(De)Occupy Honolulu thwarts City raid 11

For  immediate release:

(De)Occupy Honolulu thwarted a property seizure raid today (3/29/2012) at noon by Honolulu Police and City & County Parks and Recs, and Facilities Management personnel under the direction of Director Wes Chun (Department of Facilities Management), and Coordinator of Housing Trish Morikawa. This completes raid 11 on (De)Occupy Honolulu which is on its 145th day of continuous encampment at Thomas Square Park on the corner of Ward and Beretania. Bill 54 raids are counted in pairs with tagging raids and seizure raids on separate days.

Although furniture for the Public Forum was seized and thrown into a garbage truck, the City was unable to seize the tents tagged yesterday which had been rotated out to private property. Tents in service today were tagged but will rotated out to private property thereby making them ineligible for seizure under Bill 54 (ordinance 11-029) which requires that property must be stored on public property for 24 continuous hours. The area is being used for protest and peaceable assembly rather than tent storage.

(De)Occupy Honolulu is in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and the worldwide Occupy Movement  which asserts that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We urge people to exercise the right to peaceably assemble, occupy public space, create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

Makiki Neighborhood Board member Chris “Nova” Smith of Occupy Honolulu livestreamed the raid here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21451376

H. Doug Matsuoka
Makiki, Honolulu