Boston Police Department removes sink from Occupy Boston in bizarre raid, spawns #sinkgate meme

Think the BPD is sore about the injunction -- extended yesterday by a judge in court yesterday -- that keeps them from mopping up Occupy Boston? 

Last night, in a bizarre but also scary show of force, the cops removed an industrial sink from Dewey Square, allegedly roughing up some protesters as they did so. 

The sink -- which one Occupy Media volunteer claimed, via Twitter, had been approved for use at the camp by the Boston Department of Public Health -- was taken away in a police van after an extended standoff. Three protesters were reportedly arrested. Protesters also claimed to have video of police "throwing punches" at demonstrators. 

The raid more or less instantaneously led to the best #OWS meme since pepper-spray-everything cop: #sinkgate. 

But seriously, folks: this video was not produced by the Onion News Network. Those are actual cops prying an actual metal sink out of a ring of actual screaming non-violent protestors who are shouting "shame" as the sink is carted away. 

Here's some more footage: the extended-mic-check mix of the leadup to the sink being taken:

And now a brief observation. When the city of Boston put a fire chief on the witness stand yesterday, and that fire chief testified to dangerous conditions on Dewey Square, many protesters rightly responded by pointing out that the very conditions the chief described were the result of the city restricting the protest to close quarters -- and violently removing the protesters when they attempted to expand to a new parcel. You wonder how long it will be before the city alleges unsanitary conditions at the camp -- even as it spends thousands of dollars (can we see a receipt for last night's overtime?) to prevent the Occupants, in the most basic of ways, from keeping each other safe and healthy. Last night's raid was pure madness -- an inexplicably petty and yet completely outrageous response from a city that seems increasingly befuddled about how to deal with the country's smartest and best-organized (and now longest-running) #Occupy movement.