Complaints mount over Occupy Tampa's protest in city park

Complaints about Occupy Tampa protesters at downtown's Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park are mounting, police said, as officers continue to practice patience in dealing with the 'round-the-clock demonstration that is in its third week.

The objections are from people living in nearby condominiums, walking to work or going to the park, police said. Some complaints are about noise, others gripe about protesters blocking the sidewalk in front of the park and just being scary.

"People use that park," police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said. "Moms who are strolling their kids down there say they feel nervous coming there with their children."

Renee Davis lives in the Skypoint condominium across Ashley Drive and phoned in a complaint about the protesters.

"They make so much noise in the middle of the night," she said late Wednesday morning. "It's 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning, and they're just out there screaming and it echoes throughout downtown. Sometimes they are really rowdy, sometimes they are really quiet."

She said she uses the park to jog and hasn't had any confrontations with the protesters.

"Freedom of speech I definitely agree with," she said, "just don't do it at night. That's my concern."

Tampa is one of several cities in the nation where Occupy protests are taking place. They are spinoffs from the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York City that are protesting corporate greed and government complicity with big business. That protest has been marked by some confrontations, violence and arrests.

Tampa is the only city that hasn't had an arrest of a protester or violent confrontation, and police said they want to keep it that way.

Officers have struck an agreement with the protesters that they will let slide the letter of the vagrancy law to allow them to exercise their rights to free speech around the clock in a public place. In return, the protesters have set up where police asked them, taken down their tents and tables, and agreed not to block sidewalks.

Police have been getting some anonymous messages from urban dwellers complaining mostly about noise. Here's one:

"Occupy Tampa protestors at Curtis [Hixon] screaming, shouting and whistling at 6:15 a.m. while still dark out. In addition to their protest slogans, shouting 'Wake up!' so with the clear intention of disturbing the residents across the street in Skypoint. Woke me up out of a dead sleep."

Protester Nick Windholz, 26, admitted the group did chant this morning when police stopped by to rouse the sleepers.

"If they (the police) want to wake us up at 6 o'clock," he said, "we're going to wake up everyone."

The protesters get the reliable wake-up call about 6 each morning from officers telling them to roll up their sleeping bags and clear the sidewalk in front of the park.

And the group is getting grumpy about it.

"This is our main place," said Chris Cope, 18, who described himself as the coordinator of security for Occupy Tampa. "This is our park."

He said the demonstrators will continue to comply with the morning police requests.

"They cannot sleep on the sidewalk at any hour," McElroy said.

That's per city ordinance. But the two sides have agreed to allow the peaceful protesters to sleep there from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., she said.

"There is nothing in the Constitution that protects sleeping on public sidewalks," she said.

Each day the agreement between police and protesters gets tested, she said.

"It appears they are trying to pick a fight," she said. "We just want to do our job and let them do their peaceful protest."