Occupiers Win 2-Week Reprieve

The city wants the tents gone by noon.

The Occupy New Haven protesters who have camped out on the New Haven Green, near Yale University, since October, were supposed to be evicted at noon on Wednesday. After taking their case to court, they can stay, at least for two weeks.

City officials issued a deadline of noon for protesters to remove tents from one of the last remaining Occupy camps, but a lawyer for the group filed an injunction yesterday, seeking to prevent city officials from removing protesters.

During a hearing in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport on Wednesday morning, the judge ruled in favor of a two-week reprieve.

Protesters at the camp said more people have joined them since the city issued the order to leave and issued a call for people to join a "festival" of support at 9 a.m.

“When the city takes down the tents and takes everything away, we will be on to a new phase of our occupation. We’ll be occupying out in the streets. We will be mobile. We will be talking to the community, and we’ll be rallying support. Things are only going to get bigger now,” Ty Hailey said. “We are standing up for our rights to see how far we can take it. One way or another, this is not stopping, whether or not they tear down our tents, it doesn't make a difference. We are here until this is over.”

The city responded through a statement:

"The consequences of allowing them to succeed would be to deny everyone in the New Haven community and elsewhere the enjoyment of publicly available land. … Hopefully, the courts will agree."

The local Occupy movement issued a set of requests and demands earlier in the week, asking for longer library hours, the end of foreclosures and for Yale University to pay taxes, and more. 

There have been few reports of problems at the camp, but police charged a man with sexual assault after police said a woman was raped late on Monday night or early Tuesday morning. 

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