Denver police say that the crackdown on Occupy Denver, the Denver wing of New York's Occupy Wall Street, has already cost taxpayers approximately $360,000 dollars for two weeks in October, according to KWGN. The costs continue to rise with each police action and the full dollar amount won't be known until later this week.
The funding was used to pay for police, sheriff's officers, public works, environmental health and Denver Health officials, according to The Denver Post.
But 9News reports that it's not just a financial burden on the city, it's also a safety burden -- Denver has six districts and police from all of the other districts routinely come to assist police officers at Occupy Denver. That slows police response times to crimes occurring in those other districts.
The strain is being felt by police departments all over the Denver metro area. Denver's Department of Safety has been allocating police officers to be at Occupy Denver to both aid in monitoring the situation and to limit overtime hours of other officers, CBS Denver reports.
There have been more than 80 arrests total at Occupy Denver alone since its inception and thousands more worldwide at all the various city occupations. As of late Tuesday night, @OccupyArrests, a Twitter account tracking the global movement, reported 3807 arrested, so far.
Last weekend, the police violently engaged with Occupy Denver protesters, arresting 20 people over the course of the weekend, for blocking city sidewalks with tents and personal items. But by Monday morning Occupy Denver had regrouped and several returned to the park. This cycle of bust and regroup is occurring at occupation sites all over the globe and the police action taken against the occupations appears to only galvanize the movement further and strengthen the resolve of the protesters. This Thursday, Nov. 17, the occupy movement is calling for an "International Day of Action" with events planned in New York, Portland, Spain, Germany and many more, according to the Occupy Wall Street webpage.
Occupy Denver will also be participating, but has yet to announce its plans for the day of solidarity.
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