Occupy Baltimore Finds A New Home At North Baltimore Church
BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- Occupy Baltimore protesters refuse to back down even after Baltimore City police officers forced them out of their downtown camp. Now they have found a new home and a new direction, this time in North Baltimore.
Andrea Fujii has the story.
It's been six days since police took down the Occupy Baltimore movement near the Inner Harbor. Since then the protesters have been homeless...until now.
"I felt that by being kicked out, it's like being kicked out of the house, you need to have somewhere else to go," Pastor Joyce Galloway said.
Galloway has opened up the parking lot of her church to the protesters-- Antioch Church on York Road.
"What we're trying to do is regroup in my aunt's church parking lot," Darrick Marshall, an Occupy Baltimore protester, said. "We're going to set it up, do some community outreach and some community service and just get the message to the people."
"I agreed to do it because I believe in the 99 percent, the middle class," said Galloway.
The group was evicted early Tuesday morning without any arrests but many protesters say they were bullied.
"That's what they were acting as, at that time, is armed thugs," said one.
The mayor felt otherwise.
"The facts bear out that we have the right approach and the tactics to make sure that that happened in a respectful way," Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said.
Demonstrators hope up to 200 Occupiers will take advantage of this new space, though they admit it won't be as visual.
"I think once we put some signs up-- this is a major flow of traffic-- so we should be able to get the message out there," Marshall said.
The church will provide hot showers and power outlets to the movement.
