Expenses climb as Occupy protests linger

As Occupy protesters continue their second month calling for change in the economic system, they are costing taxpayer-funded police departments money.

Police departments in some occupied cities have increased the number of officers on duty to monitor protest sites.

The Raleigh police department paid $26,300 in overtime costs to monitor the first weekend of protests, said Jim Sughrue, Raleigh police spokesman.

Since then, continuous police monitoring of the protests, held around the N.C. Capitol, have cost the city $1,500 per day, he said.

“The work we have done there is to provide assistance to the state capitol police,” Sughrue said.

“We continually monitor the needs of our personnel there and elsewhere and adjust accordingly.”

But Bryan Perlmutter, an North Carolina State University student who helped organize an Occupy event Thursday, said he didn’t notice a police presence.

“They kind of walk by every 10 or 20 minutes to see if everything’s OK,” he said.

Raleigh isn’t the only city that has felt financial strain from the Occupy movements.

The city of Asheville initially gave protestors a conditional two-week permit to occupy a city-owned parking lot next to a major interstate.

The city council denied the group’s request to extend the permit because the site drew homeless people and cost the city revenue from unused parking spots.

“Interaction with homeless individuals became an issue as they gravitated toward the group for the free food and the company,” said Lt. Wallace Welch, public information officer for the city.

Welch estimated that the city has spent between $3,000 and $4,000 in police overtime because of the need for increased patrols in the downtown area.

“It’s affecting our budget — not outrageously, but in these economic times, it’s not the kind of thing we budgeted for last January,” he said.

Mallory Davis, student body president at the University of Georgia, said Occupy Athens protestors have also had trouble with homeless people.

“They had to get permits from UGA and the county, and they were requesting a lot from the university, like food, tents, et cetera,” Davis said. “The university gave them a tent to cover their supplies from the rain and then the homeless people came and stole all their supplies.”

The Athens police said they were unaware of the incident and have not increased patrol of the area.

Some cities have experienced cooperation — not conflict — with Occupy groups.

Susan Danielsen, Greensboro police department spokeswoman, said the department has not had to bolster its presence since Occupy Greensboro’s initial march, which attracted about 600 people.

Twenty people continue to occupy Greensboro at the city’s YWCA in agreement with the owner of the facility, she said.

“Compared to other cities, our Occupy movement has been pretty much textbook — a model for police-citizen cooperation,” Danielsen said.

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