Occupy protesters are pressing ahead with plans to erect three 32-foot-long Army surplus tents in Freedom Plaza, just days after police arrested 31 D.C. protesters in McPherson Square after they constructed a wooden shelter in the park and refused to leave it. The Army tents would results in a structure — complete with wooden floors and heating — that would serve as a warm space to host the group’s general assembly meetings in the winter, Freedom Plaza organizer Kevin Zeese said Monday. Protesters said that as their intent for the partially-finished plywood structure in McPherson Square that Occupiers erected Sunday morning; a building inspector later determined the structure wasn’t safe and declared it unlawful to enter. Police arrested 16 protesters who remained in the structure and 15 who crossed police lines to join them, using a basket crane to remove four protesters from the roof of the structure.
That kind of altercation, Freedom Plaza protesters say, is exactly what they’re trying to avoid.
“We’re not into conflict for the sake of conflict,” Zeese said.
