Occupied

On June 23, a few dozen people were staging protests in City Hall Park, demanding cuts to the NYPD’s budget. By the evening of June 25, several hundred people had gathered in the park. The activist group VOCAL-NY, whose members are among those in the park, tweeted June 23: 'BREAKING: NYC City Hall is occupied! The city budget is due in ONE WEEK and we aren’t leaving until $1 Billion is cut from the NYPD budget.' Mayor de Blasio, with conditions, consented to the park’s near-capacity occupancy. 'This is a city that for generations has respected the right of people to peacefully protest,' he said during his daily City Hall press briefing. 'But again, it has to be done safely, it has to be done with rules that make sense and so NYPD will address the situation.'