Austerity by R. J. Renna

Officer Jacob Reid, NYPD
    The day the city of New York allowed the protestor to permanently stay inside Central Park was the day I moved my family out of the city. It was the day we lost. You could control and corral 10,000 or 100,000 protestors if you control the perimeter of any area. But Central Park?! You are looking at over 1/3 the surface area of Manhattan. Even if we took every NYPD and National Guard vehicle and surround the park, the people would be able to burrow in. They could start multiple cities within that park. Those 30,000 people became 100,000 people within a week. I remember when I saw all the “For Sale” signs around the co-ops around the park go up. Property prices started to collapse. When I saw millionaires simply abandoning their park view apartments, I knew it was all over.
     
    FBI Agent (NAME REDACTED), Undercover Agent, Occupy Central Park
    The park organized with the kind of speed and efficiency that shocked all of us. Within five days being granted permanent residency, they had an extensive network of food, heating and medical supplies. The park’s population grow exponentially. It became harder and harder to gather intelligence because there was no central leadership. It was as though the protestors where like a human bee colony. Except there was no Queen. Nevertheless, the food and the supplies kept coming - even after the food riots broke out in other parts of the city. We don’t know how they did it at first. Hundreds of pounds of bread, sugar, even meat came in every day. Even back at the FBI office in Manhattan, the food rations where not as plentiful as what was available at the park. That was one of the major reasons we ultimately launch the operation to stop the food supply. It had nothing to do with safety. It was jealousy. They were getting fed well. Law Enforcement agencies and high government officials thought they could simply divert the food supplies back to themselves. Boy, did we fuck that up.
     
    Jamel Washington, Inwood Resident and Occupy Central Park Survivor
    I support what OCP (Occupy Central Park) was doing. But I didn’t join ‘cause I just felt that they would get fucked up by the police pretty quick. But they just kept growing and growing. I would check out what was going and the place became a city. I still didn’t join. Then I lost my job at the Bus Depot. Supermarkets started to run out of food. I got my ENC (Emergency Nutritional Card) and waiting in that fucking line. Always waited in line to find out they ran out of food early. The rich people got all the food they want. The police department got feed. Motherfucking politicians got fed. I ain’t gonna lie to you. I did steal rations from other people. I had to. But that started getting dangerous people, you know, started carrying Glocks and shit out in the open. Police started looking the other way. Then I heard that the folks at OCP has food. So I joined the protest. I go in there and the first thing I smell is fucking beef! I couldn’t get to the center of the park fast enough. They had all the fucking food I could eat. Bread, burgers, ribs, chicken. They had cake! No lie. I volunteered to help cook breakfast because I could eat while I cook! I became a believer. Life was actually pretty good. Then the fucking assault on the park. And all the shit.
     
    Gerald Kirpatrick, Former Deputy New York City Mayor
    I will say this until the day I die, the decision to go into the Park was out of the hands of the Mayor’s office. It was out of the hands of the Governor’s office. This was either a decision on the Federal Government level or the military level. We were barely holding on to law and order in the city. And we knew that if the park fell, the entire city would collapse. We had law enforcement officers abandoning their post. The rich and the wealthy had fled the city. The only people left were the poor and the hungry.
     
    Selina Pena, Reporter, New York News 2
    I was ready to do a live report at 3AM,