A day after a man was arrested in Zuccotti Park for allegedly groping a female demonstrator, Mayor Bloomberg said today that it’s “despicable” if protesters are failing to report crimes.
The mayor said “there have been reports … that when people in Zuccotti Park become aware of crimes, instead of calling the police, they form a circle around the perpetrator, chastise him or her and chase him or her out into the rest of the city to do who knows what to who knows whom.”
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“If this is in fact happening … it is despicable and I think it is outrageous and it really allows the criminal to strike again, making all of us less safe,” he added.
Bloomberg said it is the city’s “high priority” to “make everybody safe” in Lower Manhattan.
“We have an obligation to protect everybody in the city,” he said.
The mayor noted the arrest yesterday of Tonye Iketubosin, 26, who had been working at the protesters’ makeshift kitchen at Zuccotti Park since last month. He was charged in the sex abuse of an 18-year-old protester in the tent he helped her pitch on Oct. 24, police sources said.
Iketubosin also is a suspect in the horrifying rape of another, law-enforcement sources told The Post.
At the same time, the barriers went back up today after a rowdy march past the New York Stock Exchange last night.
The barriers went up everywhere, except for in front of the Milk Street Cafe and the federal building, after they’d been taken down Wednesday morning.
Bloomberg promised the barriers would be taken down again.
“They were taken down. People marched in the streets, [they were] put up. We’ll try again. You got to obey the law,” he said.
Bloomberg, however, said he is not prepared to evict the demonstrators.
“What I said yesterday was this administration will take appropriate steps whenever we think are appropriate to keep this city safe and at the same time to protect peoples’ right to protest,” he said. “The right to protest, people say, ‘Oh, I understand it, but.’ There’s no but. There’s no but when it comes to the right to express yourself.
“There is, however, a complimentary interest that society has and that’s to make everybody safe and to let multiple people express their points of view – not just one group – including those people who want to go about their business and not express anything. Their right to free speech is a right to not say something that is just as important.”