It was a spirited, diverse and peaceful gathering.
My favorite (paraphrased) comment of the day, made by an older woman in a wheelchair, repeated via human mega-phone, and followed by thunderous applause was
"I may be too old to camp....but I'm not too old to make casseroles!"
Her name, if she provided it, did not survive the improvised Public Address system, but her fighting spirit reminded us all we could, even must, do something.
I waited eagerly for the late local news, hoping it would get positive coverage, and was not disappointed. Of course the local news was overaround 10:30 p.m.
The park didn't close till 11.
There were indications that the State Troopers or City Police would not be allowing people to remain after 11:00 p.m. or have their tents pitched there after that, and there was plenty of debate among those assembled about the wisdom of the occupation going past park closing hours.
A consensus seemed to develop that there could be no real occupation if everyone vacated the park at 11. More tents started popping up as my partner and I wandered toward our truck, debating whether or not we could carve out a couple of days to make the drive back up with our tent and dogs.
Having left well before sunset to drive the 80 miles home, I have no first hand info about what eventually happened, so apologies for so much of this being sourced to FaceBook.
I was responding to a query about what the event was like from my niece when I saw this:
Des Moines Register Blog:
Police arrested demonstrators who were camped in about two dozen tents in front of the Iowa Statehouse late Sunday night, after warning them twice that they were trespassing.
Iowa State Patrol officials warned those gathered at the peaceful “Occupy Iowa” event at about 10:30 Sunday that they lacked a permit to camp on state-owned land.
Teams of troopers began hauling the chanting protestors to jail shortly after a final warning at 11 p.m. “We could be here all night, but I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Capt. Mike Winter of the patrol said.
On Occupy Iowa FB Page, Andrew Rasmussen posted:
Here is what I saw at Occupy Des Moines tonight....there were around 100 to 200 people there around 11 pm...the state patrol and Des Moines police rolled in with about 50 to 60 people and even dogs.....the protestors were peaceful and repeated their intention of occupying a public area...the arrests began as people were zip tied...then someone with his hands tied behind his back was pepper sprayed... in the eyes and an ambulance came for him...a person with a camera who had taken pictures of the pepper spraying was surrounded by state troopers and tried to get his camera away from them....they started to push him around and threw his camera to someone else who was then rushed by the cops but several protestors rushed into the street to protect and get the camera away....finally a 14 year old child was arrested (in zip ties) and the tents were tore down.....
from Chrisma Langsord on Occupy Iowa FB Page:
The police are there with 18 patrol cars and 3 paddy wagons, the wagons have left to drop off and are coming back for more protesters, the cops arrested the protesters who started chanting the constitution first!
"Wendy" posted on the
Occupy Iowa FB Page:
It was REALLY bad. I was there. Felt like I was in Afghanistan. Our statement was, "In solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement, we are peacefully and indefinitely occupying People's Park at East 7th and Locust per our First Amendment rights under the United States Constitution. Join us." Hope the nation helps us make our stand tomorrow night at 6:00pm. WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!!!!
update video:
I'll post pics if I can find any. but occupier Rim Jamsey has uploaded these.