Last night—Thursday, December 1—in accordance with a request by the Board of Health and the Fire Marshal, Occupy Boston attempted to install a new greywater sink for our food tent. The City said in court yesterday that we need to increase safety and sanitation here at our encampment.
We have allocated large amounts of funds for the fireproofing, winterization, and sanitation of our community. However, even as the city tells us that we are a public safety hazard, they have been actively thwarting our efforts. We are being blocked from replacing our tents with flame-retardant, winterized tents; from adding stability to our fraying walkways; and from protecting the health and safety of our community. Meanwhile, the City, the Fire Marshal, and the Board of Health testify that we must address these issues. We’re still figuring out how to make sense of this.
Blockaded “contraband”—their word, not ours—includes construction materials, pallets, winterized tents, and apparently, sinks.
When our shiny, new, stainless steel friend—built for us by one of our rockstar occupiers—was brought to Dewey Square last night, the Boston Police Department immediately surrounded it, indicating how threatening this shiny, sanitary device is. Since the restraining order from Judge McIntyre prevents the Boston Police from dismantling our camp except in the case of a fire, violence, or other emergency, we are puzzled by this police action. Considering that the sink was neither on fire nor beating anybody up, we can only assume that it intended to do something sinister. Seeing as how our irate residents really want to wash their dishes, we sat down in front of the truck containing the detained sink. It took about 40 minutes for the sink to be hauled off to jail, and three others were arrested in the process. The occupiers stayed strong and nonviolent throughout the ordeal. See the full 40-minute video here:
So, as the police truck sped off into the sunset, with our sink hanging out of the back (it put up too much of a fight for the door to close), and three of our friends hauled off to jail along with it, we calmly and nonviolently resumed our occupation without the promise of clean dishes for the 99%. Our jail support team is currently expecting the sink’s phone call, and will notify = the police station to let them know if it has any medical conditions that they should be aware of.
Free our Sink!
