Occupy Eviction Sends Protesters Back to Westside Groups

Occupy groups in Santa Monica and Venice said they expect to see a surge in member recruitment after last night’s eviction from downtown.

“A lot of people who are downtown were from the Westside, which is traditionally the case,” Michael Feinstein, former mayor of Santa Monica and spokesman for the Green Party said. “Occupy L.A. continued that tradition in part because the bigger need is down there.”

When word spread that the Los Angeles Police Department would raid the Occupy L.A. encampment, Feinstein, members of went downtown to the frontlines of the movement to show their support.

Police officers in riot helmets arrested 292 people today and, in a mostly peaceful operation, dismantled the tent city that sprang up Oct. 1 outside Los Angeles City Hall as a western outpost of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

A shotgun that fires beanbags was deployed during the arrest of at least three people in a treehouse, which Police Cmdr. Andrew Smith described as one of "two minor use-of-force'' incidents during the operation.

“Sunday night they were cool and last night they just flipped,” Feinstein said.

Police said the people arrested at the Occupy L.A. site were being booked on suspicion of misdemeanor failure to disperse for not complying with the LAPD's declaration—issued just before 12:30 a.m.—of an unlawful assembly. The declaration covered not only the encampment but also a multi-block area in the Civic Center area.

"I was one of the ones near them and a lot of these cops were scared didn’t know what they were doing there and expected something entirely different and were yelling at us, swinging batons and a lot of them were shaking," Feinstein said. "I think the commanding officer gave them the wrong idea about how to go about doing it last night. I think they undid the goodwill that they had built up.”

Feinstein likened the event to that of U.S. foreign policy, creating more problems than solutions. By invading Iraq he said the U.S. created more terrorists.

“Had the LAPD been less provocative and less violent people would have felt more at home and they had a good thing going,” he said. “I think when they sent in the 1,400 people they were not the same people who had been relating to the occupiers—they didn’t even seem to be the same people form Sunday night.

Harrison Wills, president of the associated students of Santa Monica College, and several other students from the college went downtown Tuesday night to show their support for the movement, but he fears that while he and his roommates were able to get out before being arrested there may be some students who were arrested among the protesters.

“I noticed a lot of people were on edge and I had to have empathy because I would bus home, sleep, go to school and have a warm shower, but those people who hadn’t had a break or a warm meal,” Wills said. “Some of them were yelling, but I had to step back and realize that this is a person who hasn’t slept in two days fighting for the right to assemble.”

A vocal member of Occupy L.A. said today the protest movement would shift its focus to shorter, guerilla-style encampments, possibly in bank lobbies or at the homes of bank executives.

Protester Mario Brito told reporters at a morning news conference the protest would also focus on one main goal—a national moratorium on foreclosures—which he said would become the movement's "calling card."

"Banks, if you do not heed our call," Brito said, "expect to see our tents in your lobbies. Expect to see our tents in your boardrooms. Expect to see our tents in your houses. Expect to see our tents in your country clubs.''

Wills predicted local groups will continue to spur up and take actions ranging from taking money out of large corporate banks to put into local banks or credit unions to making choices with their money  and who they choose to do business with that will actually have an effect on bottom lines.

“Right now, I almost need a day to just reflect … last night was so intense I could sense myself losing my balance, I need a day to reflect, discuss and move forward in a new direction. I will just say, if anything, the volume and amount of people involved is going to grow, whether it’s sleeping in one place or encampment or collective activism it is only going to increase.”

Michael Chamness of the Occupy Venice group said that its membership has been steadily growing since the group staged a demonstration at the Palisades Park near the .

The group also went downtown to show its solidarity with the Occupy L.A. protesters when it first heard about the impending LAPD eviction and has made more contacts with other groups and people from the Westside.

“People are coming out to Venice are filling in the ranks and bringing that wisdom and experience back to the Westside,” Chamness said. “We expect that the Venice residents that have been Downtown will all come back and plug themselves in to our existing group and add to the knowledge.”

Occupy Venice likes to think of itself as a model for other protestors looking to create similar groups. The Venice group left its original encampment at Windward Circle more than six weeks ago, but holds regular General Assembly meetings at 7 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday behind Ananda 1354 Abbot Kinney Blvd.

It has also established several working groups and plans to stage more demonstrations including another at Palisades Park this Saturday.

Members of the Santa Monica community have been in communication with Occupy Venice and are currently beginning to reach out to other local activists to form an Occupy Santa Monica sect. 

Feinstein said that while he is not involved in the formation of this group he would support it, but said he feels that the Santa Monica community is already much like an Occupy group itself.

“The kinds of things people want in other cities we have already done,” Feinstein said. “The fact that we have such good social services and had them for so many years, that’s a justice question for the 99 percent. We have had that history since the mid-1980s.”

“Santa Monica is already occupied and has been for years,” Feinstein said.

 — City News Service contributed to this report.