Photo by @cerridwen

Photo by @cerridwen

Two members of Occupy D.C. were arrested Thursday morning outside a Bank of America branch not far from McPherson square after the latest overnight protest outside the bank’s doors. The protesters were the sixth and seventh to be arrested this week after taking part in what Occupy is calling a “sleepful protest”—slumbering overnight outside the door of a bank branch.

Since the U.S. Park Police cleared out most of McPherson Square in early February, members of Occupy haven’t been able to sleep in the park, in accordance with National Park Service regulations that ban camping there. Shortly after, some protesters began spending their nights on sidewalks outside the many bank branches and ATMs near the square. And it’s been the main agenda this week for the movement, which has sometimes struggled to keep its focus.

Sleeping outside banks “call[s] attention to their economically, politically and morally corrupting influence on our society,” Sam Jewler, a longtime member of Occupy D.C., wrote in an email to DCist earlier this week. But while napping outside an ATM might allow demonstrators to directly confront the institutions they protest, it has led to several arrests.

The Metropolitan Police Department arrested the seven protesters this week for obstructing the sidewalk outside the Bank of America outlet 1090 Vermont Avenue NW. Despite a seemingly large police presence for this morning’s demonstration, some MPD officers, viewed over a live video stream, appeared almost sheepish in citing the passage of D.C.’s legal code that prohibits blocking a sidewalk.

But perhaps more interesting about the “sleepful protest” tactic is that there seems to be a dispute between Occupy D.C. and its Occupy Wall Street mothership about which group came up with the novelty of sleeping outside banks. In a press release Tuesday, Occupy Wall Street claimed credit:

On April 6, NYPD gathered once again for the nightly ¨eviction theater¨ only to find Occupiers had moved to the sidewalks and erected a sign declaring their legal right to do so. When police moved in arrest them, Occupiers on livestream read the law permitting sleeping on sidewalks as political protest. In Metropolitan v. Safir, the U.S. District Court covering New York City ruled that ¨ the First Amendment of the United States Constitution does not allow the City to prevent an orderly political protest from using public sleeping as a means of symbolic expression.”

Occupy D.C., meanwhile, maintains that it started its “sleepful protests” on April 3, when two demonstrators spent the night outside a Citibank branch opposite McPherson Square. Another protestor called the Occupy Wall Street press release “absurd.”

While the debate over which movement first cooked up the notion of sleeping outside bank windows remains open, Occupy D.C. is planning a march in pajamas Friday morning, and the group is soliciting donations for sleepwear:

Filed Under: Bank of America, camping, metropolitan police department, occupy d.c., occupy wall street, sleepful protest,