PrintAnother day, another death at an Occupy encampment
This time, it's Salt Lake City. And the city fathers are kicking the protestors out.
Hours after a man was found dead inside a tent at Pioneer Park, Salt Lake Police Chief Chris Burbank announced Friday he could no longer allow camping in the park or anywhere in the city.
"We can no longer have individuals camping on our streets," Burbank said. "We as a city just cannot tolerate this going on."
Burbank asked members of the Occupy Salt Lake protest group to start packing immediately and to be out of the park by sunset Saturday. The ban on camping overnight also includes the Gallivan Center, where a group was recently moved after setting up camp near the Federal Building.
Burbank made the announcement Friday at Pioneer Park at the Occupy Salt Lake base camp. He said the group was welcome to continue protesting during the day, but they will no longer be allowed there at night.
The decision followed the death of a man who had been sleeping at the park in a tent. Investigators believe the man died from a combination of carbon monoxide poisoning due to a space heater inside his tent and a drug overdose. The man, whose body was discovered just after 10 a.m. Friday, was not immediately identified.
"We're happy to have people utilize our parks to express themselves and to get the message out there and we will facilitate their ability to do that," Burbank said. "Someone lost their life and as a police chief and as a city, we cannot tolerate that because we have other options."
A gas burner was seen in the tent and police collected wads of kleenex, foil and a syringe from the area.
The experiment in a "new way of living" by OWS protestors is gigantic failure. Ignorant of basic hygiene, unable to govern even a couple of hundred people, the OWS movement is revealing itself to be a toddler's idea of how to organize a society. (No baths! No washing! No brushing of teeth! And we get to sleep outside in tents! What could go wrong?)
As in Oakland - and everywhere else - the OWS protestors have worn out their welcome.
