Occupy LA faces eviction deadline, follow events here

Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa has imposed a deadline of midnight tonight (12:00am Monday) for Occupy LA protesters to vacate their encampment of more than 60 days.

If they don't, LA's police chief drops a not-too-subtle hint that force may be used to remove them. Chief Charlie Beck told the Los Angeles Times "We certainly will not be the first ones to apply force."

Exactly when a raid might occur is anyone's guess, but Occupiers are bracing for possible police action within the next few hours, based on comments tonight by the mayor. By various estimates, there are anywhere from a thousand to two thousand people currently present at the site.

Watch live coverage: CrossXBones on USTREAM, or Occupy Freedom LA. A chat (next to archival streams) is here. Here's a list of more streams which may or may not be live. Southern California news radio KPCC has a good liveblog going. And KPFK has a liveblog, also.

(photo: @vote99percent)

• [Finnagain]

  Time to step up, LA. Get out there.

• [Doran]

  KPFK is there too.

• [yeahyeahwhtever]

  some tents are gone but most are still there.
  the ga was very well attended tonight!

• [SedanChair]

  This is really the best possible thing that could happen right now, tactically speaking. Did you notice how Occupy coverage was slipping off the radar over the weekend? All that the mayors have to do is wait, but they can’t help themselves. They Must Crush Us.

• [Cowicide]

  It’s very disturbing how different cities are coordinating with “someone” on a national level to thwart freedom of assembly.

  • [wes harris]

    It’s disturbing that the people protesting are acting like a bunch of hooligans.

    It’s less disturbing that cities don’t want their businesses disrupted by the same children, indicated as protesters throwing tantrums because they didn’t
    get the new toy that they wanted.

    • [Noctilucent Studios]

      You said  “the people protesting are acting like a bunch of hooligans.”

      What you meant to say was “the agent provocateurs are acting like a bunch of hooligans.”

      Know the difference.

    • [Cowicide]

      It’s disturbing that the people protesting are acting like a bunch of hooligans. It’s less disturbing that cities don’t want their businesses disrupted by the same children,

      Yes, those horrible, hooligan children.  Just look at this one clinging to this poor woman!

      http://thumpandwhip.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/OWS-mom-daughter.jpg

      Ironically, it’s you who is acting like the infant throwing a tantrum, wes.  Get ahold of yourself.  Step away from the rightwing radio and Fox “News” for a spell.  Educate yourself on your real enemy.

• [Manuel Smirnoff]

  “We certainly will not be the first ones to apply force.”Is he referring to the real meaning of “force” or the 1984-newspeak meaning of the word, as “doing nothing in the face of unprovoked violence from police”? I suspect the latter.

• [Philip Chinn]

  Wes Harris – astroturf or purveyor of know nothing provincialism of American consumer society or both. Your choice.

• [adamnvillani]

  Six hours in and no reports of things going haywire. Good job, protesters, and good job, LAPD.

• [Edd thompson]

  There are lots of not good people on both sides. Police are historians and tax collectors normally with a little real help to the people; and the occupiers have those that cause violence too. Throw a rock at my bussiness or stop my livelihood I will respond.

  Yes there are provocateurs.

  • [Jack Thompson]

    “Provocateurs” in this context has a specific meaning, Edd. 

     ”Agents Provocateurs” are people from one side infiltrating the other side to rile people up and cause havoc to either discredit them or justify an action by their side.

• [coffee100]

  The right to peaceably assemble is superior to any law that prohibits blocking traffic including any Federal law. To elevate common city ordinances is exactly equivalent to limiting the right of the accused to counsel only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

  “Evicting” protestors or whatever current legal theory is a violation of the Constitutionally protected rights of a free people.

  If the government wants to keep protesters from blocking traffic they can start by taking them seriously.

  • [adamnvillani]

    “…the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that state and federal governments may place reasonable restrictions on the time, place, and manner of individual expression.”

    http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Time,+Place,+and+Manner+Restrictions

    • [coffee100]

      Then you know what?  It might be time to place some Constitutional limits on the Supreme Court’s self-awarded authority.

      Perhaps Congress needs to step in and limit the Court’s jurisdiction in the matter and restore the true meaning of the First Amendment. If not Congress then the states need to take the lead in curtailing the latitude the Supreme Court seems to have discovered it can aggrandize when the other branches of government aren’t looking.

      There is no such thing as a reasonable restriction on an American citizen’s personal liberties.  The very words themselves are absurd.  The Constitution recognizes the people’s absolute right to assemble peaceably.   The language is not equivocal, nor is it unclear, and if Congress may make no law, the Supreme Court most certainly cannot rule in contravention of the First Amendment.

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        It might be time to place some Constitutional limits on the Supreme Court’s self-awarded authority.

        The problem isn’t the Supreme Court; it’s Congress’s unwillingness to confirm any sane nominee for the Supreme Court. It’s yet one more tool of government-by-hissy-fit.

• [GlenBlank]

  I stuck with it until about 3:30 am, when my computer died.  At that point, the LAPD strategy seemed to be to surround the park and wait for everyone to die of boredom. :-)

  At 6:30am this morning (Monday, 11/28), they reopened the streets around the park to traffic.  Everyone who stayed is still there.  Aside from a couple of arrests of the Usual Idiots, no conflict or violence has arisen.

  I’m told that LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a  former labor organizer, studied aikido back in the day, back when he was a leather-jacketed MECHAista called Tony Villar.  Don’t know if it’s true, but it might explain a few things. :-)

  A copy of the letter to OccupyLA that Villaraigosa posted to Twitter can be found here [PDF].

  I have to confess that, so far at least, I’m very impressed with how the city and the LAPD have been handling this.

• [GlenBlank]

  Personally, I think ol’ Tony V is pretty well covered on the 1st Amendment front. He has already said that the front steps of City Hall – just around the corner from the current camp – will be available 24/7 to anyone who wants to “peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances”  – that they can Occupy the steps all they like. 

  They just can’t set up tents on the steps or camp out in a city park.

  I seriously doubt that any court, no matter who’s doing the appointing, will decide that camping in city parks – or setting up tents on the stairs in front of City Hall – is a necessary element of constitutionally-protected speech.

  • [adamnvillani]

    Exactly. What’s more important, the message, or the camping?

  • [coffee100]

    The whole point of the First Amendment’s recognition of the inalienable right to peaceable assembly is that Governments, including the courts, don’t get a vote.

    To state otherwise, in a land where the Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, is absurd. Defend the actions of the Governments of this nation in these past weeks in the name of the Supreme Court? One might as well wield the pepper spray and batons themselves.

    I know this is an unsettling notion to a culture so used to being ruled by edicts issued by distant Governments, but the Founders affixed the First Amendment to the Constitution in order to  place absolute discretion in the hands of the people, along with the responsibility to do whatever is necessary to establish justice without the interference of a Government which, like all other Governments, has as its sole purpose centralized power in opposition to its citizens.

    Like it or not, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and the words of the First Amendment are clear and exact:  No law.  Period.

    As we have seen repeatedly for the past weeks, when the Government does get a vote, protests are violently and illegally opposed by millions of dollars worth of heavily armed police even in America, the nominal “land of the free.”    Anyone who has experienced a routine traffic stop recently is well aware of the belligerent tone that has crept into the discourse between public servants and the citizenry.

    We have seen continuing violations of American’s Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights on live television.  Is it really that much of a stretch to believe the same Governments that order armies of police into violent conflict with thousands of their own neighbors have little or no respect for the First Amendment either?

    One of the key obstacles to restoring opportunity for the people of the United States is the “litigation reflex” that follows every person who rises to speak.   The Constitution does not need to be ratified by any court, nor do the people of this nation require leave, orders or authorization by any agency to exercise their right to publically stand, sleep, recline, dance or sing under an American Flag.