The Building Code Violation Behind Occupy D.C.'s Sunday Standoff

Occupy D.C. has generally had a relatively cordial relationship with local law enforcement. As encampments in other cities have been picked apart by mass arrests, evictions and pepper spray over the last few weeks, hearty campers in Washington’s McPherson Square have for the most part calmly co-existed with police from the city and the National Park Service, which is in charge of the land they’re living on.

All of this changed over the weekend, though, when local occupiers decided to up the ante and their investment in the makeshift city by building a fairly substantial structure. The “Peoples’ Pentagon,” they called it: a 17-foot tall barn framed in 2-by-4s that was optimistically intended to house meetings and insulate cold protesters through the winter months. The volunteer architects behind the structure even planned to make it a paragon of sustainable living, with passive solar heating and a rooftop hydroponic irrigation system.