Tag: Occupy Bellingham
From Stark
In a lengthy post on Facebook, Mayor Dan Pike explains his rationale for warning Occupy Bellingham protesters to leave their Maritime Heritage Park campsite by 9 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 28, or face eviction.
“For better or worse, I accept responsibility for the decision, which was a challenging one to make, and not one made lightly,” Pike wrote.
“People ask me why do this now? Some suggested I could leave this for Mayor-elect Linville. In fact, I could not. For four years I have prided myself on taking what I felt was the right course for Bellingham, regardless of what it meant to my personal image with some groups or individuals. The test has always been, ‘What is in the best interest of the entire community, on a sustainable basis.” I am not going to switch standards now.”
Pike’s term of office ends Saturday. He could easily have walked away from this situation.
From Stark
The Latte Republic blog has an interesting account of trouble at the Occupy Bellingham outpost at Maritime Heritage Park. The blog contends that protesters had so much trouble with one person in their group that they called Bellingham police to have him removed, but police said they could not help.
I have contacted a police spokesman to see if the department wishes to elaborate.
Police spokesman Mark Young says dispatch records and police reports do not corroborate this version of events. Young says there is no record of any such discussion between Occupy participants and police, and no indication that anyone at Occupy Bellingham contacted police about having a disruptive person removed.
Here’s what the record does show, according to Young:
At 6:06 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6, a 51-year-old man called police to report that he had been in an argument with Occupy participants and after leaving the area for awhile, came back to find that his belongings had been gathered up and dumped in a pile on the sidewalk. He also told police that some people had kept his tent and he wanted it back. He then led a police officer to a tent that he said belonged to him, but other people in the area said it was not, in fact, his.
“We didn’t have legal standing to reclaim the tent,” Young said. “Whatever led up to this was not conveyed to the officer at the time.”
The 6:06 incident appears on the police Daily Activity report.
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