Occupy protest gets new base camp

Occupy movement protesters in Los Angeles were offered a new base camp while police in Houston investigate a shooting near the Occupy Houston encampment. At the University of California, Davis, students have again put up tents near the site where police used pepper spray on seated protesters in a conflict that has sparked outrage and calls for the school chancellor’s resignation. Occupy LA said city officials offered them office space and farmland in exchange for ending their encampment at City Hall. Members of the movement said the news was greeted with excitement, anger and disbelief because many didn’t know of the negotiations. Details of the proposal were unveiled on Monday during the demonstration’s nightly general assembly meeting by Jim Lafferty, a National Lawyers Guild lawyer who has been an advocate for the protest since it began seven weeks ago. Lafferty said city officials offered protesters a $1-a-year lease on a 10,000-square-foot office space near City Hall and that the officials also promised land elsewhere for protesters who want to farm, as well as housing for homeless people who joined the camp. A spokesman for the mayor’s office wouldn’t comment on the proposal, saying only, “We are in negotiations with organisers of Occupy LA.” At Davis, the encampment was again erected on Monday, hours after the campus police chief was put on administrative leave and the chancellor was shouted down at a demonstration while trying to apologise for the incident that happened at a protest held on Friday in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Two officers also were placed on administrative leave after the students were sprayed. University spokeswoman Claudia Morain said the school was monitoring the protest and did not say whether the students would be allowed to camp overnight. She said the school will take action “step by step” to balance campus security with people’s right to protest. Meanwhile, demonstrators at the University of California, Berkeley, pledged to sleep overnight at Sproul Plaza, though they did not plan to set up tents. A heat lamp was set up in the plaza, and student protesters called the demonstration a “pajama party” rather than an encampment. University of California President Mark G. Yudof called the chancellors of all 10 campuses and reminded them of the right to protest peacefully. In Houston, gunfire was exchanged between two police officers and a man wielding a shotgun in the city’s Tranquility Park near the Occupy Houston camp on Monday afternoon, the     Houston Chronicle reported. Police spokesman John Cannon said the man was struck at least twice and was taken to a hospital for surgery, but it was believed his wounds were not life-threatening. In New York, 13 news organisations filed complaints about the New York Police Department’s treatment of journalists covering the Occupy Wall Street movement, the original protests against the inequities of wealth distribution that has gone global,     The New York Times reported. Separately, 10 press clubs, unions and other groups representing journalists called for an investigation and said they had formed a coalition to monitor police behaviour. The complaints were prompted by a number of incidents Nov.15 when police officers blocked and arrested reporters during and after evictions of Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zuccotti Park.