e city will reverse a Cook County judge’s ruling that tossed out the mass arrests of Occupy Chicago protesters in Grant Park, Mayor Rahm Emanuel predicted Friday, saying his administration's enforcement of a park curfew is on “firm ground as it relates both to public safety and First Amendment rights.”
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas M. Donnelly ruled Thursday that the city unfairly singled out protesters for violating the park's 11 p.m. curfew in October 2011, when police arrested hundreds of people. And the judge said the curfew itself was a violation of the public's right to free assembly.
Donnelly pointed out in his ruling that nobody was arrested when hundreds of thousands of people stayed in Grant Park past 11 p.m. for President Barack Obama's November 2008 election night rally.
Emanuel said Donnelly was “comparing apples and oranges.”
“One, they got a permit, two they weren't planning on sleeping overnight,” Emanuel said of the Obama rally. “Those are kind of fundamental differences.”
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
