Wall St. Journal confirms accused Occupy rapist allowed to sleep at Occupy Church but focuses on nice churches expanding social justice outreach

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1/12/12, "Wall Street Journal Confirms Accused Occupier Rapist Allowed to Sleep at Occupied Church," Big Government, Lee Stranahan

"A recent article in the Wall Street Journal on how the Occupy Wall Street movement has begun to camp out in New York City churches confirms what we’ve been reporting here on BigGovernment.com; #Occupy organizers allowed an alleged rapist who’d already been arrested by the police to camp out with other Occupiers.

The Wall Street Journal buries the lede by putting this detail at the very bottom of the article. Most of the piece takes a neutral/positive tone about how nice these churches are by expanding their social justice mission by welcoming the occupiers and how respectful the occupiers are by contributing to the church’s electricity bills. No actual explanation is given as to why it even makes sense for the Occupiers to be sleeping in a church as opposed to an apartment or hotel. If you think that the camping out indoors is done for the benefit of the homeless, you’ll see in a moment that the Wall Street Journal article actually makes a distinction between “the homeless” and rank-and-file occupiers. Apparently, the whole “occupy” premise of group camping is beyond any rational examination at this point.

If diligent readers (who get past the paywall) make it to the end of the Wall Street Journal article, they will learn that all is not tranquil in the collectivist paradise.

There have been petty fights and disagreements about who can stay and who must go. The housing committee has set up a hot-line for protesters to register for one of about 150 spots at the churches, and the person must be on the list when they check in each evening.

But the homeless and criminals have managed to slip in.

Last week, Tonye Iketubosin, a Zuccotti protester arrested on rape charges and was released on bail in November, posed an issue for the protesters when he signed up at St. Paul and St. Andrew. When he was recognized, several protesters met to deliberate whether he should allowed to stay, said Jeffrey Brewer, a protester handling housing issues. They ultimately decided he could stay that night, as long as security monitored him, Mr. Brewer said. Mr. Iketubosin and his attorney couldn’t be reached.

The Wall Street Journal gives no explanation as to why the church decided an accused rapist could stay or about the decision-making process, which is alleged to have involved an informal court proceeding involving Mr. Iketubosin and his alleged victim. Nor does the Journal mention the other five rapes that Mr. Iketubosin is accused of. It’s hard to imagine what possible benefit the presence of Mr. Iketubosin brought to the other occupiers. He created more work for the security team and apparently and understandably made his alleged victim very uncomfortable, but such is the nature of consensus decision-making. If an accused rapist gets twinkles up, then the mob has spoken, so pull up a pew for him.

I’d also like to add a response to some comments I’ve seen, because liberal groups love to attack the Bigs based on comments by readers (or people claiming to be readers) — nobody ‘deserves’ to be raped. If there’s a purpose behind these articles beyond just exposing the truth, it’s the hope that shining a light on the violence and assaults helps to STOP them and that it

• causes violent criminal behavior to be punished."

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