Meet The Occupy Tampa Protesters

A few weeks and arrests later, "the 99 percent" still gathers at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park in downtown to voice their discontent with corporate greed and the government.

Patch hung out at the Occupy Tampa site and met some of the protesters over the weekend.

PROTESTER # 1 

NAME: Wendy Cartwright
AGE: 50
TOWN: Tampa
OCCUPATION: Employed at a local non-profit. She joins the protests about once a week.
WHY: “I am really tired of what’s happening. My entire family has been affected, my husband is pretty much unemployed, we are 50 years old, his business had died, and we are just trying to hold on until my son’s high school graduation in one year. We lost everything and I am tired of this greed.”

PROTESTER # 2 

NAME: Chris Cope
AGE: 18
TOWN: Clearwater
OCCUPATION: Recently got laid off from his security officer job. He has slept at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park for two weeks.
WHY: “I am here to spread awareness of the tyranny and social as well as economic injustice that consume our country and have consumed our country for several years. Our constitutional rights have been infringed upon daily and we need to demand to have them back.”

PROTESTER # 3

NAME: Ricks Lettau
AGE: 72
TOWN: Clearwater
OCCUPATION: Retired. Used to work for the United States Postal Service. He took part in the Vietnam War protests and "occupied" the sidewalk in front of the White House for seven days.
WHY: “I am not here for me, I am here for the youngsters. They are going to grow up and not going to have anything, they are not going to have Social Security, they are not going to have Medicare, they are going to own money to college education, they won’t even afford to have kids. Where is all this money going to come from? They can’t even find a job.” 

PROTESTER # 4

NAME: John Tsatskin
AGE: 28
TOWN: Sarasota
OCCUPATION: Bookkeeper for an organic farm and blogger. He has slept at the Occupy Tampa site once a week.
WHY: “This is a really exciting thing in American politics. I wasn’t born in the 60s and haven’t seen a lot of these kind of mass movements personally, I’ve just read about them and seen them in the movies, so I think this is a very exciting time where a lot of people are realizing that they can create change, not by electing a leader and putting their hopes into that leader, but by coming together and debating and talking about things and figuring things out and coming up with strategies to enact change themselves...The main thing is that money and the influence of corporations and mega banks and the financial institutions have basically derailed or subverted the democratic process in this country.” 

PROTESTER # 5

NAME: Cecily Grimfi
AGE: 16
TOWN: Plant City
OCCUPATION: Plant City High School student
WHY: “To inform people that it’s not just hippies anymore; this (Occupy Tampa) is a real thing and this is not something you can ignore.”

PROTESTER # 6

NAME: Nathan Maxwell
AGE: 34
TOWN: Sarasota
OCCUPATION: Health science senior at State College of Florida. He has slept at the Occupy Tampa site once a week.
WHY: “Because the banking system has been taking advantage of the American people for far too long and the one percent is just raking in their dough sort of speak, while the ninety-nine percent is sort of sitting back and being complacent, and it’s really time for this to stop.”

PROTESTER # 7

NAME: Ryan Diaz
AGE: 21
TOWN: Land O’ Lakes
OCCUPATION: Employee at a computer repair shop.
WHY: “I am here to get our freedom back and to stop the big corporations from influencing our government because it’s for the people by the people, not for the corporations."

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