Posts tagged Occupy Denver
Occupy Denver upcoming events
May 12th
The Downtown Denver People‘s Partnership including organizations like the Denver Catholic Worker and Occupy Denver will conduct a series of protests leading up to the Monday night city council vote on an ordinance that will criminalize the survival act of sleeping by our homeless friends. The protests seek to highlight the business influence pushing this ordinance through city council.
Saturday, May 12th Actions:
6:00 to 8:00 pm: Protest at the Palm Restaurant, 1672 Lawrence Street, Denver, CO 80202 (map) and other members of the Downtown Denver Partnership supporting this ordinance. Meet at 5:30 pm in Lincoln Park if you’d like to march to the Palm Restaurant via City Hall.
8:00 pm overnight: Mass overnight sleep-in protest in front of the Downtown Denver Partnership, 511 16th Street, Denver, CO 80202 (Between Glenarm Place and Welton Street) (map). Bring your sleeping bags and/or blankets for an all night sleep-in.
Monday, May 14th Actions:
Noon to 5:30 pm: Bring your sleeping bags and/or blankets for a day-long rally on the City Council steps (City and County Building, 1437 Bannock St, Denver, Colorado 80202). From noon until 5:30 there will be a series of actions and speeches highlighting the injustice of this ordinance. The City and County Building will be open to the public, let your voice be heard.
4:30 pm: Rally to OPPOSE the “Urban Camping” Ban at the City and County Building (1437 Bannock St, Denver, Colorado 80202)
Corporate and business interests in downtown Denver coalesce in the Downtown Denver Partnership, an organization that believes the homeless “will drive future conventions, tourists, residents and businesses from downtown.” Partnership members control billions of dollars of assets. The opportunities to obtain funds for campaigns and city services from the corporations represented by the partnership are clearly tempting city council members away from their duty to listen to the people who elected them and to find compassionate ways to eradicate homelessness.
The Downtown Denver People‘s Partnership has information from a reliable source that the partnership has been discussing this ordinance for two years. After the ordinance emerged from “embargo” at Councilman Brooks’ office, it has consistently appeared like a “done deal.” City council insiders Shepherd and Lopez have consistently pointed this out. Before the ordinance passed first reading, Councilwoman Shepherd said, “I know the way this vote is going to go. I know it. And I think you all know how this vote is going to go too. And unfortunately, the sad thing about it, is that it has been like that from day one.”
While this ordinance was embargoed, Mayor Hancock and Councilman Brooks bypassed consulting the Denver Homeless Commission, the Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation and the homeless themselves. Little effort was made to pair adequate resources with the ordinance.
While the Bill Request specifically states that ordinances like this “are justified on the basis protecting the health, safety and general welfare of the public,” the ordinance was assigned to the Land Use committee instead of the Health and Safety committee. As Councilman Lopez pointed out, this was done so that it would advance. All amendments to make the ordinance safer have been rejected.
Mayor Hancock is already training the police on implementing this ordinance before it has even passed.
Protests
The Downtown People‘s Partnership plans to protest Palm Restaurant, the Colorado Restaurant Association and other members of the Downtown Denver Partnership that are supporting this ordinance. Colorado Restaurant Association members voted unanimously to support criminalizing homelessness. We will then conduct an all night sleep-in protest in front of the partnership itself.
Tamara Door, CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership, spoke strongly in favor of the ordinance criminalizing homelessness at the city council public hearing. Door believes that, “Unauthorized camping poses a threat to the health and safety of the city’s residents, employees, visitors and to the unauthorized campers themselves.” As the Downtown Denver People‘s Partnership conducted their first sleep-in protest last week in front of The Pavillions on 16th Street Mall, we did not notice any overwhelming health and safety issues for “unauthorized campers”. On the contrary, we appreciated the well lit, safe environment provided by the 16th Street Mall.
Occupy Denver — buy locally; boycott corporate exploiters
Nov 24th
This Black Friday Occupy Denver has opted not to disrupt the activities of normal Americans as they go about their Christmas shopping. While we stand in Solidarity with several branches of the Occupy movement in observance of “Buy Nothing Day,” and “Boycott Walmart,” we also urge you to shop at local small businesses and artisan stores on this day. We are in the midst of this financial crisis largely because everything in our homes is currently manufactured overseas. This shift in manufacturing has deteriorated the United States labor market and eliminated our foothold as the most dominant economy in the world. The local small businesses and artisan shops of Denver survive on a slim margin and we urge you to consider them in your Black Friday shopping plans. If you are looking for products you may not be able to find in Denver, we urge you to try ETSY or look online for the independent equivalent.
We at Occupy Denver know that we can’t buy our way out of the massive problems we face. What we also know is that we can hit these mega exploiters where it hurts, like we did with the banks last month for Bank Transfer Day; in the pocketbook.
We stand in Solidarity with branches of the Occupy Movement across the Country who have denoted Walmart as one of the main enemies of American Labor. One measure of Walmart’s, and all corporations’, success is sales on Black Friday, so we urge all Americans to shop elsewhere. Avoid the Cherry Creek mall and all bastions of Corporatocracy in Denver. Spend the day with your loved ones and support your local economy. For a directory of locally owned businesses please try http://businessdirectory.bizjournals.com/denver/shopping_consumer_services
For more information, please visit occupydenver.org, or contact Occupy Denver at media-pr@occupydenver.org.
Occupy Denver “Not going anywhere” in spite of arrests
Nov 14th
Once again, the DPD reaffirms its position as the most violent police force in the United States. Officers assaulted demonstrators who were just standing on the sidelines. An officer waited until a protester turned around and hit him in the back three times. They assaulted people verbally, including threats to “break the teeth” of protesters. One officer told another officer to “SHOOT EM!! SHOOT EM NOW!” One protester was struck by an officer on a motorcycle and was hospitalized. Protesters were kettled and shot with pepper-balls, according to Colorado Street Medics, who found pepper-ball shells at the scene of last night’s incident. The shooting took place at 14th and Speer, eventually forcing the group to move to 16th St. Mall, where diners and theater-goers were present. The police action resulted in the closing of the 16th St. Mall bus system for civilian safety. Police actions put the general public in harms way, for no reason. All of this dangerous mayhem, completely instigated by police under the orders of our Mayor, was directed at peaceful protesters. Protestors were followed, intimidated and hunted by the police for hours after the eviction, proving that this was not about Civic Center park, but an attempt to aggressively confront the Occupy movement. These are certainly the kind of actions one might expect from the Egyptian Police in the last days of the Arab Spring, but not in Denver….
Our calls for the state to respect our first amendment rights have apparently fallen on deaf ears. Our attempts to negotiate through the city council, the mayor, and the governor have turned up nothing concrete. The first amendment states that it is illegal for the state to make any laws “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” For the Occupy Movement, the ability to assemble in tents is a form of free speech, and our constitutional rights have clearly been violated. The state and local governments are both in violation of the U.S. Constitution, as they are also in violation of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We call on the Department of Justice and the UN Human Rights Commission to look into these allegations as we assert our right to freely assemble peacefully.
So far almost 4,000 folks have been arrested at Occupy demonstrations around the country, yet not a single one of the Wall Street criminals responsible for the financial ruin we find ourselves in has. We have mobilized against the greatest concentration of power known to man, and like all empires of the past, we know this one will not go down without a fight. It’s been little over a month, and we can already see the tremendous positive impact the Occupy movement has had. For the fourth time in a month, they may have blocked off our park from us, but we are not going anywhere.
-Occupy Denver General Assembly