Occupy Santa Cruz: Down But Not Out

The  general assembly meetings draw a dozen or so people each Wednesday to the courthouse steps. (Georgia Perry)

With a reluctance to engage local government and little coordination or strategy, some wonder what sort of impact the Occupy movement will continue to have here and on the national stage. Appealing to public anger over wealth disparities has carried the movement so far. But without a strong blueprint or vision to inspire more people, can the movement continue to capture the sympathies and energy of local communities and become the grassroots democratic movement it hopes to be?

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Journalists Say They Were Targeted for Covering Occupy

IndyBay photographer Bradley Stuart Allen outside 75 River St. in downtown Santa Cruz. Photo by Chip Scheuer.

After surveying the December damage to a vacant bank building owned by Wells Fargo that included graffiti, broken cameras and damaged ceiling tiles, investigators from Santa Cruz Police Department went to work. They came up with preliminary list of 12 suspects—out of more than 75 who passed through the building—involved in the three-day occupation of 75 River Street. Police handed their list over to county District Attorney Bob Lee’s office, and Lee’s office served 11 warrants to suspects.

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UCSC Alum Edited Occupy Movement Paper

The Occupied Wall Street Journal went national for its fifth and final edition. Photo courtesy Michael Levitin.

Two weeks after the first protestors unrolled their sleeping bags in Zuccotti Park, Occupy Wall Street’s inaugural newspaper hit the streets of lower Manhattan, hot off the people’s press. Among those hawking that first free issue of The Occupied Wall Street Journal was UCSC graduate Michael Levitin. A journalist by trade, Levitin jumped at the chance to join in the paper’s creation and help broadcast the diversity of voices and shared frustrations from within the fledgling movement.

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A Student’s View

It’s 4:30am Wednesday, not yet daybreak, at the intersection of Hagar and Coolidge on the UCSC campus. Already a few dozen intrepid protesters have gathered to block access to campus from the main entrance despite the chill of dawn and undoubtedly short-circuited sleep cycles.  Soon word comes from the other entrances: they have been effectively blocked, and the protesters have their first victory before the sun has even appeared on the horizon.

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Homeless of Occupy Look Ahead

The Dec. 8 dismantling of the Occupy camp spelled the end of a short-lived haven of safety for some homeless. Photo by Chip Scheuer.

On the lawn of San Lorenzo Park hours after police broke up the Occupy Santa Cruz camp, Devin Gonzales, 18 years old and homeless, is sitting on a picnic blanket with his legs crossed. Gonzales gazes across the park’s duck pond toward the collapsed tents of the Occupy camp he had been calling home. “This was finally a safe place to come,” says Gonzales, who had never felt safe sleeping on the San Lorenzo River levee or in the woods of Felton.

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