On Wednesday night, Governor Nikki Haley ordered Occupy Columbia protestors to leave the State House grounds at 6:00pm, after over one month of continually peaceful and civil demonstration. 19 Occupiers refused to leave and all were arrested. Here is a video from news reports that night, but the story doesn't end there.
The arrests served only to embolden the protesters and their supporters. The following day, students at the University of South Carolina held a walkout to stand with Occupy Columbia. The day after that, Youth In Government, as a show of support, passed a repeal of Haley's 6:00pm mandate through their House and Senate.
Rachel Ortega
@OccupyColumbia We just voted and it passed through the senate! Yig's got your back #scyig
And it turns out that they were not the only ones supporting the cause. The city police, with the full support of the Mayor, denied Governor Haley's request for help in transporting the arrested demonstrators.
Mayor Steven Benjamin had this to say:
"This isn't a political issue. It's a constitutional issue," said Benjamin. "It's not been made clear to us or our lawyers or the chief of police that laws have been broken. Unless there's been some laws that have been broken than we are not going to participate in what we perceive as being unjust arrests."