It was late Oct. 2011 - and the Occupy movement was getting increasingly troubled, a consequence of an encampment-based movement without “sheriffs” as varied local Occupies nationwide made actual police unwelcome, lacked any real government of their own, and most of all were open to anyone who drifted in. From the flagship Occupy in Manhattan to Los Angeles, Occupies, were ending up in the news for all the wrong reasons - assaults on journalists, sexual assaults on Occupiers, and child neglect among them. Illness and public-health problems were plaguing Occupies.
Occupy Chapel Hill - in North Carolina’s iconic “college town” of Chapel Hill - was among them. Being that I’d be covering an unrelated story that day in that area, I spent the spare time waiting for the other story to start covering Occupy Chapel Hill on-spec.
Occupy Chapel Hill had a sign - which I photographed - telling members that they could wash their plastic utensils! While the sign said that two nearby churches were allowing use of their restrooms - during daytime hours only - reuse of plastic utensils sounded like the kind of thing that led to the public-health problems that Occupies by now were notorious for.
As of the day I covered Occupy Chapel Hill, it was getting along well with the police. On a paved area in front of the old post office in the town’s main shopping area, it had between 12 and 40 people there at any time that day - with it apparently functioning more as a place to drop in than as an actual residential encampment the way that the flagship Occupy Wall Street worked. About 12-16 tents seemed unoccupied during the daytime hours.
I shot photos of everything there while waiting for the story I really was in the area to cover.

Three of the about 12-16 tents of Occupy Chapel Hill.