Los Angeles to #OccupyLA : “Please take this land in tribute and don’t hurt us!”
**Posted by Phineas
When the Vandals looted Rome in 455 A.D., they at least had to capture the city first before sacking it. Their successors here in Los Angeles, however, don’t have to go to such trouble.
We’ll just pay tribute, instead:
Los Angeles officials have offered Occupy L.A. protesters a package of incentives that includes downtown office space and farmland in an attempt to persuade them to abandon their camp outside of City Hall, according to several demonstrators who have been in negotiations with the city.
The details of the proposal were revealed Monday during the demonstration’s nightly general assembly meeting by Jim Lafferty, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild who has been advocating on behalf of the protest since it began seven weeks ago.
Lafferty said city officials have offered protesters a $1-a-year lease on a 10,000-square-foot office space near City Hall. He said officials also promised land elsewhere for protesters who wish to farm, as well as additional housing for the contingent of homeless people who joined the camp.
A spokesman for the mayor would not comment on the proposal, saying only: “We are in negotiations with organizers of Occupy L.A.”
Los Angeles has been one of the most accommodating cities in the nation for its Occupy encampment.
No kidding. Even the pusillanimous Mayor Quan of Oakland finally had enough and sent in the cops.
But Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa (he of the many affairs and illegal comped Laker tickets) has a spine made from the purest rubber, so that he can be even more of a wimp than Jean Quan or Michael Bloomberg: he won’t just refuse to enforce the law, he’s willing to give the Occupiers what they want — free stuff! (Okay, a dollar a year. Who’s quibbling?)
Now that’s a leader for you. We have to be tolerant, never mind the brandishing of weapons, public lewdness, and sexual assaults:
Five people at the Occupy L.A. encampment have been charged with separate crimes, including a man who allegedly exposed himself and commited a sex act in front of a child, officials said Tuesday.
Angele Chaidez, 21, faces one count of lewd conduct and one count of indecent exposure for allegedly exposing himself and masturbating in front of several people, including children, Friday on the south steps of City Hall, said prosecutors with the L.A. city attorney’s office.
That same day, Zachary Isaac, 21, allegedly entered a woman’s tent and called her βSatan.β After the woman asked Isaac to leave, he allegedly punched her in the face with a closed fist. Prosecutors charged him with one count of battery resulting in injury.
Robert Holland Jr., 31, allegedly waved a knife at another person on Halloween, then resisted arrest, prosecutors said. He was charged with one count of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of brandishing a deadly weapon, one count of disturbing the peace and one count of resisting arrest.
And let’s not forget blatant Jew-hatred.
But, no matter. “Free speech” is all that matters, forget the rights of the public to feel safe on public property. Forget the rights of small and micro-businessmen to earn a livelihood and who are seeing their businesses wrecked by Occupy LA. Forget everything else but the right of peaceful Occupiers to impose their will on everyone else.
Okay, perhaps I’m being too hard on Mayor Villaraigosa. After all, he really is trying to do something about Occupy LA.
It’s called “appeasement.”
LINKS: More from The Jawa Report, Hot Air, and The Other McCain. From Jack Dunphy, an active-duty LAPD officer writing under a pseudonym: “Chief Beck is abetting the lawlessness.”
(Crossposted at Public Secrets)