BY GERARD FLYNN | Occupy Wall Street members who have been camped outside one of New York’s wealthiest churches have no plans to move anywhere but into the third phase of their protest, they vowed in a recent statement.
Since late May almost two dozen Occupy activists have been maintaining a 24-hour demonstration outside Trinity Church, at Wall St. and Broadway.
One of New York’s oldest parishes, the church has been on the defensive since twice rebuffing Occupy’s efforts last year to use a half-acre of Trinity-owned property at Duarte Square, at Canal St. and Sixth Ave., for a new encampment to replace its former home at Zuccotti Park.
Last Dec. 17, several hundred O.W.S. members assembled at Duarte Square and partially ripped a chain-link fence out of the ground while also throwing stairs up against the 8-foot-tall barrier. Dozens of Occupiers, including several hunger strikers, scrambled under the fence or climbed in over it on the stairs before police quickly moved in and made arrests.
In all, nearly 60 protesters were arrested on “D17,” as it became known. While most of them accepted noncustodial plea deals with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, eight, including retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard, chose to stand trial, spurring “stage one” of the protest, in light of Trinity Church’s decision to press ahead with the charges.
Last month in Manhattan Criminal Court, all eight were convicted on charges of criminal trespass, with all receiving four days of community service.
One of the defendants, however, Mark Adams, had been caught holding a bolt cutter that was used to cut a hole in the chain-link fence. He was sentenced by Judge Matthew Sciarrino to 45 days on Rikers Island — an overly harsh punishment in the eyes of O.W.S. members — provoking “phase two” of the protest.
Last month, the church’s rector, Reverend James Cooper, issued a statement, saying, “Like many churches, Trinity has a long and active history in addressing social and economic inequities. While we are sympathetic to many of the O.W.S. protestors’ stated goals, we do not support the seizure of private property.” This echoed his earlier statements about O.W.S. and Trinity’s Duarte Square lot, where Trinity eventually hopes to build a residential tower and public school.
While Trinity Church probably was hoping that Adams’s release on Mon., July 16, from Rikers after 30 days might have sent the protesters packing, not all have left.
Though some rolled up their cardboard-box beds and said goodbye to sweltering temperatures to enjoy their first shower in more than five weeks, Adams’s release now advances the protest into “phase three,” according to Ed Mortimer, an Occupy Wall Street medic. Their focus now, he said, is Reverend Cooper.
“Until they fire James Cooper, we are not going anywhere,” Mortimer said.
Cooper, who reportedly earns an annual salary of $1.3 million while enjoying the comforts of a $5 million town house in Hudson Square paid for by Trinity Church, was pursued out of court last month by one of the defendants, Jack Boyle, who shouted, “Reverend Cooper, I will die for your sins.”
Boyle, who had been refusing to take his H.I.V. medication for two months in protest at the church’s decision to press charges, has since resumed his daily regimen, he said.
Stacey Kessler, who recently joined Mortimer at the protest outside Trinity Church, scoffed at claims Cooper made during the trial that the church shared the movement’s belief in civil disobedience.
Trinity’s refusal to let Occupy use its Duarte Square lot, she said, shows the church has been paying lip service to the movement since the start, and was a significant blow to the “99 percent” movement’s efforts to re-establish its visibility.
“Occupy needs a home, like at Zuccotti Park,” she said. “Duarte Square would have kept the movement together.”
Police evicted Occupy from Zuccotti last November.
Although relations between police and protesters have been restrained during the day, at night both sides engage in elaborate “cat and mouse” games, said Mark Apollo.
He recalled nightly scenes between protesters and the police, who he accused of trying to provoke confrontations, such as “kicking” one protester until he woke up from the sidewalk.
“They try and keep us off balance by coming in and waking us at night, by leaving us with a lack of sleep,” Apollo said. “When people have lack of sleep, they can make wrong and irrational decisions. Keeping us disoriented is part of the tactics that they use.”
A Police Department spokesperson declined to respond to Apollo’s allegations e-mailed by this reporter, while Linda Hannick, a Trinity Wall Street spokesperson, issued the following statement:
“We support peaceful protest even when we are the target. What is most important now is making a positive difference in the pursuit of economic and social justice.”
