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Atlantic Yards Opponents Plan To Arrest Bruce Ratner
By
Ben Muessig
Published Jan 25, 2010
Modified Jan 25, 2010
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By
Ben Muessig
Published Jan 25, 2010
Modified Jan 25, 2010
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Opponents of the Atlantic Yards project have tried to halt the mega-project with murals, lawsuits, and protests. On Wednesday, they'll try a new technique: arresting Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner. Following the closure of a Prospect Heights homeless shelter last week to make room for the $4.9 billion arena and high-rise development, a group of anti-Atlantic Yards activists announced that they will make a citizen's arrest of Ratner, according to Curbed.
While we would rather arrest Ratner for the moral crime of closing a desperately needed homeless shelter on Martin Luther King's birthday, and during Haiti relief efforts, we will instead be arresting him to stand charges of bribing a public official in the State of New York, where such activity is against the law.
The anti-Atlantic Yards activists say their goal "is to get the Pacific Dean Family Homeless Shelter re-opened until Spring," and though they acknowledge that "[n]obody is going to physically abduct Mr. Ratner," they "expect him to surrender to a police officer, in our presence, and go with us to be charged by Attorney General Cuomo." According to the excerpts of the press release available on the blog Found in Brooklyn, it's not exactly clear which public official Ratner is accused of bribing, though the anti-Atlantic Yards activists want Cuomo to return any contributions he has received from the developer. "Should Ratner elude us we will request that a warrant be issued immediately for his arrest, and that he be extradited from any place in the world that he may choose to run to."
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