Here is the video of the tents that were outside the Merrill Lynch being seized by police:
I guess the 1% are really grasping at straws as the tents and the protests were complying with current ordinances. But the police were able to dredge up an archaic law, I'm still researching to find what ordnance was used, to prevent Merrill Lynch from being embarrassed.
This past Monday night, February 12th, about a dozen members of Occupy DC set up tents outside of Merrill Lynch on 15th St NW, to protest Rep Darrell Issa (R-CA)’s intimate ties with the finance giant. Issa has made over $1 billion in transactions with Merrill Lynch, and has been one of its most staunch defenders since the financial crisis.
As the occupiers were conforming to the appropriate laws – that they be 15 feet from any entrance and not blocking the sidewalk – the Metro Police Department officers took over an hour to find a law under which they could arrest them and seize their tents. They eventually found an archaic law from the 1800′s, according to @OhMatt1 (on Twitter), and proceeded to arrest our fellow occupiers Sam D and Kelly Canavan.
We will provide more updates as they come.
Noted locally for letting his brother take the rap for car theft and other misdeeds Issa has brought his crime spree to the national level. And he has profited handsomely. Buying land and getting earmarks for development nearby to enrich himself and making a killing on stocks while many Americans have their investment portfolios gutted.
Issa is the poster boy of what is wrong with our political system.
After the forced sale of Merrill Lynch in 2008, for instance, he publicly attacked the Treasury Department’s handling of the deal without mentioning that Merrill had handled hundreds of millions of dollars in investments for him and lent him many millions more.
And in an era when the auto industry’s future has been a big theme of public policy, Mr. Issa has been outspoken on regulatory issues affecting car companies, while maintaining deep ties to the industry through the auto electronics company he founded, DEI Holdings.
He has a seat on its board, and his nonprofit family foundation, which seeks to encourage values like “hard work and selfless philanthropy,” has earned millions from stock in DEI, which bears his initials. Mr. Issa’s fortune, in fact, was built on his car alarm company, and to this day it is his deep voice on Viper alarms that warns potential burglars to “please step away from the car.”
Wed Feb 15, 2012 at 10:14 PM PT: The latest on what law was unearthed not definitive but a start:
Something about setting up living abode on a sidewalk. From back when folks would just start building log cabins wherever.