Tensions mount at Occupy Boston sites

BOSTON, Mass. -- Activists have expanded their camps throughout the city.

Tensions grew Monday night about where protests would take place.

Boston Police said they want protesters to leave a part of the Greenway by Dewey Square.

Occupy Boston protesters stood arm-in-arm as they guarded a new area they occupied on the Greenway near Atlantic and Congress. Leaders in the group said they had been given an ultimatum by Boston Police.

“There is a midnight deadline for the protesters to leave the other side of the park they expanded to. If they don’t leave by midnight they will come in to remove them both there and here,” said one protester.

On Twitter, Boston Police released this statement:

“BPD requesting protestors return 2 original #occupyboston site on Greenway to continue peaceful protest. Thank you 4 ur cooperation.”

Commissioner Ed Davis who was at the scene earlier, backed that up:

“They’re not allowed to be on any parts of the greenway actually, but we’ve allowed them to express their constitutional rights, First Amendment rights, in an area of the Greenway that’s set up, and now they’ve moved it to another area. So, that’s not acceptable.”

But those standing firm said that don’t plan to move.

“We’re not trouble-makers, everybody’s here for a very good cause which I support. And that’s why I’m standing here,” one man said.

On Twitter, Occupy Boston said:

“We need presence at the #expansion. Come down, bring others, as many as you can. Let’s #occupytogether.”

Earlier on Monday, thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Boston towards Charlestown but were stopped by police at the Washington Street Bridge. The group Mass United was hoping to hang a banner on the bridge to draw attention to President Obama’s American Jobs Act which contains funding to fix the old bridge.

There is no confirmation from either the Mayor’s office nor Police that there is any midnight deadline or any deadline for that matter. But via Occupy Boston’s Twitter account, they said they will be staying in both locations.

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