NPS evicts unhoused camp at Union Station/Columbus Circle
Video-NPS pulls down tents, load them into garbage trucks 52 sec
Update June 2:One woman stood her ground and refused to move at the end of the eviction. Park Police first tasered her, then committed her against her will to a psychiatric facility (like the Soviet Union used to do.)
On June 1, the National Park Service raided the unhoused tent camp at Columbus Circle in front of Union Station. They loaded tents into a trash truck, reports are the occupants of the tents had sucessfully moved with some of their gear to other camps. Anything people were unable to carry away was destroyed by the Park Service. Not a single person was placed in any form of indoor housing.
The Park Service claimed they would look for valubles and store people's property. Neither was done. Instead, everything was pulled off the ground with pitchforks and thrown into the garbage. This is grounds for pitchforks and torches-or would have been before Charlottesville.
There were similar sweeps against the unhoused all over the so-called "United States." One in San Diego gave residents only 3 hours to pack and escape before the stormtroopers arrived. A sweep in Minnesota failed after community members rose up and drove them off, leaving half the camp still standing. Posession of the battlefield at the end of the battle is victory.
The Union Station raid and several others in DC the same day came on the second anniversary of Trump's forcible clearing of protesters on H st so he could pose with a Bible for the press. Some things clearly have not changed since Trump's term in office. Perhaps Biden can now pose with a Bible at Union Station?
In a similar eviction on the 4th of October, 2021 a camper was struck by a bulldozer whose operator was attempting to destroy a tent without having checked to see if anyone was still living inside it. This time at least, nobody was sleeping inside a tent while it was removed. Also NPS did not use bulldozers to move tents,unlike the DC government. The dozers used by the DC government against tent camps can be called "Bowser's Panzers." Instead, Biden's NPS sent crews in full biohazard suits, as though being unhoused was a contagious disease. In actuality, living outdoors considerably reduces exposure to such dangerous illnesses as covid and flu.
These sweeps take place because rich people don't like to see evidence that people other than themselves exist. People who don't have money are seen as trash, this is proved by sending trash trucks for their belongings. Same as complaints about people sleeping in cars or vans, same as zoning complaints about a neighbor repairing their car in their yard: if it doesn't meet the expectations of the suit and tie club, that's all the government needs to send thugs backed armed police. They figure parks should be places where people making $250,000 a year can drink a $5 latte and not have to look at anyone who cannot afford to buy that overpriced mud they are drinking.
Well, these yuppies are trying to squeeze a water balloon. Camp raids do not reduce the number of homeless folks unless someone dies as a result. A notorious example of the latter was Truist Bank's theft of all belongings from campers on Adams-Morgan Plaza this Spring. One of the residents died of hypothermia after Truist's thugs stole in blankets in what can only be described as an armed robbery hiding behind police badges. The rest of the time, these sweeps just force people to move and benefit such stores as REI by forcing people to buy replacement tents.
