Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman on Tuesday denied a motion by the demonstrators seeking to be allowed back into the park with their tents and sleeping bags.
Police cleared out the protesters in a nighttime sweep early Tuesday. The judge upheld the city’s effective eviction of the protesters after an appeal by the National Lawyers Guild.
The protesters have been camped out in Zuccotti Park since mid-September. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he ordered the sweep because health conditions and become “intolerable” in the crowded plaza.
President Barack Obama’s spokesman is suggesting the president believes it’s up to New York and other municipalities to decide how much force to use in dealing with Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.
Spokesman Jay Carney also says Obama hopes the right balance can be reached between protecting freedom of assembly and speech with the need to uphold order and safeguard public health and safety.
Carney spoke to reporters Tuesday as Obama flew to Australia. He was asked whether Obama had been following the early-morning police raid on Zuccotti Park in New York, where Occupy Wall Street protesters have camped out for weeks.
Carney said the president was “aware of it.”
He said the administration’s position is that each municipality has to make its own decisions about how to handle these issues.
