Occupy Evansville Stays at Four Freedoms Overnight Without Incident

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In what is a great example of cooler heads prevailing, about a dozen of the protesters with Occupy Evansville did indeed continue their occupation of the Four Freedoms Monument well beyond the 11:00 pm curfew that they had been told would be strictly enforced. The Evansville Police Department while remaining vigilant about driving by chose not to forcefully remove anyone and in many ways protected the people who occupied the monument overnight from outside elements that may have taken advantage of sleeping protester. Both Occupy Evansville and the EPD deserve commendation for a day of freedom of expression and assembly without incident.

Occupy Evansville has announced intentions to rally the group again today for more discussions and possibly another march at noon at the Four Freedoms Monument.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. “The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances”. Since the Four Freedoms monument area is public property, I think the EPD has overstepped their bounds. I am a peace loving, law abiding citizen, but someone needs to call the EPD out on this!

    • When it comes to public property, such as parks, the government is permitted to create and enforce regulations regarding the use of the public property. Establishing times in which the public property is open to the public, for public use, is a legitimate exercise of government power. This is what the U.S. Supreme Court has construed as Time, Place, and Manner restrictions on free speech. Consequently, the EPD can lawfully and consistently with the 1st Amendment remove anyone from a park when they are present in the park during a time in which the park closes.

  2. A protest of this sort took place in Washington, DC in the first half of the Depression. The result was a disaster. The protestors were veterans of the Great World War who wanted additional renumeration for their military service.

    They didn’t get it.

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