Second Declaration of Concepcion Picciotto

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

     William Thomas, et. al.       |          C.A. No. 94-2742
           Plaintiffs pro se,      |          Judge Charles R. Richey
                                   |
               v.                  |
                                   |
     The United States, et. al.    |
           Defendants.             |

SECOND DECLARATION OF CONCEPCION PICCIOTTO

I, Concepcion Picciotto, hereby declare under penalty of perjury that the following is true and correct to the best of my knowledge and understanding:

  1. Since the imposition of the "camping" regulation in 1982 almost all "sleeping" I have done was done sitting up.
  2. What I do now isn't what I used to consider "sleeping." Since I was a little girl I had always thought sleeping was done while lying down. What I do now is more like torture, and not very restful.
  3. I really can't understand how anyone in their right mind might consider me to be using the park as a "living accommodation," but the reason I don't lie down is so I can't possibly be accused of "camping."
  4. Still, on many, many occasions when I was sitting up, some Park Police officers have routinely told me that I was violating the regulation, and threatened to arrest me.

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  5. Although I do sometimes "sleep" while sitting up, many times that I have been threatened for camping, I was fully awake.
  6. Some officers regularly bang my signs with their nightsticks, which I ask them not to do. This has happened many times. Once I was sitting down, in the middle of the afternoon, painting "peace rocks," small stones decorated with words and pictures, when Officer O'Neill frightened me by coming up quietly behind me, then banging my sign with his nightstick, and threatening me by saying I was subject to arrest for violating the camping regulation.

_________________________________
Concepcion Picciotto

January 24, 1994

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