NOVEMBER 10, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media Group of Occupy Worcester (media@occupyworcester.com)
Occupy Worcester Announces Bold Plan to Save City Between $7,000 – $10,000: Let Us Occupy
Following Saturday’s historic arrest of 22 Americans attempting to exercise their First Amendment rights, City Manager Mike O’Brien claimed the city has spent between $7,000 and $10,000 related to Occupy Worcester. While we’d love to have this number independently verified, given the Worcester Police Department’s notorious lack of transparency, we may have to take them at their word.
Let us be clear. These expenditures related to the city’s use of force are optional. Chief Gemme and City Manager O’Brien have broken the trend among other New England communities and elected to spend valuable municipal resources arresting and prosecuting members of the Occupy movement.
We understand that budgets are tight for our city as well as its residents. Part of the message of Occupy Worcester is that we must reevaluate the priorities of our economic system to more equitably meet the needs of our community. By spending time and money unnecessarily arresting peaceful protesters, the Worcester Police Department has demonstrated that it’s priorities are out of alignment with the needs and concerns of people of Worcester.
Occupy Worcester was deeply troubled to learn that a domestic disturbance call was put on hold for half an hour while police put on a show of force on Worcester Common Saturday night. Our hearts go out to the individuals whose safety and sense of security were put at risk by a police department trying to make a point.
In addition to making outlaws of the demonstrators they arrested, the Worcester Police Department’s performance on Saturday has alienated several members of the community. Shreena Bindra, a resident of the City of Worcester, a Clark University graduate student and member of Occupy Worcester asks, “Worcester Police Officers, where are your and the City Manager’s priorities when you are ignoring calls, expending resources, and paying your officers overtime in order to to disband a group of peaceful citizens who are only practicing their constitutional first amendment rights to peacefully assemble and speak freely? I trust you to protect me when I am in danger. I have called on you to keep me safe when there has been trouble in my neighborhood. I feel betrayed.”
Given the burden on an already constrained budget and the detrimental effects to our community of making criminals of concerned citizens, we request that the City Manager and the Worcester Police Department reevaluate and revise their strategy concerning Occupy Worcester.
We are here to promote discourse and dialogue about the serious issues facing our world, our country and our city. We are eager to engage with people who recognize that the current system isn’t working. We believe that another world is not only possible but within our collective power to achieve. We are your neighbors, your coworkers, your friends, your family. We are the 99%. We are Worcester. We ask you to join us.
###
Occupy Worcester is an organization of Worcester area residents in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. For more information, visit http://occupyworcester.com
No comments:
Post a Comment