Progress: Only 'Three or Four' Incidents of Sexual Assault in Zuccotti Park

Well, I guess that's only "three or four" that the crack security committee is aware of. For all we know it could be "six or seven" or maybe "nine or ten." These things are tough to keep track of while you're busy building your own self-sustaining society.

Besides, nobody has mentioned rape rape, so for all we know it could just be some minor forcible sodomy or some childish horseplay gone awry.

Meanwhile Security group member Brendan Burke, a tall bad-ass looking dude who has been volunteering at the park since the second week, told The New York Observer that there have been “three or four” incidents of sexual assault in Zuccotti Park. But since Security — now working with a group called Community Alliance — deals in mediation and conflict resolution and have no authority to check people’s tents or act as bouncers to the park — they have directed these women to file complaints with the NYPD.

So now sexual assault is referred to the Community Alliance for Global Justice? OK. This whole new utopian society really is coming along well.

Yet another mediation group called Community Watch is busy tearing down the tents at the time of this writing; they are sweeping the park for a routine cleaning, we are told by Watch organizer (and former Peace Council member) Suzanne Sutton. People were told about this “sweep” earlier in the morning, we are told, yet we witness several heated arguments with individuals who refuse to take their tarp down, or who have lost items to the giant storage bins where things go if you are not around when it’s time to take your tent/tarp down. If an item is unclaimed, it will be going to a storage facility nearby. The generators, when they come, will not be used to be keeping Occupiers warm.

This won't be ending well.

Maybe it is the cold weather, or the drop in morale from the lack of Internet connection, but the scene down at Zuccotti Park is much grimmer than ones we’ve previously encountered. There seems to be a lot more heated arguments, a lot more panhandlers, and at least 10 guys stop and chat us up about our legs. One of these men, Marcel, is busy yelling about his tent being torn down. “They only pay attention to me when I yell,” he tells us. “Where I come from, you’ve got to stand up for yourself, or you get beat.”

Good times.