Police arrest dozens of protesters, clear Zuccotti Park

Protestors in the Occupy Wall Street movement said Tuesday they were pursuing a court order that would allow them to return to Zucotti Park with their belongings, hours after dozens of NYPD officers in riot gear cleared them from the park.

Officers came in to the park at about 1 a.m., removing tents and personal belongings. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said at least 100 protesters were arrested in Zuccotti Park or on Broadway. Many protesters initially refused to leave the park.

About 200 protesters moved to City Hall around 8 a.m., just before New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly held a news conference. The protesters were met by about a dozen police officers, who formed a line at the entrance of City Hall.

Bloomberg said at the news conference that the lower Manhattan park that has been the scene of a weeks-long protest will remain closed while the city clarifies the temporary restraining order from a judge barring the city from enforcing a ban on tents and sleeping bags.

Bloomberg's office released a tweet about 1:34 a.m. ordering demonstrators to "temporarily leave and remove tents and tarps. Protesters can return after the park is cleared."

Bloomberg earlier released a statement saying the owners of the park, Brookfield Properties, had asked the NYPD and the sanitation department to remove any remaining tents and sleeping bags in an effort to "reduce the risk of confrontation in the park, and to minimize disruption to the surrounding neighborhood."

Bloomberg went on to say in the statement that from the beginning, he and the city had the goals of guaranteeing public safety and the demonstrators' First Amendment rights, "but when those two goals clash, the health and safety of the public and our first responders must be the priority."

Bloomberg said Brookfield officials had contacted the city Monday to request the city to enforce the no sleeping and camping rules of the park. "But make no mistake," Bloomberg said, "the final decision to act was mine."

According to a flier handed out by police at the park, demonstrators can pick up their belongings today at a city sanitation department parking garage on the West Side.

By 4:45 a.m., protesters who had been forced to leave Zuccotti Park after many had camped out there for nearly two months packed streets around the park, stopping traffic and blocking police cars. Other demonstrators said they planned on continuing their protest in the streets of the busy financial district at rush hour this morning.

Within 15 minutes, police officers, batons out, charged down Broadway at protesters, trying to clear the streets of demonstrators and making numerous additional arrests.

A spokesman told WNBC that Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez had been arrested at about 2:30 a.m. after coming to observe the confrontation between police and protesters.

Several demonstrators threw bottles at the officers and jumped on numerous unoccupied NYPD police cars. Officers using bull horns warned demonstrators they faced arrest if they did not clear Broadway at Pine Street just before they charged.

Minutes before, dozens of demonstrators sat on Broadway, some drawing pictures and others chanting slogans. A few protesters sat on top of an empty NYPD patrol car.

By about 5:45 a.m., Broadway was clear and several police emergency vehicles had left the scene while more than 200 protesters made their way north to Foley Square, where they planned to hold a morning gathering to determine their next move.

In Zuccotti Park, which had become the center of the growing Occupy Wall Street protests nationwide, the only people remaining by about 6 a.m. were police officers and cleaning crews scrubbing using soap and mops.

Earlier, officers checked for occupants before dragging empty tents out of the east side of the park. Dozens of sanitation workers began tossing belongings left behind by campers onto the sidewalk. A large sanitation container was placed on Cedar Street on the south side of the park and workers quickly filled it.

"It was overkill to the max," said Kathie Banks, 57, a protester from Battery Park City.

Sanitation workers began dismantling the makeshift park library and the press area.

While the workers continued their cleanup effort, some demonstrators sat down and refused to leave the park. Police took some protesters into custody.

Hundreds of cops and sanitation workers amassed in the center of the park, confronting stragglers who wouldn't leave and dumping the encampments into sanitation vans.

"People that are gonna be arrested are still in there," a police spokesman said.

Browne told WNBC that some protesters had chained themselves to trees. One person was taken to a hospital for evaluation because of breathing problems.

Sanitation workers on Cedar Street loaded tarps and bedding by the pile into big trucks.

The eviction began shortly before 1 a.m., when officers arrived and handed out fliers to protesters, ordering them to remove their property from the park.

A wall of officers in riot gear lined up on the east side of the park. Large flood lights lit up the encampment and sleeping protesters emerged from tents to hear police ordering them to leave immediately.

Overhead, a helicopter shined a bright spotlight back and forth across the park.

Several protesters commented that the light was so bright it seemed like daytime.

Medic Angelique Richards, 18, of Queens, was asleep in her tent when police arrived. She said she chose to leave rather than risk arrest.

"Getting arrested is not going to do anyone any good," she said.

A helmeted officer read the contents of the flier aloud to demonstrators.

According to the flier, demonstrators would be allowed to return to the park after their property had been removed, the park had been inspected, and officials deemed it safe and clean.

"Zuccotti Park poses an increasing health and fire safety hazard," the flier stated, "to those camped in the park, the city's first responders and to the surrounding community."

Some demonstrators crowded around the officer so they could better hear him read the statement, while others gathered their personal items. One man ran through the park yelling, "I'm staying to defend this park!"

Other protesters yelled profanities at officers, while several demonstrators chanted "Whose park? Our park," in a call and response.

Loudspeakers mounted on top of an NYPD van played the loop of a police officer warning to leave or face arrest. An NYPD spokesman said he was awaiting details from Zuccotti Park and would be putting out a statement later Tuesday morning.

Several dozen officers lined Broadway north from the park and traffic was being redirected.

Occupy Wall Street medic Luc Baillargeon, 29, of Rhode Island, described the police action as a "slow push."

"I knew something was wrong when I saw what looked like every, single possible police officer in the city coming toward us."

To mark the two-month anniversary of the protest, demonstrators Monday had said they hoped to shut down Wall Street Thursday by holding a "day of action" that could be the group's most provocative yet, Reuters reported. The protesters planned to march to Wall Street and then spread out across the city's subway system. They said they would reconvene later Thursday for a march across the Brooklyn Bridge.

In recent days, businesses and residents in the area pressured city officials to take action against the protesters. Concerns have also been raised about female protesters' safety after a kitchen worker at Zuccotti Park was charged with sexual assault.

With Igor Kossov and The Associated Press

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