NYC’s Trinity Church cancels Halloween festival due to lingering #OWS punks

Infuriating:

Citing an β€œabundance of caution,” the Rev. James Cooper of Trinity Church said the Episcopal parish at Broadway and Wall Street in Manhattan has canceled it popular Halloween activities due to safety issues arising from a sidewalk encampment in front of the place of worship.

β€œCanceling a beloved family event is not a decision taken lightly,” Cooper said in a statement issued Sunday. β€œLast year, more than 1,200 people took part. However, we are deeply concerned about the escalating illegal and abusive activity the camp presents.”

Linda Hanick, a spokeswoman for Trinity Church, said nine people have been arrested in connection to the encampment in the past two weeks, including a man who was arrested after he put an air horn to the ear of a longtime maintenance superintendent at the church on Oct. 11. The maintenance worker was β€œtraumatized” by the incident, she said.

β€œThe sidewalk is owned by the city, so we don’t have the legal power to remove people from the sidewalk, but it’s our responsibility to clean it,” she said. β€œWe hose down the sidewalk and throw away the trash.”

Those cleanings, which occur twice daily at 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., typically lead to a β€œtense situation,” Hanick said.

β€œThey will only get up if a white shirt β€” a lieutenant β€” is there,” she said. β€œIt becomes a tense situation.”

The unidentified man was arrested and returned to the encampment the following day, said Hanick, adding that church officials have recently installed eight security cameras to monitor activity nearby. Anywhere from 25 to 50 people are camped outside at any given time, she said.

A majority of those in the encampment appear to be homeless people who are resisting placement and have seemingly attached themselves to the Occupy movement, Hanick said.

[…]

A New York Police Department spokesman said there have been 18 arrests in the vicinity of Trinity Church since the last big β€œOccupy Wall Street” demonstration on Sept. 17. Aaron Williams, 20, the man who allegedly blasted the air horn in the ear of the church custodian, was charged with assault, menacing and disorderly conduct.

The other 17 arrests, which took place over the past month, were for mainly for disorderly conduct and open container violations. Several of the suspects had been previously arrested at β€œOccupy” events, according to NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

Why haven’t the repeat offenders be banned from the property? This is outrageous.

Why does Occupy Wall Street hate children?

Comments are closed.