that they had the option of either forming a human chain to protect the encampment and risk getting arrested or avoid arrest by protesting across the street.

Midnight struck and organizers told protesters to follow a brass band playing earlier around the tent city’s edge while other protesters formed a human chain against the expected police action.

According to Jeff K. Bridges, a chaplain in training at the Harvard Divinity School, about ten chaplains at the protest were willing to be arrested.

“We are here to be a calming presence for those here and the police officers,” Bridges said.

Wearing white albs, a long, white priest’s garment, the chaplains unwilling to be arrested formed a circle adjacent to the encampment and began to sing “Shalom My Friends.”

After the singing, one Harvard chaplain stepped up on a platform and shouted that by coincidence her friends supporting the movement wanted to get married at that moment. Reverend Stephanie Spellers from Boston’s Cathedral Church of St. Paul tied the knot in a short ceremony conducted with “the people’s mic,” a communal act of call and repeat that has become a hallmark of the movement.

—Staff writer Nathalie R. Miraval can be reached at nmiraval@college.harvard.edu.