Occupy Braces For Final Showdown

As the threat of removal looms at Occupy New Haven, a pacifist shaved his head for ​“battle” while other occupiers circled the wagons ahead of an expected invasion.

Those preparations were underway Friday morning at Occupy New Haven. The final days are approaching for the 5‑month-old encampment on the upper Green, now that the city has issued a ​“proposal” calling on the occupiers to leave by ​“mid-March.” The camp is one of the longest-standing outposts of the anti-corporate Occupy Wall Street movement that took the nation by storm last fall.

Occupiers intend to formally respond to the city’s proposal at a press conference on Monday. Saturday they issued a list of demands indicating they’re not planning to leave any time soon. (Read about that here.) In the meantime, they’re getting ready. That includes packing up some tents and consolidating them in the northwest corner of the Green. It’s an effort to ​“keep tabs on each other better,” said occupier Jillian Tupper.

It’s also an effort to make the camp more attractive, said occupier Ben Aubin.

The work took place on the morning after an unsettled evening at Occupy, where rumors of an imminent police raid were flying. Those rumors were fueled by the appearance of police barricades and a Dumpster, along with a mysterious blackout of sidewalk lamps on the upper Green Thursday night.

Those events are all unrelated to any move to evict occupiers, city officials said.

As the end approaches, some occupiers vow to fight to the finish. Others in town, some of them sympathetic to the occupation (like Register reporter Randall Beach in this column Friday), argue that the encampment has long succeeded in making a point and now largely houses homeless people while running up a taxpayer tab and crowding out others who want to use the Green.

People on all sides are wondering if it can be possible to solve the stalemate without jeopardizing the remarkable cooperation so far between protest organizers and New Haven officials. (Click here to read about an extensive debate among city officials, occupiers, and a ​“proprietor of the Green,” Drew Days, over the philosophical and practical issues involved.)

Aubin described Friday’s efforts as ​“bringing the wagons around.”

He was helping Kenny Manteau dismantle the compound known as the United Tents of Super Amurrica. He and Manteau cut through zip-ties and pulled a couple of tarps off, revealing piles of clothing and debris. Manteau crawled into a tent and started tossing out clothes and blankets.

The tent used to belong to occupier Tommy Doomsday, who left the camp to record an album, Aubin said. Since then, it’s become community property, he said.

“We’re redesigning the camp so that when eviction comes it’s not as easy as they would like it to be,” he said. The encampment will be consolidating itself on the north side, he said.

“This camp is going to be much more aesthetically pleasing by the weekend,” Aubin said. ​“It’s always better if it looks better. It’s just good to be pro-active.” The clean-up is partly an effort to make the place look ​“a little better or different so that people know we’re still here,” he said. ​“The hope is we can stall [the removal].”

“We’re just trying to group everybody together,” said Tupper (pictured in orange hat), who said she’s been camping on the Green since Nov. 1. ​“Just for safety reasons.”

Despite his efforts, Aubin said he has no illusions that the showdown with the city will end in anything other than eviction.

“We all know what the outcome is whenever people with guns tell people without guns to do something,” Aubin said.

Manteau said he’s staying on at the camp, but he’s ready for the end. He’s already got his stuff packed up so he can make a quick departure, he said. ​“I’m just making sure my stuff doesn’t get taken away.”

Occupier Don Montano has taken similar measures. He said he’s already packed up his tent and is sleeping in a friend’s. He made the comments as Katie Carbo shaved his head.

“I’m doing like the ancient Romans did before battle, cutting my hair off so the enemy can’t grab it,” Don Montano joked. He said he’s ​“100 percent pacifist” and has no intention of violence, even in self-defense.

He said he has plans to move to South Dakota, where he has an opportunity to open a garage.

Carbo said Occupy New Haven will live on, even if the tents are removed. ​“We’ll sleep under the stars,” she said.

“The Constitution is our permit,” she said. ​“This is our civil right to gather together and peacefully protest against the government.”

“I ain’t going nowhere,” said occupier Tony Rivera. He smoked a dark brown cigarette in his wheelchair, outside his ramp-equipped tent. He said he’s homeless, with nowhere else to go. ​“If I gotta fight it, I’ll fight it,” he said of the eviction.

“We’re still trying to figure out how to move this along,” said city Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts on Friday. He said he’s still hoping to Occupy sends a response to the city’s proposal this week.

He declined to discuss the possibility of police action ​“until we finish giving them an opportunity to respond.”

Asked when that window of opportunity might close, he said, ​“Ask me on Monday.”

“No matter what happens, I can’t imagine it will play out as it has in other towns,” Smuts said. ​“There are different ways of doing things. I’d just leave it at that. I’m not going to go into it much more until we see if they respond.”

Asked if the city would take any action to remove the occupation before Monday, Smuts said he’s still hoping to hear a response to the proposal this weekend. ​“If they came to us and asked for help dismantling their encampment this weekend we’d try to help with the removal, but honestly our focus and resources will be pretty tied up in making a safe and successful [St. Patrick’s Day] parade.”

Census?

The current occupation population stands at about 30 people, according to Aubin and Lt. Rebecca Sweeney, the top downtown cop.

Aubin drew a distinction between Occupy New Haven and a couple of homeless encampments that he said have sprung up alongside, one to the south and one to the north. He said about ​“20 campers that are part of Occupy” were living on the Green during the winter, plus another 10 or so homeless campers.

Smuts said the city will make sure that any homeless occupiers are provided with ​“whatever services are appropriate” when the occupation comes to an end.

Aubin predicted the population will rise with the warming weather and the threat of removal by the city. He hasn’t been staying on the Green, but now plans to move in, and is hoping to find as many as 15 people to join him, he said.

Sweeney, however, said the numbers are going down. ​“I think some people are slowly leaving,” she said.

Some of the tents are already abandoned and empty, she said. Some are just used for storage.

Barricades. Dumpster. Darkness.

Friday’s activity at Occupy New Haven was prompted in part by three seemingly portentous events Wednesday and Thursday.

First, on Wednesday, police barricades went up on the southwest corner of the Green, spitting distance from the occupation. Then on Thursday morning, a huge green trash container appeared on College Street alongside the camp, prompting speculation that the city was getting ready to throw out the occupation.

Finally, on Thursday night, none of the sidewalk lamps on the upper Green came on when the sun went down. Occupiers suspected it was an intentional move by the city, said Aubin. The precursor to a police raid, someone posted on the Occupy New Haven Facebook page.

Not so, said city officials. Neither the barricades, the Dumpster, nor the darkened lamps are related to the city’s request that the Occupy encampment fold up its tents and move on, they said.

Parks department workers set up the arc of police barricades near the corner of College and Chapel streets Wednesday morning.

“They’re putting up barricades?” asked a startled occupier.

Christy Hass, deputy director of the parks department, said the sawhorses have ​“absolutely nothing to do with” Occupy New Haven. They’re setting up the staging area for TV coverage of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Sunday, she said.

On Thursday morning, a huge Dumpster showed up on College Street near the occupation.

“This is getting me a little bit scared,” said Rivera. ​“We have a Dumpster.”

The occupation already has a large container for trash. Rivera said he was concerned the city was getting ready to load the encampment into the garbage.

“The Dumpster doesn’t have anything to do with the city’s proposal for a mid-March end date for the permanent structures on the Green,” said city spokeswoman Elizabeth Benton. ​“Last week [public works director] John Prokop visited the site and noticed a large amount of debris, and he said then that he would bring them a larger dumpster to help with the cleanliness of the site. The new Dumpster is a result of that visit and conversation.”

As the occupation absorbed the new barricades and Dumpster, occupier Josh Heltke tried to bulwark his claim to the Green by heading to City Hall on Thursday to apply for a resident ID card with his address listed as ​“Occupy New Haven on the New Haven Green.” He was unsuccessful. Click here to watch videos of that.

Later, on Thursday evening, Aubin said the lights on the upper Green never went on. In five months, that’s never before happened, he said. Occupiers immediately worried that police would show up to force them out, he said.

“The city did not turn the lights off on Occupy,” Benton wrote in an email late Thursday night. She said she could not verify at the late hour if the lights were in fact off, and if so, why.

“The Engineering Department was notified regarding the lights and is looking into the problem,” she said Friday morning. ​“There is absolutely no connection between the lights going out and the City’s request to Occupy.”

Aubin said occupiers were drawing conclusions nonetheless, connecting the Dumpster appearance to the blackout. ​“It’s easy to put the pieces together, even if it’s not true.”

“No lights on upper green. Rumor has it raid tonight,” read a posting on Occupy New Haven’s Facebook page, put up around 11 p.m.. It prompted 18 responses by midnight.

“Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they’re creating a very dangerous situation,” Aubin said of the city.