Police arrested 23 Occupy Gainesville protesters early Saturday morning for trespassing at Bo Diddley Community Plaza after the park had closed, sending three of them to the Alachua County Jail and giving the others notices to appear in court.
Lt. Jorge Campos of the Gainesville Police Department, senior officer on the scene, said a group of Occupy protesters gathered on the plaza, which closed at 11:30 p.m.
Officers warned them they were violating a city ordinance between midnight and 12:30 a.m. and began arresting them after 1 a.m., he said.
Tommy Baker, a 25-year-old UF aerospace engineering alumnus, was among those taken to the Alachua County Jail. He said the protest was calm and without violence.
Baker said he and the other protesters huddled in the center of the plaza, sang "God Bless America" and waited to be arrested. He said he decided to be arrested to make a point about his constitutional rights.
"We wanted to bring awareness to that fact that we can't protest in the plaza after 11:30, that our First Amendment rights end at a particular time," he said. "There is no time limit on that freedom."
Police issued 20 notices to appear in court to protesters who complied with the condition that they were to stop trespassing after receiving the notices.
Campos said three were arrested and taken to the Alachua County Jail: Thomas "Tommy" John Baker, who told officers he intended to "join his fellow protesters" and trespass again if he was issued a notice; Ahren B. Tsacrios, who was charged with resisting arrest without violence after he made his body limp and officers carried him out of the plaza; and Annette Gilley, who had already received two notices to appear in the past for violating the ordinance.
Baker said his statement didn't necessarily mean he was going to go back on the plaza immediately, but he said he didn't fight the officer's decision to take him to jail because he was planning to go back on the plaza at some point.
"I was eventually going to go back into the plaza with the rest of the group, so I let that be," Baker said.
The protesters were part of an organized group that planned not to comply with the ordinance, Campos said.
"[The protesters] corralled themselves inside. They pushed signs up around them. Every time that we would go in to arrest one, they would chant and yell and scream," he said. "It was a staged, planned event."
Campos said other Occupy protesters were on the sidewalks surrounding the plaza, abiding by the law.
