Police and city workers returned to the Occupy Honolulu camp at Thomas Square early Saturday morning, just two days after clearing personal belongings and arresting one protester at the park.
The unannounced 2 a.m. visit was met by surprise and anger from the protesters, although no one was arrested or ticketed.
"It feels like we were robbed," said Matthew Guss, a University of Hawaii senior who joined the protest in November.
Despite repeated pleading from the protesters, Guss said, city workers roughly shoved art installations into trash bins, damaging them in the process.
"Now we have a whole bunch of broken art that we need to retrieve," he said.
Personal items confiscated from city parks and sidewalks are taken to the city’s Halawa base yard, where they are stored for 30 days. Unclaimed items are then either sold or destroyed.
Honolulu police Sgt. Lawrence Santos said the early morning cleaning was needed to ensure public safety and minimize the risk of slip-and-fall injuries at the park.
Items such as a sofa, table, signs and a bicycle were loaded onto two flatbed trucks while workers sprayed disinfectant, then pressure-washed the sidewalk.
Cleaning efforts were not just aimed at the Occupy Honolulu encampment. Albert Tufono, deputy director of the city Department of Parks and Recreation, said the entire park was being inspected and cleaned.
A handful of tents remained set up on the sidewalk outside the park, though Tufono said the city could again tag protesters’ personal items for removal come Monday.
"I’m not leaving," Guss said.
City spokeswoman Louise Kim McCoy said Saturday’s cleanup of Thomas Square was in keeping with routine efforts to keep the public park clear of personal belongings and was not specifically targeted at Occupy Honolulu demonstrators who have been camping in and around the park since November.
McCoy said city Parks and Recreation personnel filled 11 plastic bins worth of personal items left within park grounds. Six retrieval notices were posted at the site.
"The city is committed to upholding the rights of individuals who want to exercise their freedom on speech but we also have a responsibility to keep public areas safe, clean and accessible for everybody who wants to use them," McCoy said.
While some Occupy Honolulu demonstrators complained that they weren’t afforded 24 hours’ notice to remove their belongings before the cleanup occurred, McCoy said that it is within the duties of the Parks and Recreation department to maintain public parks within its jurisdiction and that no advance notice is required.
