Washington State’s Dept. of Enterprise Services (DES) has begun abatement proceedings by issuing a notice of eviction effective midnight tonight to those squatters currently camping on the Capitol’s Heritage Park grounds by the lake. Steve Valandra, a DES spokesman, assures the actual physical action to remove the structures will take place during daylight hours.
Sugar Mountain
Mr. Valandra was cautioned there are small children and handicapped citizens residing there.
Signs of Handicapped Homeless
1st Aid Tent
Baby Stroller
Occupy Olympia Heritage Park Food Tent
Joyce Turner and Steve Valandra cited instances of people defecating in the park despite the State allowing the restroom facilities to remain open 24/7. The State’s generosity has been repaid with graffiti. One woman residing in the camp stated she didn’t want to go back in the woods, arguing she felt safer in the park. But the squatters were unable/unwilling to make the general public feel safe while there even during daylight hours. (See associated story about threats & intimidation directed at the media) Given the history of some elements in the Olympia community bullying, criminally harassing, and vandalizing a Daily Olympian reporter’s home, camera, and vehicle, its townspeople may be well served having the encampment removed despite the conflicting needs for compassion toward its most vulnerable denizens.
Squatter's Rights?
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The instigating mother pictured above can be heard in the audio claiming the park is her backyard and ‘house’ while the 911 dispatcher is speaking. But she told Sgt. Elmore, when questioned, she did not live there and was leaving. She can also be heard lying about the confrontation between the violent squatter pictured below and the photojournalist.
Mr. 'cane' refuses to identify himself or be photographed--why? Warrants? Registered Offender?
A misguided knight errant refuses to identify himself or be photographed but threatens to maim or kill the photojournalist for attempting to document the incident in a public park nominally belonging to all the citizens of this State. Other squatters voice support for his violent intimidation and claim Sgt. Elmore was sympathetic to them as well.
Sgt. Elmore stated no police report or incident number was made. It would seem law enforcement on the Capitol grounds is, as encampment residents argued, extremely selective. Both they and law enforcement personnel substitute their own prejudices or ‘religion’ for the law, blurring legal boundaries into a hopelessly unrecognizable state.
Fantasy Land for Kids?
UPDATE: After the riot police contingent of the WSP (Washington State Patrol) helped evict the Heritage Park Occupy Olympia encampment, a number of reports were published by the many news organizations that covered the event. A sigh of relief was a common thread in response to the fact no injuries or arrests resulted from either the illegal encampment or the brief occupation of the old abandoned Public Health building across the street from Heritage Park and Bayview supermarket. However, some missing details were at odds with reports such as one by Matthew Green in the Olympia Power & Light newspaper (issue #50).
Mr. Green appears to have missed the fact that a number of tents and their contents were summarily disposed of in a trash compactor truck over the protests of a young crowd of activists badgering State DES workers from outside the erected chain-link fence on the west end of the park around 1:30pm Friday. Insults and verbal challenges were flowing in both directions until one tired old reporter interceded and asked the young people to be more mindful of their purpose as well as effectiveness. Eventually a heavily accented German woman advised that the promises of storage for these particular tents couldn’t be kept because they were soaked with urine and feces which the State had no means of decontaminating and health laws prohibited being stored.
Mr. Green also fails to mention the death threats made the Monday evening before the Friday eviction by ‘Brian McCracken’ (apparently a false alias furnished by ‘Sly’, given the real Brian was met a couple months later when he was hosted by Shelton’s League of Women Voters), against a reporter for taking photographs of the encampment and some of its denizens (including one child residing there over her mother’s objections). ‘McCracken’ had recently been released after serving 10 years for murder (at least according to the now discredited ‘Sly’). Sgt. Zachary Elmore of the WSP Capitol grounds police answered the 911 call reporting the incident but refused to note it or assign an incident number even after being furnished the identity (now in doubt as fiction by ‘Sly’), sound recordings, and photo of the perpetrator. A night or two later, the same ‘perp’ was successfully urged to leave the camp after assaulting another resident with a large knife according to ‘Sly’. Sly admitted the man, who he claimed he knew fairly well, was entirely capable of/prone to killing someone. Sgt. Elmore admitted seeing Mr. ‘McCracken’ at another location on the Capitol grounds but did not indicate stopping the man or taking him into custody despite the report of criminal harassment and assault. Selective law enforcement, a phenomena much complained of by camp residents, was unabashedly on display by even the better trained WSP. So was disinformation promoted by some of the camp’s residents, e.g. ‘Sly’. The press is well advised to report what they see and little of what they hear from such encampments.
Ergo, contrary to Matthew Green’s assertion, the camp was NOT a safe place for the homeless, children, handicapped, as well as others among our most vulnerable or the general public and certainly not photojournalists. 911 and DES had received multiple complaints of altercations arising in the camp. This reporter had seen an example first hand along with the complete failure to respond constructively to the incident by the WSP. For arguably justifiable reasons, not all property seized in the park was preserved for later recovery by owners–a result of residents so sick, frail, intractably dysfunctional they could not avoid soiling their own beds yet had to endure an existence living under bridges and hiding in woods while public restrooms were deliberately bolted with the intention of discouraging their use by the homeless. To suggest, as the OL&P article claims, the camp was ‘safe’ is misleading and a gross mis-characterization of the truth. To suggest, as DES attempted, the State was motivated by health concerns for the public and camp residents is equally untrue as evidenced by the fact the State typically locks its public restrooms at 5:00pm daily precisely to discourage their use by the homeless.
Even the poorest of nations maintain public restrooms. So what’s with America/Washington?
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