Regarding the layabouts of Zuccotti Park, Mayor Bloomberg went all wobbly yesterday.
Bloomberg vowed “to keep this city safe and, at the same time, to protect people’s right to protest. The right to protest, people say, ‘Oh, I understand that, but — ’ There’s no ‘but’ … when it comes to the right to express yourself.”
Blah blah blah.
The First Amendment doesn’t protect people’s right to poop on the sidewalk — which happens all too often in the Zuccotti environs.
And that, frankly, is one of the lesser issues driving the Occupy Wall Street debate.
Protest-related crime, for starters, seems on the rise. The chaos and lawlessness was on vivid display yesterday: A deranged vagrant went on a rampage, screaming, knocking over tents and prompting a fistfight — and 16 protesters were collared for baiting cops while blocking a sidewalk.
And there’s the very real possibility that even greater OWS violence — perhaps of the kind that’s gripped Oakland, Rome and even Lower Manhattan itself on occasion — will soon bubble up here.
Fact is, it’s no longer a matter of free speech but of safety and civil order.
As Bloomberg knows: Yesterday, he cited two cases of sexual abuse at Zuccotti. (A third was reported yesterday, too).
He also noted an apparent OWS taboo against calling cops on criminals, suggesting even more crime is going unreported.
Meanwhile, Occupy Oakland thugs showed they’re capable of swarming the streets, starting fires, trashing neighborhoods and even shutting down the city’s port.
“Missed shifts represent economic hardship for maritime workers, truckers and their families, as well as lost jobs and lost tax revenue,” port officials said. (Organized labor’s OWS ties grow more ironic daily.)
Could violence happen at the park?
It happens elsewhere in the city every day — and all it would take is one pistol-packing nut job to send things to hell in Lower Manhattan.
Bloomberg himself notes that Brookfield Properties, which owns Zuccotti, is “very worried about [its] liability.”
As well it should be.
The city, which already pays out more than half a billion a year in lawsuit damages, should be concerned, as well.
Tuesday, Bloomberg showed a clear understanding of the toll OWSers are taking, hinting strongly that the end was near.
Then came yesterday’s blather.
But he knows what he has to do: Send in the NYPD to lance the Zuccotti Park boil.
Before it’s too late.